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| - I came here for Happy Hour on a Tuesday with my friends and was very excited to finally try this spot. I haven't heard much about it but the decor and atmosphere looked great when i walked in. My friends and i ordered margaritas ($5 for HH is a steal.. and they were strong) then we proceeded to look at their food menu. The server told us that all the appetizers were half off during HH (also a great deal being that their prices were a bit high for Mexican food). So...I ordered the fried octopus, ceviche, and chips and salsa. My friends ordered guac, nachos and sopas. *Note: they do not have any taco specials for taco Tuesdays. (Update: So apparently they do have a Taco Tuesday special...however our server didn't mention anything about it. Wish I knew!)
Let's start with my fried octopus... turns out it was NOT octopus. I grabbed a big piece and cut it in half and thought it didn't look like octopus. I took a bite of the half i had cut off and guess what...? it was chicken (texture and flavor of chicken breast, not octopus-if you've eaten octopus before, you'd know that it has a chewy yet tender texture). I had my friend try a piece as well and she also confirmed that it was a piece of chicken. I couldn't believe that this overly fried, almost burnt tasting piece of "octopus" was a chicken nugget. For the record, I've had octopus many times in different ways.. grilled, fried, raw, etc. I immediately told my server and without any explanation or reassurance, he apologized and took it away. Now my ceviche was good (it was on the sweeter side because of the mangoes but it was tasty), along with my chips and salsa which was fresh. The server even brought out their habanero salsa which was so delicious(super spicy but flavorful). The guac was average and the nachos were very sad looking (very plain and boring with minimal toppings). The sopas were good but the protein (carnitas & carne Asada) on them were small.
Overall, the margaritas were nice and strong, the habanero salsa was my favorite, and the server was attentive and kind. Besides that, the portions for HH is extremely sad. It just felt very pretentious because you can tell that the portions were definitely "HH portions". I'm pretty disappointed at the fact that they served me "fried octopus" when in fact they were friend little pieces of chicken. I honestly feel tricked.. I don't know if they ran out of octopus or what but they could've just 86'd the item and save us the trouble. The server was kind enough to take it off my check but a manager never came to the table to apologize or explain/justify the fried faux octopus. I don't think I'd come back to Bandito.. but if it did, I'd only get a margarita and chips/salsa anyways which means i can go to any other Mexican restaurant with better prices and portions.
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