La Canoa

I do like me some Mexican food and I will always advise getting into the ethnic neighborhoods before going to a chain Mexican restaurant because go where the people actual eat. The greater area around this restaurant has so many good Mexican restaurants I want to try them all. I got rock star parking right in front of the so I didn't investigate if they had off street parking.The place is colorful and I was shocked that it was totally packed with like one small table left on the very end in the dining room, I haven't seen this since before C19 so I must be in a good place. They have a nice bar to the right as you walk in so I sat at the bar so I didn't take up a table for just me when they were really busy, it's a Monday at 12:30 for my visit.I was given chips and salsa with multi colored chips and three salsas all were very low in the containers with a green, red and a ceviche style. The red was ok while I didn't like the flavor of the green at all and the ceviche was my favorite. My blended lime margarita was not bad because it had good flavor and some booze in it.I ordered a blended lime margarita while I looked over the massive menu and I ordered the combination plate with meat substitutions because beef and chicken were only listed and they were fine with it. My combination dinner would be a Asada taco, ground beef enchilada and a carnitas tostada with rice and beans. My order took 30 minutes but they were slammed so I'm not complaining and I'm just noting.My plate looked amazing and very cheesy. The Asada taco was just cilantro and onion and very good with tasty Asada. The ground beef enchilada had plenty of meat and cheese and also good. My carnitas tostada was also meaty and good topped with crumbled cheese and sour cream. The rice and beans got mixed together like I do and they were tasty and the cheese got very melty when all mixed together with big string cheese pulls with my fork.Overall my lunch was pretty good because the food was seasoned nicely and tasty with no skimping on the meat. This is definitely a good choice and I would have no problem meeting friends here for a meal and drinks.

A GEM. A friend showed my partner and I around Milwaukee for the first time & introduced us to this restaurant. Simply put -- The food was BOMB.I ordered the Mojarra Empanazida (fried tilapia covered in a very spicy and flavorful chipotle sauce) and as you can see, the portions here are massive. The rest of our table ordered a Molcajete Mixto, molé enchiladas and mango margaritas. The staff were friendly and attentive & the music was great as well. This is one of those places that's so good you leave extremely satisfied but also a tad bit sad because you wanted to try every single thing on the menu lol -- I've already planned out my entire order for the next time we come back to Milwaukee.

Ugh. Not good. Sangria was Coca Cola with fruit in it!!!! Food was not good at all. We ordered one of the pots for 4, and it have a mix of meat and seafood! Yuck! We were terribly disappointed. I rarely give one star, but I just don't see a reason to give them more than that. We were visiting from Phoenix and Ft Lauderdale, and that was one meal we wish we could forget from our trip.

Well , sea Food was ok 7 mares I think I can do better at home , but the place is filthy, I tried it . I don't like it , just to see all grease even the menu was upsetting. Not coming back.

Authentic Mexican second to none in Milwaukee. The refried beans were impossibly smooth and flavor was incredible. The steak had lot's of crunchy bits that were flavor heaven. If you appreciate Mexican food and live Milwaukee this needs to be your new favorite. Hands down the best I have had.

Food is great just takes time for it to come out. They need to add more fish in h the aqu

I'd heard good things about La Canoa and they've recently been pushing their advertising, so I thought I would give them a shot. It was dead when I visited, only one other table had diners.I liked the vibrant color scheme and decor, lots of bright shades of blue.My server brought out a trio of salsas. One was a basic thin salsa, one was a little thicker and had small chunks of avocado in it and the third was actually more like a ceviche. All three were very tasty.She also brought out a complimentary empanada. The pastry was cooked well but it was "filled" (there wasn't much of it) with fish, and it tasted "fishy." Don't mock me! Fish is not supposed to taste fishy when it is properly cooked.I ordered Puerco en Salsa Verde as my entree. The menu described it as tender chunks of pork tenderloin, which sounded great. I requested a side of flour tortillas with it.When the plate arrived, I was surprised to see white rice instead of the typical orange hued rice I was expecting. That was fine with me. I like to see restaurants change things up. I was hoping that something had been done with the rice, but that was not the case. No cilantro...nothing. It tasted fine, so no worries. The beans looked very much like the refried beans one would expect to find at a Mexican restaurant but they didn't taste as good as other Mexican restaurants. I'm not sure how to describe them. They weren't bland. They had a flavor. I just didn't care for it.I planned on rescuing my dinner by putting the pork tenderloin chunks into the flour tortillas and eating them like tacos. The problem with that plan was that I don't believe these were chunks of pork tenderloin. I'm not a butcher, I don't play one on TV and I did not sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, but I believe they brought me pork spare ribs. There were bones galore!I almost didn't notice because of all of the salsa verde, which was good by the way. I used my knife and fork to pry away what little meat I could from these chunks of bone. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed. The saving grace were the tortillas. They were very warm and very soft and very delicious. I rolled them up and scooped up the salsa verde and the beans and that was enough to prevent my dinner from being a disaster. I asked the waitress if they used ribs instead of pork tenderloin because there were so many bones. I did not complain about it though. I merely asked the question and made the statement. When she came to collect my plate, she noticed a pile of bones with little bits of meat still on them. She must have put 2 and 2 together because when I got the bill there was a 10% discount on it. Again, I did not complain. She took it upon herself to read between the lines and try to make up for it even though I did not expect her to, not even hinted at it. Therefore, her act of good customer service was rewarded in her gratuity.I have had bad experiences at restaurants on slow nights in the past. You would think the cooks have more time to cook with care but maybe the food is just reheated leftovers from the day or two before. I don't know. I don't care. I doubt I'll be back to find out. There are too many other options for good Mexican food in Milwaukee.

Fantastic find! I saw that it has been a while since anyone wrote a review for here, so I felt compelled to do so.Chips and salsa are, of course, a pretty standard complimentary starter for Mexican restaurants, but the difference at La Canoa is that one of the three salsas is actually a really good ceviche. I hadn't seen that before.The margaritas were some of the best we'd ever had (we split a pitcher of them). And these were just your standard house margaritas - not the top shelf variety. Very impressive! I had the Parrilladas Para Una Persona Mixta, which was the individual-sized serving of Parrillada Mixta, a combination of pork, beef, chicken, shrimp, octopus, clams, mussels, calamari, crab, quesadilla, and cheese. I say individual-sized, but I left with enough leftovers for easily at least one other meal. I only had a few bites of the pork, beef and chicken so that I could concentrate on finishing off the seafood - reasoning that it would not reheat well. Everything was fantastic! Every variety of seafood was cooked perfectly and it had a delicious spicy sauce. The calamari and clams, in particular, were the most tender examples of each that I've ever had.My wife had the Tlayuda Oaxaqueña with barbacoa. This was kind of like a monster-sized quesadilla. There were three large wedges and my wife ended up taking two of them home. She was a huge fan!The menu for this place is huge and has so many unique dishes that I can't wait to try more of them. We'll definitely be back.

The most amazing selection of sea food and drinks I've only seen on Pinterest and Instagram usually! Everything is next level, the alcohol, the plates, the food. They even give you ceviche which is a Hispanic seafood dip for free which your complimentary chips. I ate seafood out of a pineapple. It was great

The food and the atmosphere was great,But the customer service was terrible, very unprofessional.