La Peñita Restaurant

3 words : home made tortillas . Yum yum ! In the San Jose downtown area and getting over a cold. I knew just the right prescription for it ! Reminds me of my abuelas sopa. Caldo de res is my go to! You haaaaave to try it !!! Been coming here for over 6 years and today is just as delicious as ever. Prompt friendly service. Hole in the wall. You will feel at home ! Nothing fancy but if you rather have quality over fancy decor - say no more. This is it! Come early before they run out ! Don't say I didn't tell you so !!Caldo de res - beef with veggies and side order of beans and rice and tortillas. Don't over eat the chips like me, so you can enjoy the soup !

I'm going to let you non San Joseans in on a lil' secret...La Penita, a lil hole-in-the-wall restaurant in downtown has some of the best sopas around! They have been serving up Menudo, Caldo de Res, Pozole & Albondigas for 40+ years so they must be doing something right. Don't come here with your nose in the air looking for fancy decor or impeccable service. This is like going to Abuela's house and getting a bowl of heartwarming soup served to you on a rainy day. #SopaHeaven

My husband's friend introduced him to this place years ago. He told him it reminds him of his mother's cooking. Today we were in downtown so it was the perfect time to try it. And boy am I glad we did!The restaurant is small, located on the corner, and can easily be missed. But there is ample parking in the back and on the side street. It has been around for awhile and is truly a mom and pop hole in a wall and I say this with excitement because these are my favorite places to eat. Especially walking into a Mexican restaurant and everyone eating is speaking Spanish. My husband ordered the Chile verde super taco and I ordered a cheese enchilada with green sauce with rice and beans (under "light lunch" on the menu). The chips came with 2 salsas, I only tried the less spicy one which was medium and perfect for me. My husband likes spicy and said the hotter one was too hot for him. They refilled our chips without us asking. Our food came out within 5 minutes of us ordering, another plus in my book.The tortillas are made from scratch slightly thicker and chewier than typical store bought ones, yum. My husband's taco was open faced like a tostada and was topped with large slices of avocado and cilantro. My enchilada had tons of cheese and with each bite I had strings of cheese stretching from my plate to my mouth. And the green sauce...some of the best I've ever had, my husband said the same as it was on his taco. We sat at the table next to a cut out window leading into the kitchen. The chef preparing our meal would check in on us asking how our days was and how we liked the food. We told him it was fantastic and he said, "That is music to my ears! You just made all my dreams come true!" The next time you are craving Mexican food, you gotta check this place out and support a local business!

Customer service was amazing. Small place, might wait if it's packed. Food is delicious.

This place is right across from where I work, and it's my go-to place. Service is great, and there's always a table. The food is fresh and homey. I prefer flour tortillas, but the fresh corn tortilas are so fresh and the corn used so finely prepared, you'd think they were flour. I usually go for the camarones, but the all day breakfast dishes are great. Tacos good! And the Jamaica aqua fresca is served in a large goblet and is so refreshing!

I'm almost afraid to give this secret place up because it'll get over-run on how good it is. Their beef soup (cosido) and albondiga (meatball) soup is on point and exactly how grandma made it! The flavors really brought me back to authentic slow cooked grandma Mexican cooking.I go back when I can to get that traditional and authentic flavor. There's nothing fancy, just the on-point flavor that transports you back.

This was a hole in the wall restaurant my friend suggested and I had to try it. I went during lunch on a Friday as the walk was quick from my work. It wasn't super packed for a Friday lunch hour. I got the chicken Enchiladas and they came with a side of rice and beans. The chicken was well flavored however, the choose on top of the enchiladas and beans was sort of stiff and wasn't as gooey as I wanted. It was almost sort of clumpy which I wasn't a huge fan of. However, we do get complimentary chips which was nice of them.

A great hole in the wall! I love coming here on the weekends. The place is small, but there's usually no wait. They also have a parking lot in the back. My order here is cocido aka caldo de res, which is a beef ribs & veggie soup. It's huge and comes with tortilla and a side of rice and beans. If you come here in the mornings, you'll see most locals order this and usually they're out of cocido by noon!

Excellent caldo de tez. Very good Chile rellenos . Get there early if you like caldo de res . Always happy with their food .

I was in downtown, so stopped by here for lunch. Ordered albondigas. The soup came with a small plate of Mexican rice and two home made tortillas. $19.95 for the soup. Very steep considering you can get other different ethnic soups like Ramen or Pho for $15. Service was cordial, inside was homely,, food took longer than expected, probably because of the fresh made tortillas.When I bit into a meatball the consistency was soft, lacked flavor and was less than room temperature in the middle. I put very little salt in my food, rarely adding salt to anything at restaurants. I added salt to this soup..I pulled a meatball out of the soup, put it on a plate, cut it in half. Most of the inside of the meatball was cool. I cut the meatballs (5 of them) into pieces to warm them up.The best thing about the soup were the carrots... Not worth $20.