Garduño's Of Mexico Cantina At Old Town

I made the mistake to invite some of my coworkers to lunch at Garduños. We did not order anything crazy, there were three taco combos four adult drinks and three non-alcoholic drinks. However, my check was $103.06. I thought it was soooo high!!! After tipping the server 15% my check ended up at $118.06. One of my co-workers noticed that Garduños had already tipped the server 23%. The consumtion was only $77.85, which sounds reasonable but Garduños tipped, without my conent, 23%. The server conveniently ommited that he had already been tipped, and there was no posting anywhere in the restaurant or on the menu, so I almos tipped again. This is a total rip off!!! There is no wonder why Garduños has closed most of its restaurants. I will never go back there!!!!

We arrived at Garduño's about 7pm to eat dinner, as guests of the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town. There was nobody at the host stand and had to wait for someone to notice us to be seated. The restaurant had other diners present besides us but seemed to lack any sort of management. One of the employees was busy sweeping and mopping, even though it was still the middle of dinner service and was even sweeping under other diners' tables. Two of the glasses we were served were dirty and had things floating in them. The guacamole was made with avocados that were not ripe. Even though our waitress was very nice and the restaurant wasn't busy, it took a long time to get our drinks from the bar. With the unfortunate dining experience we decided to avoid the restaurant for the remainder of our stay.

Surprised the food is good. I did ask if green was chopped (NM style) or sauce and was told sauce... it was not. Also asked for all rice but got beans. Kinda glad as the rice had green peas and I am not a fan. The enchilada was good though.

Nice authentic Albuquerque New Mexican meals served in the hotel grounds.

Visiting from California, we stopped at Gardunos for lunch. I can 't say I was impressed. I ordered the Chile Relleno plate with a chicken taco. I know this is new Mexico and recipes are different in every state. The Chile Relleno seemed like it was deep fried and crunchy. It was coated in a lot of batter. Not what I 'm accustomed to. The veggies my plate came with were very good, and the Charo Beans were delicious. My wife had the taco that came with my plate. She said the chicken was boiled and had little to no flavor. The shell the taco came in was a box style taco shell you can get at and market off the shelf. My sister had a burger. The burger patty soaked through the bottom bun, making it a soggy mess. The French fries were crispy and nicely flavored. I 've heard a lot of good comments about Gardunos, and this was the first time in many years that I have had food here at this location. Even my sister, who is a local, wasn 't impressed. She said the older location, I believe, is located in the eastern part of the city was much better. The pricing for those who might be interested in that was average for these times. Each of our plates were under 20 dollars. I would recommend finding a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant of you 're looking for authentic Mexican food.