Amaranta Cocina Mexicana

This restaurant is in the new Topanaga Plaza Mall. Authentic Mexican style food but the most important feature of this restaurant is their ... more

Good food. Good ambiance. Good margaritas. Unfortunately, one hostess is rude. The manager shows very little interests in his customers. If you have a complaint, he could care less. There was a problem with our table reservation. The hostess was indifferent and rude. We asked for the manager. He would not say his name. He basically said, this is how things work in this establishment and that he deals with complaining customers all the time. He kept defending the hostess and his policies without trying to learn about the problem at hand. He would not let any of us speak. He kept interrupting and talking about how customers complain all the time and that is all he deals with day in day out. Wow! Completely unprofessional. The other hostess, the waiters and the rest of the staff are friendly and provide good service. Because we had this unfortunate interaction with this one manager, we will not be going back. Pros: Good Food Cons: Poor service from the manager more

Well this is just an idea of what is a good Restaurant in all aspects, this is my 10th time at the restaurant and every time im there im really happy with the excellent service that they have at the restaurant, the Manager allready know us and he is working with the staff as a team and they take care of everyone as VIP and thats something that does not hppend in all restaurants. The Food is the best Mexican food we ever try and also we have bring a lot of friends from aroud the country and they said that they havnt try anything like this. Congratulations! GREAT JOB!!!!! See you next week :-) Pros: Excellent Everything!!!!! Cons: Favorite Place !!!!!!!! more

When the hostess seated us last night we asked her if it was still happy hour. She said, "yes". After ordering a round of drinks, we asked the waiter for the happy hour appetizer menu. He said, "Oh, we don't serve happy hour in the restaurant." He went on to tell us that if we wanted to move to the bar (about 10 feet away), we could order from the happy hour menu and get happy hour prices on our drinks. "You mean we aren't even getting happy hour prices on our drinks?" we ask. "No, you're not." the waiter replies. We ask to speak with the manager. Eventually the manager arrives and we explain to him that as we were seated the hostess told us it was happy hour. She never explained that happy hour was only good at the bar area. First the manager rolled his own hostess under the bus by saying she is new. Then he rolled US under the bus for not knowing to ask for clarification on where we actually had to stand to be eligible for happy hour. We tried to explain that we also wanted to order dinner and that even if we couldn't order appetizers off the happy hour menu, we felt they should honor the happy hour prices for the drinks. The manager was firm and said he could not fix the situation. We asked the manager to give us his name and the name of the owner of the restaurant. We told him we planned to write the owner a letter and voice our complaint about the way we were treated. Incredibly, the manager replied, "He won't care." Finally and at long last I've met an honest man; he's ignorant, stupid, short-sighted and rude, but by God at least he's HONEST! So "good-bye" Amaranta Cocina Mexicana. There are plenty of other places in LA to eat that DO care about having us as customers As for happy hour, I'll definitely enjoy one when I hear Amaranta has imploded and gone out of business. Judging from the empty tables and their new "we don't care" motto, the wait shouldn't be too long. In fact, I can see the finish line just over the next hill .... Pros: Great margies Cons: They don't care. more

I'm impressed with the decor and the food here. I was shopping in the westfield topanga mall when I made a turn looking for an exit to enjoy a cigarette break and voila! Found this joint which at first seems so out of place: why in a mall??? Not sure but heck, here we are, so I called my gf to let her know I was going to park it there while she continued with her marathon shopping. First, nice touch with the hand made tortillas and salsas to munch on with my drink: a house marg. (BTW, They have an impressive selection of tequilas, by the bartender's account, close to 400 types, yikes!) Mmmmh-mmh. Then, when my gf finally caught up with me, we moved to a table and had a guac made right there in front of us, we like everything so the guy made it just like we've had it in Mexico, spicy with the right amount of lime juice and salt and served with the same hand made tortillas that they gave me with salsa at the beginning. So far so good, then we ordered the caesar salad and a pozole. The salad was fine, good amount of cheese but the croutons were a bit stale; the dressing had the perfect balance of anchovie and garlic flavors, not too overwhelming but with a presence. The pozole was tasty but I'm not sure if this qualifies as a starter since it is quite filling. Because of this, we had just one entree, the cochinita pibil (sp?) with beans and vegetables. It was very good, authentic flavors on both the meat and the red onion-habanero mix, "muuuy picoso" as the server indicated but great. Washed all down with a couple of pacificos and that was that. No dessert as we were more than satisfied. Maybe next time. Service was alright, server was confused with our order at first but sorted it out eventually. Guac maker was very nice and talkative. The atmosphere is ok once you concentrate on your dinner and companion and forget that you're in a mall (close the red curtains!!! Can you?). Parking is easy being in a mall... Overall a great experience. Pros: Real Mexican fare Cons: In a mall, and hidden more