Flamingos Mexican Grill & Bar

Food here is very bland and low quality. It’s also very expensive. The service is okay here. The chips and salsa are the best thing here… Don’t go here… Baja Fresh is better

Don’t usually review places but this place is definitely worth the time. Ordered abondigas soup, shredded beef hard taco & chicken enchilada. Great, classic flavor!
I am a shredded beef taco enthusiast & this taco was perfection! Abondigas soup was like homemade abondigas I ate when I was a kid! Our waiter was super sweet, Sergio, he recommended the Flamingo-​Rita which was fantastic! Potent and not too sweet with the tequila flavor=perfection. Finally the chips & salsa. warm, crispy tortilla chips and Sergio brought us both the red salsa and the house salsa. yum yum yum!
Definitely a go-​to for a home style Mexican food & a great margarita!

We have been going here every year since 1996. We went here the day were were married and have celebrated our anniversary ever since. Last night we encountered the RUDEST waiter on the face of the earth. We tried to order nachos, he said they have no nachos. He argued with my husband. We gave up on the nachos. We ordered the exact same item on the menu. I am fine, but my husband spent the night vomiting and suffering from explosive diarrea. Twenty four hours later he is in bed and cannot move. On Monday he will have his blood tested for hepatitis…

This place is below mediocre. It’s very tired looking and the demographic that comes here is older white people. Go figure. The food is heavy and lacking in flavor and the place makes me feel like I’m eating «Mexican» in the Midwest.

Service was excellent. Chips and salsa were refilled promptly, without even been asked for. Server was very proactive. From our order he guessed that we were going to share one of the entrees, and he offered to bring an extra plate. Food was good also. Will definitely be coming back.

First off the bartender does not know how to make drinks he thinks he can !!! And the service was super wack the food was okay would not call it five stars for that

We love Flamingos! Great food, and good service. We often order takeout and are pleased with everything. Our orders are always complete, and done on time. We haven’t dined in yet, but it’s on our list for Friday night dinner.

Amazing and authentic Mexican food! Family owned and operated, a must stop in Orange County! Try the carne asada tacos they’re to die for!

We tried Flamingo’s tonight based on a recommendation from a friend. She said their Taco Tuesday was great. She was right! The restaurant was bursting at the seams… filled with people! The bar was also full of laughing people!
We were incredibly pleased with their $ 1.99 taco deal. The food was great. We liked both the chicken and beef tacos and we ordered the cheese crisp-​that was delicious as well! Our server, Uriel, was attentive, friendly and had a great sense of humor. Between our server and the rest of the wait staff, our drinks, chip basket, and salsa bowls were never empty!
We will be back!

Always great service in the bar, great food. We love everything we get each visit. Close to our house and so we love going for dinner and margaritas when we can. Best Mexican close by our house and the margaritas and delicious!

The food here is not authentic, very Americanized, bad tasting and the service we received was horrible.
We were in the area and my friends wanted to meet up for Mexican food. I found this place on Unilocal with a solid 4 star rating and it was family owned so I thought it would be good. Besides I like supporting family owned businesses. After eating here I’m not sure if this a Mexican family owned business or they just Americanized it for the clientele. Which is fine but at least make it taste good and don’t skimp on the quality. The food here lacks flavor, very bland as most of the other bad reviews have commented. I have had a lot of good Mexican food at my Mexican friends’ homes and I also make lots of Mexican food. I am sorry to say but this is a far stretch from great Mexican food. Even the Americanized chain Mexican food places like Acapulco and El Torrito are better than this place.
Ok let’s break it down as to what went wrong here. Here were the dishes we ordered:
1) Colorado burrito– meat had no flavor. It was like they didn’t season the meat at all so they can use the same meat for all the dishes. I think they relied on the sauce to give it flavor but that was a fail because the Colorado sauce also had no flavor and was very bland.
2) Camarones a la diabla– This is suppose to be shrimp in a spicy sauce. I even asked them when I ordered that I like and wanted this dish spicy. When it came out it was not spicy at all and tasted weird. It was more sweet. Not how a dish that is suppose to be hot and spicy should be. It left me more hot and bothered.
3) Menudo– I love this type of soup that’s so unique. It’s not for everyone being it has tripe (beef stomach lining). This has to be done right because if you don’t cook it right it’s chewy. Not a lot of places carry it because it takes a long time to cook and is not normally a commonly oreded dish. So when I see it on the menu I try to order it. I figured it would be good given this is a family owned restaurant it would be their family recipe. Wrong, it was so bad I had to stop eating it. There were no onions or cilantro had to request for it. That’s suppose to be standard with Menudo and there was no hominy which is also a common thing that should be in the soup.
So disappointed with the food. Even the beans and rice were below standard. Now on to the service. Our server was very rude and short. I was in the middle of telling him my order and had my menu on the side, he was like give me your menu. I tried to tell him how I wanted my food and what kind of tortillas I wanted and he was like yeah yeah. It was like he was rushing us and didn’t care.
All in all horrible. I give one star for the chips and salsa. However, this place is operating like it’s a few men short of a Mariachi band and when your are here you are not treated like you are family. I will not be coming back.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to visit Flamingo’s. Especially since my wife is always talking about how much she likes it.
Right off the bat, service was great. Our waiter was attentive and friendly but also more than happy to give us as much time as we needed to decide on our food. Once we had, everything came out quickly and was delicious! The group I was in all ordered different things and after testing them all, we couldn’t decide who had picked the best plate. Portion sizes were large which was a pleasant surprise given the comparably low prices for everything on the menu.
And on a side note, this restaurant has one of the most ingenious ways to accommodate large parties. They have booths where the side panel is removable. booths go from 2 side to side 4 – 6 person booths to one 8 – 12 person booth. That blew my mind. How has this not become common practice at other restaurants?!
Anyway, if you’re look for good, affordable Mexican food, check out Flamingo’s.

Came here for taco tuesday, $ 1.99 tacos. Happy hour is from 3:00 to 6:30, so you can enjoy some drink specials to go along with it if you can get out of work soon enough. There is often a wait here and the bar area can get packed during HH, so plan accordingly. I would recommend waiting around the bar and scooping up a table as soon as one frees up though. The margaritas here and decent for $ 4.50 HH price. Tacos were good, loaded with a ton of lettuce and cheese, but the meat is really good. I had both the chicken and the beef, pretty much a tie.

I absolutely adore this place, it’s my first choice when I get a craving for Mexican food! I always order the same; shredded beef tacos which are lightly fried and have the best texture. My fiancè LOVES the Big Juan and orders it every single time. House Mango Margarita or the Flamingorita are definitely my choice of drinks, they have a great selection of tequila to order as shots or sub in for the house tequila.
The chips and salsa are amazing, how can you beat thin freshly fried chips and fresh salsa with a spicy kick?! If you turn your meal into a combo it’s well worth the money; their rice is lovely and the beans with cheese are perfection.
The service is wonderful, attentive servers make sure the salsa and chips keep-​a-​comin’ and that your refills are taken care of before you even realise you’re running on empty!
These guys really took care of me on my birthday and made it a very special night, they were totally accomodating to one member of our party running a bit late and staff made sure to treat me to a delicious FLAN with a lit candle after they heard it was my bday! SO cute!!! The servers who brought it out were hysterical, sang for a moment then dipped the spoon in the whipped cream and tapped it on my nose, such a cute and fun idea that we were all giggling wildly to. Now THIS is how you show customer appreciation, made me want to come here every year for my bday!
Just wanted to say thank you to this establishment for really making it a special time every visit, it’s rare for me to find somewhere I feel so comfortable in; good food, good times!

Came here for lunch one day with my husband. Really friendly service and very family friendly. Although my food was really good, I feel as though ONE taco with guacamole with rice and beans is a bit expensive for $ 7. I think it should be two tacos for that price considering the abundance of Mexican restaurants in the area.

We really liked this place. Service was fast and very friendly. The tacos were warm fresh and crispy. The salsa the best we ever had.
Our mains looked very esthetic and delicious.
Our best Mexican restaurant experience.

None of my better half’s bookmarks were sounding very good last Saturday night, what she was craving was Mexican. Once she expressed her preference, I quickly located Flamingos with its 4 star rating (we will get back to that) and made the short drive to Laguna Hills.
The location (
) isn’t too hard to find and there is a sufficient amount of parking around. We were eating on the earlier side, so we were immediately seated upon our arrival. If you haven’t guessed, this restaurant (
) has a very distinct theme and flamingos were everywhere!
The service started out fast and efficient. The server took our drink orders immediately after we had sat down and warm chips and salsa (
) were delivered a short time later. The chips were good and I liked the flavor of the salsa. The salsa also had some nice heat without being overpowering. The servers were also pretty good about bring extra salsa when we ran low. This pretty much the end of the praise for the experience.
After drinks were delivered, we were ready to order. My lovely wife ordered the Steak Picado Tostada (
) while I went with the Big Juan Burrito (
) and paid the extra dollar for the carnitas upgrade.
The food came out surprisingly fast, but it still wasn’t worth the short wait. The steak picado was horrible! My wife held up a fatty piece of steak from her tostada and it looked like Kaya had used it as a chew toy. I asked for the manager and requested the steak picado be replaced with carne asada. The entrée was returned a short time later, but the carne asada was only a slight upgrade. Another issue was the general lack of protein, it was mostly a rabbit’s paradise with large amounts of lettuce and tomato. The shell and beans was pretty good. The shell was light and airy and the beans had a good flavor. Too bad the better half really doesn’t dig these shells.
My Big Juan … well … wasn’t very big … it was just long. Now I understand how woman feel … guys … size does matter … when it comes to burritos!
Rohlinism: Expecting a «bulging» Big Juan and getting a «shriveled» Juanito is one life’s «little» disappointments!
The carnitas didn’t have the crispiness outside I am used to, the consistency was more like pulled pork. The flavor was decent, but not really a standout. The chile verde sauce was on the bland side and even though the cheese on the outside was melted, the cheese on the inside was not. The rice was nondescript and the beans were consistent with my wife’s dish. The guacamole and sour cream were both middle of the road, I have had better and far worse.
The service started strong, but seem to fade as the service moved forward. It ended with a very long delay in getting the receipt after paying the bill. My better half was able to go out for her dinner cancer stick and return before the receipt was brought to the table. It was also brought to the table by someone other than our server who picked it up which I found odd. Our drinks also sat completely drained for over ten minutes at one point before refills were offered while we were still eating.
I am really confused by the four star rating, the service was spotty and the food was a very small step above fast food. This might pass in other states, but in California, this is inferior for a sit down Mexican restaurant. No need for future visits unless I get the sudden urge to see some plastic pink flamingos.

We all decided we were going to try a place we’ve never been before– branching out. We hadn’t been to this part of MV in a long time — lots of new places to try! Hello Dunkin!
Anyway, back to the food. Service was great– very attentive, refilled drinks, chips and salsa without us having to ask… always appreciated.
The food was not the best. One of us had the Big Juan — biggest burrito they have. Size/​Value yes, taste no. The carne asada was flavorless and dry. The red sauce on the enchiladas and burritos had zippo flavor. Chips/​Salsa — OK.
Bottom line, we will not likely return.

On the negative side: The food is meh… I tried the re-​fried beans it tasted like can beans. The enchilada needed some flavor.
Positive: I did like the salsa and the chips they serve, service was good, and I must say the fried rice was also good.
Other than the food not tasting authentic besides the rice… It’s still gets a 2-​star. Sorry but will not come here again.

I respect everyone’s opinion, and certainly their experiences… I say this because a Unilocal friend, «Jim T», who I’ve followed for my 6 plus years Unilocaling, related a bad experience here at Flamingo. And it was recent. So last night, after getting the group email that our small band of Vietnam Combat Vets would be lunching at Flamingo… my «food-​service-​ambiance» radar was set to high-​sensitivity for today’s b*tch session and grub-​fest. (older guys tend to do that, OK?) Bottom line… there were no fails… food was good, and service was XLNT.
There were four of us, arrived around 1130a, and easily got a booth. Two were semi-​regulars, and two of us were «Flamingo Newbies.» I, «Photo Reconn» Al, had the chicken tostada, «Doc» Jim had the beef enchilada, «Corvette Z-​Guy» Dennis had carnitas, and «Aerial Reconn OV-​1» John had the chili verde. All of us were satisfied, and all of us agreed… «Great middle of the road Cal-​Mex cuisine, very good-​prompt service, and from our Flamingo Veterans Dennis and John… it was consistent as ever. I should add that we sat up front, on the West side of the restaurant. They do have plenty of booths, and the private lot is right there, with ample parking. And to allay your concerns about… «Is it good?» The restaurant was at about 60% occupancy… on a Wednesday too!
Seems that everyone agrees on the critical stuff… «Consistently Good», «No Surprises», and «Prompt-​Attentive Service.» I give them 4-​stars for all of that. But if you ask me about my fav’ Mexican restaurants in the area? And note that these are in different categories from Flamingo’s… For very casual, order at the counter and have it served to you at your table… «Fiesta Grill, RSM» near the Pavillions and across from Rice & Spice Thai. For upscale-​quality SoCal-​Mexican it’s always Carmelita’s at RSM Lake.
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