Rosa Mexicano

Thank goodness this place has closed. While the guacamole was good, the rest of the food was awful — obviously for after one had been drinking margaritas for a while and was no longer as particular? Frozen vegetables — i could’ve done better at home!

This location is closed! I walked by the restaurant when heading to Crunch fitness and the neon sign and all of the patio furniture is gone. Unless they’re doing a major overhaul that includes the restaurant sign, we’re looking for another restaurant to inhabit this location.
I’ve stopped by Rosa Mexicano several times for the happy hour specials. The specials are really good. You can get unlimited handmade guac with chips for around $ 20 bucks limited to 4 people per order. That only comes out to 5 bucks per person for unlimited servings of guac and the margaritas are 5 dollars per order until happy hour is over. I think happy hour ended at 7p.m. I do note that when you start to order your 3^rd bowl of homemade guac, the waiters start to kind of ignore you and you have to pull them aside 5 separate occasions so they can get you a new bowl of tortilla chips and guac.
The quality of the guac is top notch. It’s comparable to the handmade guac you can find at the wholefoods down the street, which is much better than the guac served on top of your chipotle burrito bowl. The ingredients are avocado, onion, cilantro, tomatoes, garlic, cayenne pepper, topped off with lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. It’s creamy and you know what’s in it because they make it in front of you in a stone mixing bowl.
Maybe everyone went to Rosa Mexicano exclusively for the happy hour specials and now went out of business. That makes 2 Tex-​Mex places extinguished at Friendship Heights.
I would recommend trying out the downtown location if you haven’t had Rosa Mexicano before; especially during happy hour.

Extreme, utter disappointment. Came here with some real Latin food afficionados (I’m not too bad myself). Our server was good, but seemed a little nervous. I quickly realized that was because he knew full well what a rip-​off this place was and was probably wondering if we’d get up and leave when our food came out.
Folks, this place wants 20 – 30 bucks for a typical entrée like a 2 enchilada platter or carne asada… when I saw that and the descriptions of the high-​end meats, I figured they had a bold concept of generous portions of high-​end ingredients.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Imagine a child’s watercolor set — that’s what the taco plate appeared to be served on. Imagine the runty pancake you make when the batter’s running out that your son or daughter loves to eat because it’s ‘different’ — that’s how big the enchilada tortillas were. The two bites or so of short ribs in my enchilada did taste good, as did the sauces… but I’ve had food just as good at half the price. My friend’s tacos did not blow him away.
This place is so pretentious its head is firmly up its own arse. Instead of Olé, I say stay away!

Overall experience was good.
Guacamole that was made at your table was good and it was nice to add in special requests.
Baja Tacos that three out of four of us at the table ordered seemed to be more fish sticks that came out of a box. I guess this is expected in the dead of winter, but not for the price they are charging. The elote that accompanied was delicious.
My husband got the beef short ribs enchiladas and seemed to enjoy them.
Volume level was slightly on the loud side, but we were also seated directly below a speaker.
Margaritas selection was good and we enjoyed the classic and frozen pomegranate.
Overall: good experience but may be on the pricey side.

Sit at the bar. Great experience. Great food. The guacamole is very good. The skinny margaritas are tasty.

Great Mexican food! This coming from a visiting native Californian. To my surprise, they serve the food with brown rice which would be a first. The my nailed it. Nothing boring about the rice let alone the refried black beans. Kids eat free Sunday through Thursday! Steak was great, guacamole served at the table was fantastic, margaritas strong enough, overall a great experience… I would recommend.

I will preface this review with an acknowledgment that all bets are off if you visit a restaurant on a major holiday, in this case Christmas Day. On the other hand, if the place is open, they should be ready to serve customers.
To begin, the service was awful. We had to remind the server, who was busy, for everything — Drinks, Appetizers, Chips, Salsa, etc. Then they served us an undrinkable Sangria! Who every heard of messing up a Sangria? We should have read the writing on the wall and asked for the check and left. We didn’t.
After having to remind the staff (again) that we ordered an appetizer (2x) it finally arrived. Naturally, along with the main courses. You guessed App was served cold, hard and un-​edible. Main courses were fine, not great.
Did I mention the bathrooms? Women’s restroom had a flood, no TP and trash cans overflowing. Was scared off from a visit to the men’s room. The topper — a sever dropped a large bowl of chips on the floor in front of the kitchen (in the dining room), it happens, right? But, should it take almost 20 minutes to clean up?
Bad night for Rosa Mexicano. With so many great restaurants in the area, we’ll skip this place in the future.

Cheap happy hour. I had a mojito and was very tasty. I also had the quesadillas. they weren’t large but it was happy hour. They were good all the same. The fat girl in me wanted more!

I enjoyed Rosa Mexicana. The restaurant atmosphere was classy and featured a lot of different tequilas. The guacamole made tableside was one of my favorite parts about this place. It was tasty and had some pretty nice, large pieces of avocado in it. I also ordered enchiladas which were tasty but I would try something different next time. As for drinks, the skinny margarita was tangy (and strong!) I would say Rosa Mexicana is pricey for what you get (there are definitely better values out there) but it’s to be expected in Friendship Heights. The server was also attentive and knowledgeable of his tequila so I am giving Rosa Mexicana 4 stars.

Just Not Good. Super expensive and small portions and low quality taste. Avoid at all costs. Have no idea how I wasted money eating here.

I’ve had better, and that was at a taqueria.
The interior is impressive, and the bathrooms are chic. I did not have a real meal here, so I can only comment on the sangria and $ 9 nachos. So first off, don’t bother to come here for happy hour if you are looking for a deal. We only came because Lia’s was packed, and I was craving something cheesy. We missed happy hour, but my bill was only $ 5 more if I had been at happy hour.
The white sangria ($ 8) was just OK; I think I will stick with the red from now on. The nachos were pretty awful, and such a tiny portion for $ 9. For $ 3 more you can get chicken or beef added. We said no thanks, but guess what? We got it anyway. The bartender offered to have a new one made, but it took so long to get this one, and I was getting hungry. I put the meat in a pile for my friend. The nachos were described as having three cheeses, little did I know that it was a cheese sauce, not melted cheese. I’ll go to a ballpark if I want cheese sauce on my nachos. I was tempted by the quesadilla, but when a server accidentally put one in front of us I was surprised at how small that was too, for $ 7.00. It was and 8″ tortilla folded in half and cut into two wedges. $ 7.00 for that? And no free chips and salsa?
I won’t be back.

If only there was a way to add another star to the review, I totally would without any hesitation! I just got back from a mini bridal lunch/​shower that we arranged for one of my coworkers — IT WAS AWESOME! We had more people than I had initially made reservations for, but they fully accommodated us without an issue. The food is consistently good over there — never a single complaint! I requested for a dessert with congratulations and they truly went above and beyond. I believe it was specially made just for us as I don’t remember seeing it on the menu. The host, I see him quite a bit as I am there atleast a couple of times a month, is so sweet and kind, truly did a spectacular job this time around! I would go back there in a heartbeat and definitely recommend the restaurant to everyone out there!

Went in off of some high reviews and was very disappointed. This restaurant is anything but Mexican. The place had a modern mexi-​American deco, and wasn’t even playing Mexican music. The menu had Mexican names but was more Americanized than DC itself. The only thing hispanic about the place was the server who was difficult to understand. I eventually just ordered in Spanish because it was easier that way. My dish was bland and tasteless. You spend $ 10+ on a 12oz. Margarita and $ 18 for a small dish that you can still leave the place hungry. The saving grace of this place was the guacamole, which was prepared tableside and some of the best I’ve had. That’s the only reason I’m giving 3 stars.

So apparently there’s all-​you-​can eat guacamole here during happy hour, a.k.a. hora feliz. Serving suggestion is up to five people. We were just two, but up for the challenge. Tableside molcajete mixing meant we could adjust spiciness level to our tastes.
Pork and pineapple taco was juicy and flavorful, but was eclipsed by the steak taco, which knocked it out of the park taste-​wise with a mix of juiciness and spice, and a slow afterburn.
And the guacamole kept coming until we were totally fulfilled.

I walked past this place to meet my mom and when she said she was hungry I said we should eat there. My mom is not a fan of anything TexMex but she loved this place. We went back a few times, great service and food each time. They make the best guacamole right at the table. The last night I went with a few of the girls. Awesome experience. Two of them were from Texas and they fell in love with the food while we all adored our waiter Mahendra and the manager on duty was a doll, she was funny and friendly. Try the mahi mahi… yummy. Also, those pomegranate margaritas are my fave drinks, not too sweet but still tats tea good and they pack more punch than you would think.

Let me start by saying that the R M by the Verizon Center was a great experience but the Chevy Chase location was something completely different.
My wife and had a date night, which is once in a blue moon with two little ones at the house. So we wanted to somewhere we knew was good. We ate at the one at the Verizon Center so we expected the same experience at the Chevy Chase location.
We started at the bar because it took 15 minutes to bus one table. The bar was full of fruit flys and had to swipe them away every time we put our drinks down. The bartender was friendly and the drinks were so so. My wife had a sangria which was a little strong and I had the «La Unica» a pretty good margarita. I think they were a little overpriced paying almost $ 27.00 with tip.
We were seated outside which had a nice atmosphere. The waiter was OK at first. He asked us if we had ever been there before and explained the menu to us. We ordered the table side prepared guacamole which was not prepared by our table but just brought to us and plopped down right in front if us. We asked that it not be spicy due to my wife still breast feeding. It was spicy as heck. Not only was it spicy but also extremely little portion. My also ordered the grilled corn with some sort of cheese and cream sauce. I only took one bite because it tasted like burnt corn with salad dressing. We were not happy with anything yet and hoped our meals would be better. Unfortunately that was not the case.
I ordered the pan roasted mahi-​magi and my wife ordered the carnitas/​pork. My dish was nothing special and the olives were all raw and rubbery. My wife’s dish was burnt and extremely dry. Extremely Unsatisfied!!! What topped it all off was that the waiter was going around all the tables including ours saying that if we wrote something positive on Unilocal we would get a free round of drinks. Wow, how pitiful. Why don’t you cook a good meal and earn your reviews. As the night went on the waiter got slimier and slimier. He made little eye contact with us and would just look at my wife’s chest. I noticed it at first but it got so bad that she actually got uncomfortable.
We finally finished our horrible meals and were so happy to get out if there. All in all the place seemed like there was no quality control and no manager on site. That’s to bad for this place because the one by the Verizon Center is almost like another restaurant completely. I would recommend not go to this location. You would have a better meal at Taco Bell.

Geez, only 2 ½ stars for this place?
I pass this place everyday going to work so I finally decided to stop by for happy hour with a co-​worker. Drinks and apps were $ 5 each– which was a really good deal. We ordered guac, pork & chicken tacos, and empanadas. Everything looked and tasted delicious and the service was excellent. Now I may be a little partial since my day was so trying that you could’ve given me rubbing alcohol and I would’ve been satisfied.
I may just stick to happy hour since their lunch & dinner menu prices are way too rich for my pockets.

Run. Don’t walk, but run out of Rosa Mexicano. What on God’s beautiful green earth are these people thinking by charging $ 18 for a cheese enchilada that tastes like a small piece of blank tortilla doused in Chef Boyardee tomato sauce? You couldn’t even taste the cheese because it was so minimal! The drizzle of crème fraîche on top doesn’t have any flavor either. I realize I could have gone more adventurous on my meal, but I followed my friend and got the same thing that he did.
The only redeeming quality of this restaurant is that they do make decent margaritas. Far from the best that I’ve ever had; it wasn’t completely horrible.
I had three in total. The first margarita I had was the pomegranate frozen margarita. Make sure you drink this one slow because it will give you a brain freeze. The alcohol content is PRACTICALLY nonexistent, but it does taste good.
The second one I had was just your classic margarita salted and on the rockS. This one is my favorite because it is my typical go to. you could take the alcohol slightly.
My third margarita that I had was called the Mango Chile. It tasted like mango purée with a spicy rim to it. I pretty much avidly avoided tasting the rim since it really was 1. spicy and 2. just did not go well with a drink. You can take the alcohol in this one either. I handed this ons over to my friend because it was just too much for me. I love mangos, but I can only do so much with the mango purée and the consistency is a drink.
Service was less than existence. We may be saw her 3 times during the course of our 2 hour visit. At one point, my friend went up to the bar to get a drink because she just wasn’t around. Since it was getting late and we didn’t want to deal with the manager; we left.
This will be my one and only visit here. is when the two of us our bill was $ 110. We could have spent money like that at a way nicer place that had better food and better quality than what we received here. I don’t know how they get off by having catastrophe failure of a restaurant. It’s actually quite pathetic. I hate that they still require business, and that people will still come here and pay the price is that they do they get nothing but sub par food and service. This isn’t my first time at Rosa Mexicano. I had the same issue at the other location in National Harbor. If one thing remains consistent — they both are horrible.
Twice is enough and that’s all the money they’re going to be getting for me for the rest of my time in Washington DC.

I’m gonna be honest here. If you go through life and never experience this place, don’t fret cause you haven’t missed a damn thing. I think its overpriced, average-​at-​best «Mexican» food. I have had a lot better for much cheaper.
BUT…if you happen to walk on the wild side and actually do decided to try Rosa, then I recommend that you keep it simple and order the Pomegranate Margarita and the guacamole. They both are quite yummy.
During the 2013 holiday season, I went to a company Chrismas party hosted at this location. I found the service to be really good. Everyone from the hostess to wait staff were very attentive. Surprisingly, I found the salmon that was apart of the pre-​fixe meal to be tasty, too.
Still there just isn’t enough here, at this chain, to make me a fan. Perhaps, I haven’t explored the menu enough? I’m a big Latin foodie fan, SMH.

We had such good service. I didn’t catch the name of our waiter, however, he was fantastic. I love the décor and ambiance. The chips and salsas was good! The tres leches cake was awesome.
The praise is over.
The descriptions of the three tacos we ordered sounded amazing, and our waiters further explanations amped us up for them. Duck tacos, lamb tacos, and the Pork Belly with Scallop tacos sounded creative and mouth watering. However, they left me feeling … what was that dry rather tasteless taco? Such a disappointment.
I also think at $ 14, their signature guacamole, is ridiculously priced. Whatevs, back for great tacos at Oyamel and little lesser known taquerias.