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Category: Latin American [Edit]
Neighborhood: Portage Park
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Pros: GREAT food, fun atmosphere, and nice music. It kind of makes you feel like you are on a Latin American vacation. The portions were large, the food was fresh and delicious. It seemed to be a lot of regulars there, mostly speaking spanish, along with a staff that preferred to speak in spanish as well. I truly enjoyed my meal and the ambience.
Parking was easy and convenient on the street in front of the restaurant.
Cons: It's a bit far for a downtown girl, though worth the trekk. Service was less than stellar. While the staff was nice and helpful with suggestions, they were also a bit slow. That wouldn't keep me from going back, though!
Ok,
I am mexican but my fiance is Ecuadorian and I love their cuisine, and before I used to love this restaurant! Maybe like 2 or 3 years ago when their prices weren't so high, and we could have a decent meal for under $50.00, I went to this place two weeks ago and had a very bad experience.
For starters they didnt have Ecuadorian sodas the waitress explained it was because business wasnt going well so they didnt but any soda... Ok then the Chifles were so old that when we would try to grab one 5 more chifles were stuck to it, and they were stale. The food portion was so small and the quality over all was bad. I dont think my fiance and I will ever give it another chance.
We will be on the look out for other less expensive better quality Ecuadorian restaurants
I love this place. the shrimp cevinche is fabolous! The service is not that great but the food is delicious. The bananna chips they serve are very tasty and the large corn kernals are good. Where do they find this large corn kernals???
This may be a good spot for live music and dancing but not for dining which is hit and miss. Pleasant staff make for a welcoming experience, and they quickly provide plantain chips and a great Ecquadorian dip filled with peppery flavors
balancing the sweetness of the chips. I had seco de polo with rice. The chicken was stringy and inedible. That is, I truly could not chew it into digestible matter. Husband had pork chops which were greasy and served with microwaved frozen vegetables. Server did a check back and saw I was not eating the chicken. I told her it was too tough to swallow. She offered an alternative, but we could not wait for another entree. I had already shared my husband's chops. We were not charged for the chicken which was fair. However, this is not on our return visit list.
Very good food. Ecuadorian. Quite different for those who havent tried it, yet lots of familar flavor. I have had the lamb there and the steak with chimichurri. Both are excellent. Nice appetizers as well. Good selection of wine and S. American beers. Thier Mojitos and Pisco Sours, while pricey are great and have a kick! A littel noisy, but hey, its a S. american place. Roll with and dance off your meal. A lively spot in Portage PArk.
Walked in on Sat night and got seated right away. There was a cute family band playing including the little kids on pan flute. Lots of fun drinks to choose from. Started off with some ceviche. I reccomend sticking with the shrimp as the pescado was just OK. The wife had this great shrimp dish with an avocado salad. I had the ribeye which was really good.
La Pena is bright and colorful, in more ways than one. From the rich tablecloths to the lively atmosphere to the vivid live music, this place is a South American party.
Many Latin restaurants start you off with a free basket of tortilla chips and salsa. However, La Pena offers something delectably different: thinly-sliced plantain chips. I guarantee you: those won't last long, so you should probably grab something from the appetizer menu. The empanadas are absolutely delicious, as are the humitas and the tortillas de papa (potato pancakes stuffed with cheese and topped with homemade peanut sauce). And sip on a fruit shake while waiting for your meal! I'd recommend the strawberry (fresa) or Andean raspberry (mora).
The restaurant specializes in ceviches (the shrimp cocktail is the most popular) and other seafood dishes, like the encocado de camaron--steamed shrimps with coconut sauce, served with rice and fried green plantains. There are also plenty of traditional South American platters of grilled steak, chicken, and lamb. Flavorful menestra de pollo (grilled chicken breast) comes with a mound of rice and a side of beans, and the churrasco is always tempting, served with a fried egg, French fries, avocado, and white rice. Dessert options include rice pudding, fried sweet plantains, and coconut flan.
The stage hosts traditional Latin-American folk music Thursdays through Saturdays. Don't be surprised to see people dancing on the itty bitty dance floor. The celebratory air may even have you passing on the shake for something more potent, like a glass of sangria or the rave-worthy locura latina--tequila, brandy, Licor 43, and Bacardi 151.
We've been to La Pena many times, have always been pleased. The food is always good, the music enjoyable, and we don't hesitate to bring neighbors or guests.
The owners support the neighborhood and the neighborhood association, & we are delighted to have a local business that is concerned about its neighbors.
The service makes it a bad experience for me. They are NOT KID FRIENDLY. You would think they would be more polite to families in the area since it is a family neighborhood.
They are not good at all with kids and if you do go with kids be prepared to be almost escorted out.
I've see other locations clean up after you as you eat but they take it to the 10th degree. We finished eating and as we were sitting reset the table in front of us, making us move and hold things as they reset, and it wasn't event packed!
Forget about telling them something is wrong with your food because you'll get dirty looks and comments made behind your back.
My kids are not wild at all, they are just rude. We never went back after that and we have told our friends with kids as well. We have two other families that went after us with their kids, who are older and they too had a hard time, they never went back.
It's pretty much an adult, money sucking location because they only care about what you order and how much you spend. Forget about not ordering the most expensive thing on the menu because they even say, "that's all!"
But if you're there to socialize and drink then they will love you. For singles, maybe this is the place, but that's all.
And I agree, the music is blarring, even during the lunch hour. There's just no right time to go as a family. So we go to La Humita down the road. Music upstairs and local to eat downstairs. Great service and FOOD! even better priced and larger portions.
What a great time with a group of friends!
If you go on a Friday or Saturday night you'll have a very lively Ecuadorian band bumpin' everything all festively as you dine on exxxxcellent cuisine. Their steaks are done PERFECTLY. Make sure to get a mojito - they're made huge and fresh and come with a section of sugar cane stalk.
one con - we called to make reservations and when we showed up we were told that their 'son' must have written it down so they didn't have our reservation. Um, what? Well anyway, we only had to wait about 7 minutes at the bar, with our delicious drinks.
The food was great, but the service was horrendous. We waited 5 minutes just to get seated and there were plenty of open tables. Then it was a good 15 minutes before the waitress even came to take our ordder. About 30 minutes after that, we got our food and the order was incorrect.
I loved the food, though, and might give it another try on that basis alone.
La Pena rocks my socks off. What the far northwest side has been lacking for a long time is a better-than-average restaurant, and La Pena certainly fits the bill. Now, I know that not a lot of folks are familiar with Ecuadorian cuisine, but there are parallels to the mexican food and tapas that you know so well.
Actually, La Pena isn't just a Ecuadorian place, they're pan-hispanic and pan-andean, as I saw some peruvian, some cuban and argentine on the menu. Which is a nice change of pace from all of the greasy mexican spoons in the area. They make latin milkshakes out of both normal and exotic fruits which are just amazing. I had what they called a mountain raspberry, which was just delicious, not like any fruit I'd ever had before. And the pre-meal chips aren't just tortilla, like so many other places, they're thinly sliced plantain chips, delectable and different, like so much else here.
The ambience is interesting...the multiple TVs showing a soccer match make it seem something like a sports bar, but the live music that they have on weekends makes it seem more like a party. I suppose that's the joy of La Pena, it has a little something for everyone. And thank goodness for that, because this neighborhood needed a little kick in its culinary pants.
Everyone seems to think that it has a little of everything. It really just tries to be to many things to do anything right. The waitstaff isn't very good at describing dishes that are exotic to many people. Many times the items aren't really exotic so much as completely unexpected. Their menu is all over the place. I was there with someone that ordered a pasta dish with a basil sauce. It turned out to be a sort of basil pesto. It was really good , it just wasn't what she expected and unlike it was described by the waitress and the menu. Everything else seemed to be dry and salty. On top of that it was overpriced for the location and the quality of food.
The live band gets far too loud for this small place. That combined with the TV monitors tuned to soccer games makes it uncomfortably loud and hard to enjoy a meal. The dance floor was the size of 2 tables.
I came here with some Brasilian friends to watch the Copa de libretadores soccer match between our team from Brasil fluminase and the Ecuadoreen team, it was very fun. The food was good, I had the churasco steak platter, and meat empanadas. The atmosphere was very fun especially every time a goal was scored by their team it was a mad house of music and cheering. At the end Brasil Fluminase lost to Ecuador on penalty kicks after Brasil was beating them in regular time 3-1 but oh well. My point is the place was fun, the people are fun too and the owner of the place is a real class act he bought use a round of beers for our teams lose and introduced himself, really nice guy.
This is the closest decent restaurant to my house and i've gone there -probably- 12 times since it opened. I have never had a bad meal there, but i admit the service can sometimes be dodgy and the music is too loud (don't know why they need to amplify it...at all). I particularly like the humitas and the corn side dish with very large kernels.....
I really wish I liked this place, it's really close to home. But the service is abominable. I suppose there's some kind of "go with it" attitude I should have here- drink a margarita and dance my concerns away. But see, I came here because I'm hungry, and the staff can't juggle a waiting list any better than I can juggle chainsaws. Food is OK- tends to be kind of dry.
I used to love this place so much... the lively music, crowd of regulars, drinks, and dancing was all that I could wish for - the food, for me wasn't the #1 reason for going since I'm a vegetarian and there are few options for me, but I always had so much fun, I wanted to go back time and time again ... I would have to say, however, that the service is below par these days. The staff also likes to jump their friends in ahead of customers waiting for a table, and it's pretty clear they really don't care if you complain. The food was okay, but again, not very inventive I suppose, and in some cases, maybe a little too greasy. I'll still go for the live Ecuadorian folk music... there's just something about it for me - very happy, and the tiny dance floor gets everyone forcibly intimate. Solid like a rock, La Pena. It's a love-hate relationship, tumultuous, drama-filled, but you just have to stick around for the end of the night.
I Luved the food. I found out about from "Check Please" and wow.. I keep going back. The service I don't really care for. I don't cry to much about it cause the food is worth it. The empanadas are a must. Too bad they don't serve tortillas ,p
Amazing mojitos! This is a great find since I just moved "out west". The food was amazing. Tender steaks, delish shrimp and strong cocktails. There is great live music and later in the evening the place turns into a giant dance floor. A great place for a date or to do a little mingling.
The Ecuadorian food can be a bit hit-or-miss here, but the interesting variety and the excellent music should keep you wanting more. I must say that I love the live Andean band that plays here, as it takes me back to my visit to Peru a few years ago (and makes me want to visit Ecuador as well). I am told the shrimp dishes are excellent here, but the chicken dishes are the ones I usually go with. Try to split some of the tasty appetizers here with your friends. The free bowl of plantain chips go fast and the drinks are good here. Some of my friends enjoyed this bizarre "Quaker" drink that is sort of like an oat smoothie. The desserts are good too, though sometimes they have only one or two choices.
I ordered the Churrasco Pollo here and it was very plain and somewhat bland. It wasn't horrible but nothing memorable either. My "beef" with this restaurant is the bad service and the live entertainment. Not once did the waiter come by to ask how we're doing and it took several attempts to get our check. The live band is way too loud and after about 40mins at that volume, it got really annoying! The music wasn't bad but I could barely hear myself think nevermind hold a conversation with my company. So based on the mediocre food, bad service, and loud band I will NOT be returning.
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