"Lola's 7 Up Deli"- A Nerd's Review

Greetings citizens of Carlsbad!  We come in peace.  Well, mostly.  You deny us our Mexican food and that peace will hit the ground like all the wannabe skaters hanging out downtown. 

Anyway, we’re here to review Mexican food so that is what we will do.  This first review is of our personal favorite restaurant: Lola’s!  Officially called “.” 

So here it goes: 

Lola’s is hands down the best Mexican food around.  You can have your , your , your , but we will keep our Lola’s.  It is located a bit out of the way on Roosevelt in downtown Carlsbad, around three blocks south of Carlsbad Village Drive.  It is a convenience store, but they also have an extensive-ish menu that includes things like burgers and sandwiches along with a wide variety of Mexican food items.  If you ever go (and we certainly hope you will) a must-try is the bean and cheese burrito.  It is the BEST.  No really, it’s as if the beans rained down from heaven.  In fact, we would not be shocked to witness the chefs catching loads of pinto beans into vats as they fell from the sky.  Quite honestly, there is no other logical explanation for their greatness.

The salsa is amazing too.  It is some of best salsa we’ve ever had – especially the red.  It is a dark salsa which means that it is made with a lot of peppers and such.  Definitely not for the faint of stomach.  A word of advice….never drink it!  If you do your stomach won’t forgive you.  In fact it will likely get upset and make a scene.  At that point it might just run out of the restaurant and drive away, leaving you chasing behind screaming “Stomach!  Come back!  I still love you!”  Then you’d have to send it flowers because making up with your stomach is never easy (or fun).  So trust us on this one….stick to small quantities of the salsa.

Almost everything else on the menu is delicious, too.  Everything we have tried has been good.  We can heartily recommend the tostada, the burrito, and the enchilada.  The enchilada sauce is very good but the tortilla occasionally gets a little dry, which is weird because it is very moist in the burrito.  Also, the chicken sometimes seems dry but it is pretty flavorful.  And, as previously noted, everything that has beans in or on it is most excellent!

We also mentioned that Lola’s is a convenience store, so they have a large selection of bottled drinks as well as other items like candy and even ice cream.  The only downside of Lola’s is that it closes at six o’clock in the evening and it is not open on Sundays.

Would we bring our mama?  Yes we’d feel comfortable bringing them as they would likely enjoy the homey atmosphere.

Would we bring a date?  While we don’t think this would be a great date place, it would be a good pit stop on the way to the beach or somewhere else downtown.

Our overall rating of Lola’s is a: 9.5 out of 10