The best of the American-style Mexican restaurants in the area, La Carreta is the Mandeville location of a small Louisiana chain. Its menus have kept pace with the opening of many small Mexican cafes around the New Orleans area in the past few years. Most of those introduced dishes not before seen in this area. La Carreta has been quick to pick up on the best of those and prepare them credibly, in a mainstream restaurant environment.
La Carreta is a small, rapidly-expanding chain of seven Mexican restaurants in Southeast Louisiana. Saul Rubio, native of Queretaro, Mexico, came to Hammond to go to school, and worked in the usual capacities in Mexican restaurants. In 1998, at 36, he opened his first restaurant in Hammond. Almost from the beginning, the restaurant has not only expanded its reach but also its menu and its individual locations. The one in Mandeville has been renovated at least twice. La Carreta has no connection with Carreta's Grill, another chain of Mexican restaurants in the same region.
The walls are dark, but the lighting gives the tables in the two main rooms a pleasing brightness. A few outdoor tables are under the trees. The service staff is friendly and responsive, and may even be too quick to bring the food out.
If you're going to have an appetizer, split it with someone else--it's too much food. Also, tell the server to hold back on your entree until you're finished the first course.
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