La Bamba recently changed their Student's Card happy hour items.

They removed the 10rmb mixed drinks (I guess I was running them out of business)
They decreased Yanjing draft to 2rmb from 18:00~23:00 (This is good news if you like that cheap crap)

This isn't new but it seems ridiculous...my friend ordered a cappuccino at 6pm and received some sticker shock at the 45rmb charge. 500ml of beer drops to 2rmb, but coffee jumps to 45? Ummm ok.

Also, free pool! I waited 3 hours for the 2 locals to finish up, exactly at 6pm....but I was told each game starting after 6pm costs 10rmb per game.

Their chicken wings are terrible.

Their chimichangas and nachos are awesome...which is good since they will be the only reason to go there now :(

i loveD this place. shortly after arriving in china i ate here at least three times a week and making use of their very fair priced offers on mo, wed and fridays. i think the quality was good, the food affordable and the beer during the happy hours worth its money (only 5 yuan). recently, after having learned what i like and don't like in the chinese cuisine i reduced the appearances at la bamba.

however, there is no other place i have been to (next to rumi, that %$#&hole) where the service is so weak and waiters so useless.
first time i've been there a waiter (called "tom") gave us cocktails on the house as our food had pieces of plastic in the guacamole sauce. not a big piece, i guess their tuperware was old and broke, i personally had not a huge problem with it. the apology however was nice and charming, so i even took their shortcoming as a good sign as the reaction was nice.

recently however they simply started sucking. time management is below zero, you go out, order two dishes and it happened now for the third time that one gets the dish up to 45 min (!!!!!!!!!!!!) earlier than the other. where is the sense of eating together?

last time i wasn't able to finish everything, said kindly in chinese that the rest should be for take away and waited and waited. waitress refused to have eye-contact until i stopped her in front of the kitchen and asked if i could get my food as i want to leave. first she said that she doesn't know what i am talking about before she finally said that the kitchen has mistakenly thrown away the food.

instead of treating a regular customer in a more friendly manner and try to do something (ordering a new dish that i could take home or whatever one should do?), she just stood there, looked like a fish and refused to offer a solution, but said that she would be willing to accept a new order if i want to take something home. are you effing kidding me???

as i said, food ok, but it doesn't matter if the place is full (usually mo, wed, fri during lunch time) or empty (any other day after lunch time), the kitchen and/or the waiters are simply too stupid to bring you the food on time and rarely able nor willing to deal with constructive criticism. this place would be awesome if there would be some form of training for waiters on friendliness, service and time-management. on the other hand, i guess every second restaurant in beijing would be good if those problems wouldn't exist.

Right,I'll give you the most accurate review of this place from going there for 3 years, and you'll see how objective is:
La Bamba started as a place to eat cheap 'tex-mex' food. The service was absolutelly horrible.
Now i started to go almost 3 days a week because the service improved lots, they have specials like discounts for burgers or burritos at some days of the week. The food is double the price as it started but comparing it with the other mexican restaurants outside Wudaokou, this one still rules.And the atmosphere is great,this place is quiet before 12 midday and after 5 o clock is packed with all sorts of people. The best thing about this place is the decor, absolutelly mexican, great and you feel like inside of a big countryside mexican house. plus they have pool table, darts,photos of people who goes there, you can write stuff on the walls and mexican decor all over the place.
what's more, I went to US last year and checked up some mexican restaurants in California, they were all rubbish, absolutelly shame considering how close they are from Mexico and i couldn't believe that 'la Bamba' in China has better dishes than the ones in US. serious! this place is better than taco bell and all those california and texas fake mexican restaurants. so, now, in 2011 I strongly recommend 'La Bamba'.

This is not a Mexican restaurant so don't get your hopes up. Not my favorite place in Wudaokou but no one can beat it for being cheap for drinks. Although the food is more expensive then other places if you don't get there in time for the specials. The pizza was the worst pizza I ever had in my life!! When it comes out, it looks good but after lifting a slice up, my pizza was soggy, I don't understand how that can happen cause they put that thing in the oven. Did it come from the onions or something?! Besides the pizza, the salads are good! I gave it another star because the waiter was nice enough to fix my Internet.

I have visited this place several times. The food is ok but the environment is usually packed of smokers. Low budget place and sometimes nice ladies from all around the world

There is no place with better food specials in Wudaokou. On Monday its burgers, Wednesday its sandwiches, and Friday its burritos all for 10rmb. It's not the most fantastic food but all the specials come with fries. Certainly satisfying. Also from 10am - 7pm there are 5rmb Beers (0.5L) and selected mixed drinks (Rum and Coke, etc). Which is great if you want to come in at 11 in the morning to drunkin' wrestle and to delay the hangover from the night before. The staff is extremely friendly. They seem to enjoy the their jobs. I have never been to La Bamba at night, but there seems to be no better place for afternoon lunches.

La Bamba has the best food and drink specials that I have found. Burgers mondays, sandwich wednesdays, and burrito fridays are amazing. The food is very good and the service is excellent. This place isn't quite as well known as other places in Wudaokou but is becoming more and more popular. I definitely recommend it for lunch, dinner, and drinks!

Is it authentic Mexican? Of course not. But I've found myself at La Bamba's more times than I care to count this year. The food, while not amazing, is decent, and the prices are cheap. They have great specials (like 10 RMB burgers/chicken sandwiches on Mondays and 5 RMB beers before 5 pm), service is better than most, and you always know what to expect. The atmosphere is lively, with a pool table near the bar, and the place is always filled with a younger crowd. It's the place we usually go when we want some decent Western food but don't want to spend a lot of money.

La Bamba is one of my favorite mon/fri haunts, mainly for the food specials. Monday features 5RMB tacos. They come two to a plate (with, what I would guess is a single taco filling spread amongst the two). All flavors are on sale and served with salsa on the side...I had the carne asada, chicken and ground beef. All were pretty tasty and a good deal for the money. Friday is 15RMB burrito day. I've only gotten the carne asada...the burrito is filled with beans, rice and cheese and also has salsa on the side. Not the best burrito in BJ, but it satisfies my craving. I would give the place 3 stars for food, but the professional foosball table and well-kept billiards table wins over a last star. Recommended for the overall price experience.

Being a huge fan of Mexican food I was pretty excited to see a restaurant called La Bamba, even that it was above the sub-par Propaganda (that's being generous) didn't scare me away from trying it and I'm glad it didn't.

No it's not a Mexican restaurant. It's an Chinese version of an American Mexican Restaurant. The Mexican food is not authentic but it's not bad tasting, except the Vegetarian Tacos which I found incredibly bland and disappointing. The nachos are fairly disappointing if, like me, you are a big fan of a plate of nachos with your beer. The Burritos are flattened and a bit strange looking but taste good anyway. On the good side the Pizza here was great, 16 Inches for a fairly average price is not a bad deal and it filled me and my friend up with many slices left for take away.

I found the staff to be very friendly and helpful with what I was ordering. I tend to add and subtract things from my food orders a lot and they always got it right for me and never looked pissed I did so. Their English wasn't great but with a good English menu it's pretty easy to just point at what you want and be happy (if you want to add and subtract things learn to say Yao, Bu Yao or stop whining), not sure why so many people expect English speaking waitresses in China, restaurants usually have a high rate of turn over and for what waiters and waitresses are paid I'm not surprised they don't sit at home memorizing the menu.

The drinks here were fairly standard and after a number of visits with drinks ranging from Pints of Carlsberg to Frozen Margaritas and all those in between I would say the selection is fine and the taste is good. The Happy hour is long and the beer is cheap during it so can't complain too much. A good place to sit down, have some drinks, play some pool and chat.

Over all I'd recommend it to others as a good Beer and Pizza restaurant and an alright Mexican restaurant but only because China has so few good Mexican restaurants that anything remotely Mexican can be rated as alright.