We were having a hard time finding a place to dine in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for dinner. We passed a sign for Carlos and Pepe's near our hotel. It boasted being "World Famous," and the reviews Paul read said the guacamole was tops. I was getting quite hungry, so we decided to stop.

The restaurant was very popular. It seems to be a very large restaurant with many tables, even outside and in a bar, and few tables were empty. The staff was quite polite.

Ordering from the menu proved to be trickier than expected. There were very few vegetarian items on the menu--mainly limited to the salad, quesadilla, and vegetable fajitas. Paul asked if he could have a burrito with just beans, and waitress said that wasn't on the menu. So, he ordered the Caesar cause the waitress said the dressing was without anchovies and I ordered the spinach quesadilla. Paul also ordered the guac with a side of flour tortillas.

Our meal was delivered piecemeal by another waiter or bus boy, but when he put my plate down, he did it too slowly and the quesadilla slid right off the plate. He apologized and took it right back to be remade. Paul's guacamole came quickly, but the tortillas that were on the menu as an appetizer were the last item to arrive. Ironically, the tortillas were most worth the wait. The guac itself was good quality, too. The salad was nice, but nothing special, and was served with a jalapeño bread that we never tasted because we packed it with the leftover salad to take back to our room, but ran into some hungry homeless people outside of the restaurant and gave the leftovers up. When I did finally get the quesadilla, I was impressed that the spinach was fresh and not overloading the meal. It was good, just big.

Despite the mostly acceptable food, our issues with dining at Carlos and Pepe's were simple, but bothersome enough to keep us from considering the restaurant on our list of "visit again": few vegetarian items, appeared to not want to make special orders or make an item vegetarian that was on the menu as having meat, the odd delay in delivery of food, and the difficulty in getting the attention of our waitress for a refill of salsa.