| Tex-Mex restaurant with a bar that has been operating since 1983. |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1040
Reviewed: 9/9/2004
Rating: 6.5
My photo gallery
|
Always looking for new places to try, we were surprised to find a mexican restaurant within 5 miles of work. El Paso Cafe is located on El Camino and block north of Shoreline ave. Parking is on the street and restaurant only accepts cash.
Ordering can be a little confusing. You grab a menu, find out what you want, place your order at the register, find a table, and they will deliver the food to you (service is extremely fast). For a restaurant this big, they should have waiters or waitresses.
I can swear flautas are suppose to be made out of flour :p I ordered the 3 chicken flautas with rice and beans.
Flautas - chicken was dry, the tortilla was corn..sigh..guacamole had way too much lime, salsa was lacking. I cant recommend ordering this dish.
Rice - ok, had potatoes in it, was worth eating
Beans - pinto beans were whole, I had 2 spoonfuls and that was it..sigh...
For me, I dont think Ill be making a return visit. I didnt even finish my meal, I was out of money, and I had to get back to work. What a disappointing lunch...with too many other mexican choices in the bay area I will have to pass on El Paso Cafe.
|
| |
Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 739
Reviewed: 9/13/2004
Rating: 6.5
My photo gallery
|
El Paso Cafe was a Jatbar DriveBy(c) turned bad. Well, not really bad, just rather unexciting. I think TexMex tends to bring up feelings of ennui with me. Yet, I decided to make the most of it and order a burrito. Sometimes its really tough to mess up a burrito, right? The veggie burrito arrived at the table after a few minutes and it was bursting forth with ingredients. It was definitely large. Inside was lettuce, tomatoes, pinto beans, sour cream, guac, but no cheese. Well, its veggie and its a texmex place so I'll cut them a LITTLE slack. How did it taste? Well it tasted like something even I could make. Nothing really authentic or texmex about it. I was left with a very conservative interpretation of what a burrito should be. I noticed El Paso also serves up beer, so maybe if I had a few beers and was feeling hungry, this would be just the thing to hit the spot. As it was, however, I was looking for great food. I just didn't find it here at the El Paso.
|
| |
|
|
Reviewer: Julie
Total Reviews: 46
Reviewed: 9/9/2004
Rating: 5.5
My photo gallery |
As I'm sure it says somewhere in my agent profile (Jason wrote it so many times, I can never remember what the final version ended up being), I'm from Texas. I'm a proud Texan and as such, aggregious over-use of blantantly Texan parafanalia to sell food, or any other good or service, really annoys me. Real Texas BBQ, Texas-sized X, etc etc. If they back up those descriptions with the genuine article, then it's acceptable. I'm sorry to say that the El Paso Cafe was not the genuine article. The decor was horrible! All over the menu were references to Texas things, and there were a few Texas license plates, long horns, and lassos scattered on the walls. Puh-leeeese...
I ordered the Fajita Taco plate and some guacamole to go with our chips. One nice touch was the serve yourself chips and salsa bar. Pity the chips weren't very good, or I would have gotten my money's worth right there. They were dry and I found no trace of salt anywhere. The guacamole was downright awful! There was so much lime, cilantro, and onion that the subtle joy of the avacado was completely overshadowed - aside from the fact that it looked like guacamole, I can't even be sure there was avacado in it. Then my food arrived and the dissapointment continued. The tortillas were cold, and the fajita meat in my tacos had no flavor, not to mention that the runny salsa had made the whole plate soggy.
I was really dissapointed in El Paso Cafe. It had potential, but just didn't deliver. And for the $15 I spent on my lunch, I got about $2 of enjoyment - the coke was tasty. |
| |
Reviewer: Eddie
Total Reviews: 47
Reviewed: 9/9/2004
Rating: 6.5
My photo gallery |
Another day that we need to short lunch, just looking for a place to grab a bite. We decided to try El Paso Cafe. I ordered Super Burrito with spicy chicken and a coke - $7.15, not bad at all. You get your own chip and salsa, and find your own table. I think that's kidna cool. We grabbed a table outside being this is a nice weather. The chip and salsa wasn't impressive at all, Julie ordered guac, but that didn't taste good either. The food was delivered pretty fast, took the first bite, it was messy. I tried to hold up the burrito but it was falling apart and the chicken was not spicy at all.... kinda disappointment. I couldn't finish the burrito, not that it wasn't good enough, but somehow I was interested in eating even though I was hungry. There is no love for this place, not that it's bad but with plenty of better choices around, I can't say I will come back.
|
| |
Reviewer: Dan
Total Reviews: 84
Reviewed: 10/10/2005
Rating: 6.5
My photo gallery |
I have eaten at El Paso Cafe half a dozen times since a co-worker took me there. I've tried everything from their burgers to their Mexican food.
Hamburger -- Pretty good, actually. Nice cross-cut fries with it. But I can find an equivalent elsewhere, closer to work, and for a slightly lower price.
Chicken enchiladas -- My personal favorite Mexican food. It's hard to make a chicken enchilada I don't like. This one seems to be paint-by-numbers cooking: Get pre-cooked meat, roll in corn tortilla, cover in pre-prepared sauce, sprinkle cheese on top. Not a lot of character, the meat has very little sauce or veggies, and what it does have is not very flavorful. This could be the same meat they use for their tacos, for all I know.
Green Chile pork -- nice quantity, nice flavor, but nothing special. Hard to remember since it was pretty unmemorable.
One day they had some kind of enchilada with green sauce on the specials board and I got all excited since green chile sauce (i.e. from New Mexico and west Texas) is my favorite. What a disappointment! It wasn't green chile but green tomatillo sauce, just like everywhere else in California. Perhaps when they named this place they meant El Paso, Wisconsin rather than El Paso, Texas.
I stopped going to El Paso Cafe a while ago after the newness wore off. Not worth a special trip. I rate it a 6.5 |
| |
|
|
| Disclaimer |
|
|
