El Mariachi Mexican Restaurant Hastings St Burnaby BC

El Mariachi Mexican Restaurant

We need a quick bite to eat so decided to try the newly opened mexican joint that previously was called El Mexico or something. I previously tried lunch at El Mexico last year and I found it mediocre so I was skeptical about the new owners.

Sad to say, I was disappointed. We arrived at 6.45 and waited 10 mins for our server to get our orders. Mind you there was 1 server and 1 mgr? and they kept walking back and forth from the tables to the cash area getting drinks. It was clear to us there was no experience here. It seems they went to a table, forget something came back to the cash, grabbed something, went back to the table, went to another table, went back to the cash and back and forth every minute. It was very annoying.

After waiting 10 mins waiting, the waitress got our order and 5 mins later we got the compliementary chips. It was ok, the salsa and salsa verde were good. We ordered chicken fajitas, bbq pork and nachos as appy. I would expect an appy to come out usually 10mins from ordering. This wasn't the case, we got our nachos 25 mins later. We gobbled it up, and waited another 15-20 mins for our dishes. The BBQ pork in adobo sauce was basically vingery ketchup sauce poured on top of BBQ ribs. gross. My chicken fajitas looked like a chinese stir-fry with "red" sauce, bland, and full of water collected on the side of my dish. It came with beans which were nice and a dry cup of mexican rice. We had to ask for the tortillas as well.

Over an hour later, we were very disappointed, late and will never eat mexican food in a restaurant ever again. We have yet to try Dona Cata which I heard its ok.

I'll take Taco Del Mar anyday.

I didn't bother taking pics because I didn't want to waste space on my blackberry, plus you'd barf if you saw the food.