Review: El Toro

I have to say that I have great friends.  I am lucky enough to have friends who know just what to get me for my birthday....gift card to a restaurant.  My birthday was a couple months back, but my good freinds Zac, Kelly, and Dan gave me a gift card to El Toro restaurant in the Oakley/Hyde Park area.  I love Mexican food and had never been there before, so I was excited to be able to try something new!

El Toro is located in a shopping center on Paxton Ave. where Daybreak used to be.  I loved Daybreak and was a little disappointed when I saw it was closing, but there aren't a ton of Mexican options in this area.

My husband and I decided to go a couple weeks ago on a Thursday evening.  We arrived around 6 or so and we were immediately seated at a table.  The decor in El Toro is pretty standard for a Mexican restaurant.  Lots of colors and a bar toward the back.  We were seated in a booth by the window, which was nice, but a bit chilly.

Ross and I decided we were gonna start with a margartia.  El Toro offers FOUR different sizes: small, jumbo, grande and monster.  I was going to order the grande, but my husband talked me into the monster, we had a gift card after all, and the margaritas were a special price during happy hour.  This thing came out and I couldn't believe my eyes.  It wa HUGE.  It was seriously the biggest margarita I have ever had in my life!!  Now, as far as taste...it was just okay.  I think it was a bit to sweet for my liking.  I would have been happier with a smaller margarita with better proportion of tequila to the mix.

As most Mexican restaurants do, we were given some salsa and chips to start off with.  The chips were pretty good.  Salty and warm; however, the salsa again was just okay.  It was a bit too runny for me and didn't have much flavor and no kick to it whatsoever. 
                                

We also decided to try the queso dip, which always reminds me of my sister, she loves queso.  This queso was fine, better than the salsa.

El Toro's menu is also huge.  Ross and I took a long time deciding what to get because there were so many options.  I almost always get a quesadilla, fajitas, or tacos when I got to Mexican restaurants, so I decided to try something a bit different.  I went with a combo of a taco, enchilada, and chile poblano.

All in all, these were not that great.  The taco was fine.  I had ordered it with chicken and it was topped with lettuce and cheese.  The enchilada wasn't very good at all.  The chile poblano was the best of the three.  It was the only one that tasted like it had any flavor to it.  The other two items I had to add hot sauce or the runny salsa to.

Ross ordered some sort of burrito, as usual.  He thought his burrito was pretty good.  It came with a side of rice which he thought was pretty good as well.

We ended up not even being able to finish our margaritas because they were so big and sweet.

Our service was fine.  Pretty standard overall.  It was great that I had a gift card to El Toro but I don't know if I would go back. There are many other Mexican restaurants I like a lot better.  Prices were pretty average as well, average $6.99-$11.99 for dinner.
So, I thank my friends again for my gift card, despite mediocre food, we had a good time!
~Kate

Food: 2
Service: 3
Overall Experience: 2.5

Review: El Pueblo

Who doesn’t love Mexican food??  There seems to be more and more Mexican restaurants popping up around the area, but my go-to is El Pueblo in Blue Ash.   First of all, always check the Reach magazine.  There is almost always a coupon in there for El Pueblo that you might as well take with you.  We went up here on a recent Friday night when it was kind of warm but not warm enough to sit outside.  The restaurant was PACKED and therefore, pretty loud.  This didn’t bother us though.  We put our name in and headed to the bar.  I started with a frozen strawberry margarita and my husband got a Dos Equis Ambar. Both drinks kept us busy while we waited for the rest of our party to arrive.  While we waited, a server gladly brought us a basket of chips and salsa to snack on.

For it being a Friday evening, and for how crowded it was, we were seated pretty quickly considering we had a party of 9.  I would guess we waited no more than 20 minutes. 

The menu can be a little intimidating at first, but I would say it’s pretty similar to most Mexican restaurants I’ve been to.  I have been to El Pueblo multiple times, but I still like to try different things.  I decided on this night to go with the Quesadilla Dinner.  This is a basic quesadilla: chicken and cheese with a side of lettuce, sour cream, guacamole and tomatoes.  It was just the right size for me since I had some chips and salsa as well.  This quesadilla was pretty good, but my friend Anna got the Super Quesadilla, which I have had before, and I would say that is better.  It is a little bit bigger and has a cheese sauce on top of the quesadilla as well. 

Our other friend got the El Zacatecano. This was grilled chicken with chorizo, pineapple and melted cheese served over a flour tortillia with rice, lettuce, sour cream, tomato and cheese.  I didn’t try this, but she said it was very good.  I just never think to get dishes like this when I’m at Mexican restaurants. I always get the standards: tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, or nachos.  However, I thought this looked really good and opened my eyes to other types of food on the menu!  I may end up trying this in the future.

I couldn’t get pictures of what everyone else got, but some items that were ordered was a burrito, a chimichanga, and enchiladas. Everyone seemed pleased and full when finished with their orders. 

So, to wrap it up, here are some positives and negatives about El Pueblo:

Negatives:  It gets REALLY loud in here.  It can be hard to hear people sitting right next to you. It also gets pretty crowded; there was a wait the whole time we were there. 

Positives: The food is good and reasonably priced.  A 12oz margarita is about $4.50, domestic beers are $2.79 bottle and domestics are $3.29 a bottle.  Drafts are cheaper.   Most meals are around $10.  I don’t drink margaritas very often, but I think these are pretty good.  They have a nice patio for when it gets warm and parking is easy. 

~Kate