Mexicanito GourMex — Restaurant in Ixelles - Elsene

We were just here and let me tell you this mexican restaurant is nothing like I've ever seen before. I've always enjoyed mexican food so selecting this place to eat in the city was definitely an easy choice. But last night was like tasting authentic mexican food for the first time. Everything they brought was what most feel like being spoiled by your mexican grandma when you go visit her, it felt homemade, it felt traditional and it felt made with love and pride. For the first time I could taste the corn in the tortillas, enchilladas, tostadas and whatever else we ordered. I had the "enchiladas verdes" since I'd never had the chance to try the green tomatoes sauce, and it was worth it. The ceviche was to die for, I wish I could eat it everyday of my life. I 've had ceviche many times but the peruvian kind, which is white. This was made with tomatoes and felt a bit creamy. To be honest I've no idea what they put in it, but don't really care since it all felt fresh and healthy. They are so detail-oriented that they had the plates made with the restaurant logo and it couldn't look more traditional than that. They even have a mural with "lucha libre" caricatures among many other traditional mexican decoration. Looking forward to come back very soon.

P.D. i usually have pics of everywhere I go, but the food smell so delicious I didn't even remember to take them BEFORE we ate, so......

First course ceviche with fish and shrimps was fresh but simple, just with onions and tomatoes, not very creative compared to more refined ceviche dishes. Mixed “Tacos especial” with three rather boring taco variants, a quesadilla, and decent accompaniments beans, guacamole, and tomato sauce. Really not worth the visit. Uncomfortable chairs and tables (on the terrace). My wife ate before and didn’t want anything more to eat. I was very hungry and usually love Mexican food. Ten minutes after ordering a special menu, another waitress came back to tell us that the kitchen refused to prepare the special menu unless we both ordered it (no mention on the menu). Clearly, they suspected us to eat for two out of the menu for one. I ended up ordering the same dishes as initially with the special menu, but left away the cocktail initially included. In the end, we paid one Euro more than for the special menu but didn’t go for additional drinks and enjoyed coffee and dessert at the highly recommendable “The Maison du Monde” just a few footsteps further, which serves a genuinely inventive, creative Île Maurice...

It was the third time I went to the Mexican restaurant, the cuisine is authentic and really tasty. What a pity that the service is just non existant. You wait for half an hour to get the first drinks, the starters came relatively quickly (20 min later) than they forgot to take the order for the main dish, disappeared for 30 min, 45 min later whrn two of the three dishes were ready, the waitress informed us, that there was not enough fish for the third dish, another 20 min waiting... it was specially annoying as I had invited friends and had praised the restaurant... overall I had to go 4 times to look for the service, we got the (fortunately great!) dishes after hours of patience and the girl got two times the orders wrong bringing the wrong drinks. Service standards in Belgium are low, but, this was the worse I have experienced since a long time. The owner has to get the service trained and professional if not this will become a disaster which would be a pity as the cuisine is top. Overall a very stressing experience as I wanted my friends to enjoy...