The Mexican — Restaurant in East Devon

I don't normally leave bad reviews but the owner was so rude about the couple of complaints we had that I feel I should leave an honest account of the food (you can see the arrogance coming through in some of his replies to other bad reviews on here). I'll list each thing we had and review it individually.

Kids meal - jacket potato with beans and cheese. The jacket was undercooked and a little hard so didn't really want to feed it to our son (we weren't charged for this, much to the owners displeasure). On a side note, they also don't serve any drinks suitable for younger kids like a fruit shoot etc.

Mexican burger (lunch menu version) - we ordered 2 of these and even though the waitress asked what cheese we would like on them, no cheese was served as she said she made a mistake, they don't put cheese on the lunch version, fair enough we all make mistakes. However just looking at the burgers they looked dry, and one of us couldn't eat it because it was, the other pressed on only to find a small bit of blue plastic or cloth stuck to the burger. (Not charged for one of these)

Chimichangas with mushroom, cheese and sausage - The tomato sauce this was served with was nice and the chimichangas itself wasn't bad. It was literally just what it was listed as, the three ingredients in a fried tortilla, the mushrooms tasted tinned and it was maybe the softest chimichangas I have had but nothing really to complain about.

We ordered a couple of tapas for the table as well: Albondigas - I shall just call these cumin balls, as it was the only taste they had. They were extremely crumbly which i put down to the amount of things put in the meatball to pack them out - I've never had sultanas in a meatball before.

Patatas Bravas - these didn't taste too bad, but the texture wasn't the normal crispy potato, if I had to guess I would say it was a jacket potato cut up and fried to make it quicker.

All in all it was disappointing, which isn't the end of the world. It's not the most authentic mexican restaurant I've been in around the uk, I won't compare it to the ones in Mexico lol. It wouldn't normally leave me writing a negative review, but as I said, the arrogance of the owner just made it a bad experience, he never really apologized, just said how he'd been serving it for 20 years and didn't get complaints all while getting a more aggressive...

Despite living in Exmouth for 4 years, we had never visited The Mexican, not being great fans of Mexican cooking but also not realising they did one of my favourites, ribs and wings. With our Daughter down for a long weekend, this seemed a good opportunity to visit for some sharing plates.

We ordered BBQ Sweet wings of fire; coated in ‘BBQ chilli sweet sauce’, Rack of ribs, ‘coated in chefs smoked BBQ sauce’, and Spicy potato wedges ‘served with warm salsa’. The above descriptions would suggest 3 completely different flavours; unfortunately what was served was a plate of bare ribs and a plate of bare chicken wings, both covered in a far too generous portion of identical BBQ sauce which had clearly been added after cooking the meat and not ‘cooked in’ as you might expect. Neither was this a ‘chef’s sauce’ but tasted more like an ultra-sweet supermarket bbq dipping sauce. The side portion of wedges was served minus the promised salsa sauce.

All in all, this could have been knocked up at home in half an hour with ready-available ingredients from Tescos.

There was one paper napkin per person on the table, and while a finger bowl for the mains was brought, no extra napkins were offered and the three provided were quickly used.

The only saving grace for this place is the friendly owner and staff; sadly the food did not match the service. Music was a rather distracting random Spotify-type mix of unrelated songs that brought nothing at all to the restaurant, the overall atmosphere, or the occasion.

A shame, as the location and menu could be a goldmine, especially given the extremely poor reviews that Exmouth’s latest American Diner is currently getting. A little tweaking to the menu and this place could absolutely clean up as Exmouth’s go-to Tex-Mex.

It would however appear once again that far too many of Exmouth’s eateries adopt a degree of complacency in the Summer when the tourists are more than happy to leave good reviews for lazy and unadventurous food; These places might do well to remember it is the locals who keep them afloat in the Winter; unless of course they earn enough in the Summer...

If you prefer quantity over quality this place will serve you well. We had nachos to start (pictured) and the presentation was very lacklustre, I appreciate it may be hard to make this look nicer but they could definitely try - it's almost unidentifiable! Portion sizes were good and as you can see they're generous with sauces but quality is lacking throughout all the food we had.

The most disappointing thing was the duck breast (pictured) - they write on the menu that it comes pink but there wasn't even a hint of blush on any piece. The piece pictured was the thickest part of the meat where you'd hope there might be a tinge of red but it was completely cooked through - very disappointing, if I'd have known I would have stipulated to please do it rare but I took their word. Also be warned if you go for any steak you only get a choice of "pink or well done?" Not sure if they can't cater for anything else or why they don't ask how you'd like it rather than only giving 2 options. Think the staff or kitchen definitely need to be advised that this is an issue and ultimately is what has driven the reduced rating.

Staff were friendly and service was quick to begin with but after we got the bill no one came to us despite trying to catch the staff's attention multiple times so after 15 mins of waiting I went to the counter where I got told off for coming up to the bar and not waiting at the table which wasn't appreciated.

The rice also wasn't good...can't say for sure but looks and tastes like microwave rice.

The positives however were the staff made sure one of our guests, who has a few food intolerances, was able to eat something which was really appreciated. Also the margarita! For £5 I had low expectations but it was actually very good.

Given the reviews I had high hopes for this place but unfortunately was fairly disappointed. I probably wouldn't come back because the quality was subpar but I wouldn't rule it out if there was nowhere else - probably good for a large...