Chonitos Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Alhambra

First time visiting Chonitos, probably not the last!

The food was really good for us. I had a carne asada burrito, and my girlfriend tried their sopes (one chicken, one steak). We also had a watermelon agua fresca that was SO refreshing, and a horchata that was incredibly flavorful and rich (to me, it tastes like a mouthful of Christmas)!

The burrito was really good - the carne asada wasn’t too fatty, and the flavor was beautiful! It comes with rice and beans on the plate - the melted cheese they use on the beans is freaking great! So tasty!

My girlfriend enjoyed her sopes and said they were very good as well. Both of us were content with our plates - the portions are big, so we had leftovers the next day for brunch!

The chips and salsa with bean dip served when you arrive; let’s talk about this. Actually, the promise of bean dip was what sold us on trying Chonitos to begin with - bean dip is a huge bonus in our opinion, so that sealed the deal! Unfortunately, the bean dip is very spicy - so much so, that my girlfriend couldn’t eat it, which was really disappointing. I like spicy and I’m here to tell you - the bean dip is definitely too intense for casual diners, in my opinion. It needs to be toned down a notch. The salsa is decent - nothing incredible, and again, a touch too spicy for folks to truly enjoy. My mouth was definitely burning as I ate both - and my girlfriend had to sit it out and watch me eat as she sat there hungry. No bueno. And I’m not sure if it was our server or the restaurant’s practice - but the amount of salsa/bean dip they bring is SO little, after a few chips, I had to ask for more of each - the serving bowls are small, and they were each filled only half way! This comes across as the restaurant being super cheap, whether they intend to or not.

We had to ask our server multiple times to bring more chips and dips - the restaurant was not busy at all, and so that was unfortunate. The best is when you’re brought more chips, etc. without even having to ask; this was definitely not that. Our server was nice - very friendly, even. We just had to keep asking for things when we were one of her only tables. The rest of the staff was very nice, too - so no complaints about the team except for the spotty service we had.

The food took a long time to arrive. Too long, honestly. We weren’t in a rush - but if we had been, this would have been an issue. The restaurant was not busy - it felt like we were waiting at least 20 minutes for the plates, which is just a hair too long when you’re sitting there hungry (and unable to enjoy the chips/dips because everything is too spicy).

The restaurant has a loud sound system. Half of the interior is a bar space and the music is definitely louder there. The more formal dining area is a bit more quiet but the music is still just a touch too loud - or at least it was for an early afternoon meal, in our opinion. 8pm on a Saturday, we’d totally understand! But it was like 2pm and not very busy - the music should have been set to a more appropriate volume. It wasn’t HORRIBLE - but it was a bit annoying.

We will definitely be open to trying Chonitos again! It’s hard to judge based on one visit - the food was very tasty overall, and the service WAS nice, albeit slow. So maybe these things change with a different day and server. We shall see! It’s not super close to home - it’s about a 20-25 minute drive, so it’s not quite a neighborhood spot or impulse choice for us. But we agreed we definitely will return and try this place again - you can definitely do a lot worse when it comes to Mexican food, so give them a...

This place is over hyped. We must have came at the wrong time because the buffet was not available and that's what we saw on tiktok that caught our attention. But we still decided to stay and give it a try. I flipped through the menu too many times and couldn't find anything that caught my attention so decided to go with a combo of enchilada and chile relleno. The enchilada cheese was not even melted, the tortilla was still hard and the chile relleno had a funny taste to it. When we arrived we were served chips and salsa, let me tell you the salsa bowl was not even filled half way. The chips also came with a bean dip that was the same size of the salsa bowl an not filled half way. If you want more salsa you have to pay $1.50 they have that on a sign on the table, if you want more chips I believe it was $3. I always ask for extra salsa when I go to restaurants to put on my rice and beans. And to consider that the salsa brought in the first place wasn't even halfway filled in that tiny salsa bowl🤦‍♀️. I asked for a guacamole as an appetizer, it looked fresh on the picture in the menu like the ones you get made in front of you, we ordered a small because he gave us an option for a small or large, so we went with small. They brought us guacamole in the same salsa bowl 😂. So small and the guacamole was the kind that you get served on the side when you usually order a plate at other restaurants and they give you rice beans a small amount of salad and like a scoop of guacamole. That's the guacamole we were charged for. Nothing special like on the menu that looked all fresh. The Jamaica was completely watered down and tasted like sugar water. We also ordered steak picado, and if you look on the picture in the menu compared to what they brought to the table 🤦‍♀️ never again. They are very stingy with their portions and the prices are the type that you would see in a restaurant that serves great food. I would have gotten better options from El pescador or Kalaveras or any other restaurant like that. There's so much better out there. The service was so so, nothing special or extra. I was already bitter about the food so everything else was blah. I don't think the server did anything wrong, unless he had the option to make the guacamole the correct way and decided not to because we ordered a small in which he should have told us because we would have ordered the large to get and pay for what is worth it. After all, you eat with...

It has been a solid minute since I've had SUCH bad Mexican food. Mexican Husband and I ordered a pretty decent variety, including 2 different types of soup (Albondigas & Caldo de Res), tacos, tamales. The beef in the caldo was basically microwaved/overcooked 17hrs I couldn't even cut it up in small pieces bc it wasn't chewable. The vegetables were half raw in the "soups". Both soups were atrocious, and no beef flavor in the soup it was basically super oversalted water. Albondigas were not much better as the half raw vegetables and over salted broth ruined the passable meatballs 😔. Even the variety of tacos were bad, no flavor no seasoning, how can a Mexican restaurant mess up on 3 different types of tacos?? The Mexican rice was decent and I loved the refried bean dip that came with the really good tortilla chips. The tamales were passable but my husband reminded me that's probably bc it's not made in house. Everything made in house that we ordered was atrocious, not just not good. I feel sad bc we really wanted to find a new regular spot, unfortunately this wasn't it. TBH, any good reviews on this restaurant I don't believe came from those who have had REAL authentic Mexican or even good food. Don't waste money on a restaurant that doesn't even put effort in their tacos then charges high fees bc the...