El Portal Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Auburn

Our experience at this particular restaurant was terrible at best. We received terrible service with a smile! Couldn't quite figure out if we were receiving the smile because they felt bad for us or because they thought they were doing us a favor. Either way between the slow, terrible service and the low quality of the food that we received it is so safe to say that we will never again waste any of our time, or money here again. Their Hot Sauce was good, but it's not worth everything else we had to go through just to get the hotsauce. Bad service from the entrance all the way through to the exit. I tried to order what I wanted, but because my particular desires was not an entree' I was not allowed to order exactly what I wanted. So Bad Service + Had to use my money to order something that I didn't want + once food was brought out to us yes it was Hot, but it was more like a Hot Mess. All together is a math equations that = Disaster Eatery Experience. The food was over cooked maybe left on a burner plate too long. The refried beans looked and tasted as if they had been fried, refried and refried and refried over and over again. The whole experience was bad and I hope I never have to endure another pleasure dining experience as this one! Grade Card Service - D Quality of Food - D- Cleanliness - B Pricing - A+ ( but food quality explains why pricing was so inexpensive)! Overall...

The quote in this comment box said, "Tell others why you hate this place." I don't hate this place. We just didn't have a very good experience. Thursday Jan 21, 2021 after 1800 we arrived. Young male in his twenties was our host in seating us. Very impersonal, quick to seat and walked away with hardly any communication. (Hopefully he was just having a bad day.) Wasn't even wearing his PPE Mask correctly with his nose exposed. Now our waitress was very kind, helpful and prompt. The busser also a female was very kind also. I cannot eat wheat, so I chose the burrito bowl with the flat top seared steak plus guacamole. It was ok. The steak had a slightly seared. But in inspecting my steak the meat was grey do to more poaching than searing. Couldn't eat all of it. My husband said his burrito was ok. Edible. Not sure if we will return. My husband says,"no" on that aspect. Me, I will wait until restrictions are lifted more, and maybe I will try to convince him to try them one more time. All in all the price was reasonable even after the 25% tip. We are the type of customers who prefer small mom and pop establishments. We prefer supporting small businesses like this one. They are still the foundation and heart of our communities. Be safe. Plz social distance and wear PPE for all our sakes. Thank...

I sat at the bar, and was the only one there(@ the bar) its a large menu so i needed an extra minute to look over the menu, 25 minutes later they took my order. Once that was done I could finally use the restroom. When I came back from the restroom they had cleared and cleaned all my stuff(drink, chips, & salsa). My food came out in reasonable time, and it was ok. The steak in my dish was quite charred on one side but it was still ok. When I finished, the waiting game started again. It took a little over 20 mins to finally get my check. Not sure who my server was, as someone different did each part of my experience. It was ok, if I'm ever back again, I would def be checking out other options...