El Chilito — Restaurant in Austin

If you are experiencing Austin and looking for tacos please do yourself the favor of walking one more block to taco-mex or visit : taqueria arrandinas, taqueria gudalajara, Juan Im a million, Veracruz!!!!

I personally don’t understand how this place is so popular... to be fair I’ve tried this place at this location multiple times over 3 years. I was excited because one of my friends rave about it but noooooo. I don’t know if I need to get the word authentic out of my head to like the food or even texmex because it’s really neither. I’ve ordered the puffy taco before it was okay super chewy and greasy but if that’s your thing hey go for it something different. I’ve tried the Selena and if I wanted to open a can of black beans and drizzle whole beans over a tortilla and call it a taco then I guess that would be fine too. The only thing possibly close to not offending Mexican food at this joint is their tinga de pollo. Also if you order “tacos” here get corn their flour tortillas are thick as mission labeled tortillas. I went at the beginning of this month and my boyfriend and I ordered 6 tacos and only ate two of them. I brought the rest home hoping to warm them and put them in a fresh flour tortilla but honestly just threw them alway because it didn’t make sense that I paid for food I had to recook at home to...

So we ordered the Brentwood and the chicken tinga burrito song with the mimosas, sangria & blood orange beer. It was just ok. The bites were just like blah blah blah so I added the green sauce and it made it a little better. Then I tried it with the red sauce ok. it’s not someplace that I would just go back and be like oh I need to have this. The vegetables were fresh, the onions and the tomatoes were really good, the cilantro and everything on the side gave it a nice little flavor, but as far as the chicken tender but bland. I wasn’t impressed. The Brentwood was very tasty but and all the vegetables worked well together. The sauce & Barria tacos smelled as if they we’re going to be full of flavor but also feel short. The service was A1 & the food was ready really fast. I can’t believe I didn’t like it that much- overall not really that excited about anything but the outdoor seating. I wanted to Ike the do’s so bad I did finish it waiting for that greatness but it just didn’t happen.I won’t be taking a special trip back to that side of town to...

Perhaps I caught El Chilito on a bad day, because although the food came out very quickly (earning this establishment an additional star), and although the employees were quite nice, almost everything else was off.

A restaurant that specializes in burritos should know how to wrap burritos. Instead, the burritos my friends and I received were constructed more like open-faced meals; the burrito contents appear to have been dumped onto an open tortilla and them quickly rolled, which resulted in them falling apart upon opening. Great.

Worse yet, my vegetarian friend (who ordered food for the both of us) received my burrito, which had meat and was improperly labeled as "vegetarian" (they apply a label with a "V" on the burrito). For some people, not eating meat is important for reasons relating either to health or moral beliefs, but clearly no one here was paying close attention. There were six people total. To boot, the food wasn't exactly spectacular.

So, what's the deal? Apparently people love this place so there must be something...