If you love this type of cuisine, prefer to keep your stomach feeling well and dream of a pleasant dinner out in the midst of covid, this restaurant is NOT for you.

I struggle to give any establishment a review so incredibly negative, however the experience at El Rodeo actually caused a loss of sleep. I've rarely left taking the family out feeling so depressed; utterly defeated like something had just stole all joy from existence.

Let's start with the lighting. Broken glass lampshade above our table. Although that isn't particularly concerning as the brightness of the lightbulbs they are using makes you feel like someone just dragged you out of bed and made you stare at the sun.

The salsa. Somewhere in the cosmos, the spirit of salsa is crying. It was served with the same glazed-over just out of the can look as tomato paste. While it did have a decent flavor blend, it's no-effort look and consistency is just terrible. I get excited having chips and salsa everywhere possible. If that's the first thing you serve people, shouldn't it reflect what the rest of your experience will be like? Well it certainly did!

There's no complexity to the dishes. Presentation is just 'cover it in cheese'. And when you decide to cut into your dish, just check it out first. My beef and my sons was severely undercooked. The cow might have still been moving.

Upon politely raising this to our server, they were reluctant to acknowledge the plainly visible issue, resolving to offer us to take the specific items off the plates that were bad and remake them An astonishing thing considering the potential for cross contamination. I honestly don't know why I consented to the idea. Perhaps foresight for the entertainment of them bringing out the replacement enchilada and taco only to find that it was a different meat. Exhibit A: meat with nothing in it, uncooked. Exibit B: meat with onions, green veggies, cooked. So they either added it in which is doubtful or grabbed beef cooked for a different dish. Either way, an offensively bad attempt at making things right.

They did bring us a dessert on the house for the incident. It was appreciated and really not half bad. I might go there again, in another life, just to have that.

But the stomach cramps that ensued for over 24 hours, the waste of food, the waste of hard earned money, the let down after waiting so long to have this food again, and the overall poor handling of things tells me I'll never be back.

And if you like this place, know that I'm praying for you.