El Rodeo Brunswick — Restaurant in Brunswick

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...

This was my first trip to El-Rodeo, I was utterly disappointed. My wife had a vegetarian salad which she said was quite good. I on the other hand was not so fortunate. I ordered Fajitas Texas which consisted on beef, chicken and shrimp. What I got was straight chicken fajitas. My wife also asked for a side of guacamole that never came. We both ordered drinks which we both feel did not have any alcohol in them at all. I even ordered a 11.00 bucket that sounded delicious, because I wasn’t driving, only to be left feeling bloated from the bucket of soda I was served, she had a Bahamas mama that she said did not taste like it had any alcohol in it as well. The difference in price between the chicken fajitas I was served and what I actually ordered is about $1.75. I didn’t say anything because of the extreme language barrier of our server. In addition when my order arrived it was completely bland. All of the vegetables and chicken in my dish tasted the same, all of it was totally unseasoned including the side dish of rice, refried beans, cheese , sour cream lettuce and salsa .What I really found interesting is that there is no salt and pepper or hot sauce on the tables either, something you’d find in any Mexican restaurant worth visiting , my meal just wasn’t good period. Ultimately I waited to see the check to determine if they charged me for the more expensive dish which I did not get $18.99 or the cheaper chicken dish which I did get $17.25. It was the former $18.99. What really made me angry about this visit was the fact that the servers could not speak english well enough to understand and communicate as far as the menu goes. Outside of that I don’t care what language a person speaks. It’s not the fault of the server , it’s poor management. I paid the bill without saying anything and tipped only 10% which I still felt was too much. Normally with good service and good food my wife and I will tip sometimes up to 50%. I really felt that had our server at least been able to communicate with us as far as the menu and drinks were concerned, this review would have been different. I’m doubtful that...

Our party of 3 was seated immediately at 5:30pm on a Wednesday evening in July. Our waitperson had a bit of a challenge with English; we ordered two margaritas and a screwdriver. The last one we had to repeat multiple times because he couldn't understand "vodka and orange juice" or "screwdriver."

The drinks arrived quickly, along with a basket of slightly stale, unsalted tortilla chips and a monkey cup of what could only loosely be described as salsa. It lacked any character, and looked pretty much like tomato juice mixed with some grated bell pepper (and not much of that).

I will admit that my jalapeno margarita was very tasty, and my wife enjoyed her blood orange version. The screwdriver was properly made, but those are pretty hard to get wrong. I'd go back there for drinks, at least ... but the food was a major disappointment.

My mole poblano was apparently made with boiled and shredded chicken which was superficially sauced with mole; it came with sides of beans, rice and pico de gallo. It was the blandest preparation of mole poblano I've ever experienced, and the sides were only average.

My wife's combo platter consisted of a limp chimichanga (how does that happen?) and an enchilada that appeared (and tasted!) as though it been made with sauce strained from a can of Spaghetti-O's. The only filling in those was the same bland boiled and shredded chicken.

My father-in-law had a beef burrito. It was massive, and he could eat only perhaps a third of it. He also was disappointed in the lack of seasoning.

So ... service was reasonably fast, marred only by a bit of a language barrier. Drinks were quite good. Food ... not so much; there was plenty of it, but eating it was rather unrewarding.

I'd give the drinks 4 stars. The food, only 2. So 3 stars...