Temazcal Burlington — Restaurant in Burlington

The fact that this place was dead on a Sunday should’ve told me everything I needed to know. But I ignored my gut and gave it a chance. Big mistake.

Let’s start with the chips. They were stale, chewy, and had clearly been sitting out for days - Wednesday at best. They weren’t even warmed up, just tossed on the table like an afterthought. If you can’t get the chips right at a Mexican restaurant, that’s a serious red flag from the get go.

I ordered the fajitas ($26) and asked if I could mix steak and chicken. The waitress smiled and said “Sure!” - not a single word about any additional charge. There was no mention of an upcharge anywhere on the menu, either. No asterisk, no fine print, no heads-up. Just a casual “Sure!,” like this was a normal, "no-big-deal" request.

Imagine my shock when the bill came and I saw I’d been charged an extra $14 - $40 in total - for a few, thin strips of completely average steak mixed in with my chicken - where the whole "mess" was more or less on a bed of cooked onion. Let me be clear ... the food was serviceable; but that’s about the best I can say. It was OK(ish). Very "MEH". Not flavorful, not memorable - just fine. For nearly $40 for a single serving, you’d expect something to stand out.

I also ordered a single cocktail, and even that came with a $4 overcharge compared to what was listed on the menu. Believe me ... after getting royally screwed on the meal, I checked.

At this point, I was so irritated I couldn’t even bring myself to engage with a manager as I didn't think I could be remotely polite about it. The waitress was kind - but neglected to call out my entree was going to more or less DOUBLE by adding steak - which seems like a BIG MISS. That said, the way this place operates feels sloppy at best ... and shady at worst. I paid my bill and left and wrote this review in my head on the way back to the hotel.

Bottom line: I felt completely taken advantage of. This wasn’t just a disappointing meal - it was an overpriced, underwhelming, and frankly frustrating experience. $70 for fajitas and a single, small cocktail is absolute insanity.

If you’re considering coming here, don’t just look at the overall, aggregate ratings - read the recent reviews. I wish I had. (I won’t make that...

Average food gussied up to seem high quality, only tastes good because of lots of oil and butter, but quality of ingredients is not very high. Complementary tortilla chips not warmed, big no-no in my book. Salsa served with it was too smooth, like tomato sauce. Black bean dip with bacon was tasty. Much of the food there is rather spicy and they don't even provide sour cream with it to cool your mouth. Chicken fajita consisted of a small low quality chicken breast with half a ton of onions and a few minuscule pieces of bell pepper with a slice of avocado and little bowls of rice and salsa for 20$. A couple of tortillas they served with it had been burnt. Waitress advised us to get the camarones Al ajillo without the chili if we didn't want anything spicy so we ordered it but they didn't do it. The waitress said she visually could tell they had forgotten to leave out the chili which makes us wonder why she didn't notice before serving it. It was extremely spicy. There were only seven shrimp that were drenched in butter for 23$. She let us keep it without charge and brought us instead the salmon tacos. 2 salmon tacos, 19$. Salmon tasted frozen. Nothing was very fresh tasting, no herbs to speak of including the very common cilantro. Waitress never asked us if we wanted salt on our margarita, which I thought was standard. They said they didn't make frozen drinks yet ironically served margarita in a huge pile of ice. We had them strain it and the result was a drink that didn't even fill a martini glass for 13$. But it was good. Server could have been better, Lena was very brusque and not pleasant, always seemed to be rushing off. Asked us how everything was from the aisle instead of at our table. Didn't bring enough containers for our leftovers and had to keep coming back. Restaurant has very pleasant decor. Overall you can get much better Mexican food elsewhere at half the cost, but decor is nice and tequila fans would probably like it. Certainly average food at a high price, only tasty thanks to...

We went to Temazcal today as a group for a scheduled work lunch. The restaurant, the choice of items on the menu, the staff, and the decor all indicate that Temazcal is positioning itself as an upscale Mexican restaurant. The menu, for example, had a couple of items featuring slow-cooked beef short ribs, almost a necessity for any upscale restaurant for the past five years or so. I chose one of those dishes, the Tacos Mechados, which is served with Mexican rice and black beans.

As with virtually all Mexican restaurants, we were served nachos when we sat down, and three dips were provided. Look, I grew up on the west coast and visit relatives in the Phoenix area often, and typically the three options would be a verde salsa, a milder red salsa, and a spicier red salsa. In this case, it was a mild red salsa and a mild verde salsa, along with a bean dip. The chips and salsa were fine. The bean dip was fine. The Mexican rice was short-grained and fine, and the black beans were not very good, not as good as the refried beans found in any low-end Mexican franchise sit-down restaurant.

And that was the problem with Temazcal. First and foremost, the flavor profiles of the items on my plate did not delight the palate, and were not better than a typical Mexican restaurant in New England. Temzcal's first location opened in 2011 and there are currently four of them, so I assume they must be doing something right. But magically transporting the diner to any particular region of Mexico via authentically and expertly prepared dishes is not one of of those things. This is no big surprise. The typical New England palate balks at spicy food, and unlike the Southwest, there was never a huge influx of Mexicans here, so there's no expectation of good, authentic Mexican food here. It exists, but it's rare. .

You won't hate the food at Temazcal, but neither will you end up with wonderful memories of a great meal...