El Encanto — Restaurant in Cave Creek

Came here for a wedding anniversary. From the website, the place looked like it would be a great spot for some southwest food. Wrong. This place was horrible and felt like a tourist trap, but with bad food. The place was packed on a Sunday afternoon, and naturally, I would assume things would be great with all the patrons. We had reservations, so we were able to get seated quickly, but that was the only good thing I can say about this place. -they gave my wife a water glass that was cracked. She almost cut her lip on it. The cracked was in a U shape at the top and atleast 3 inches long. Very obvious to anyone that looked at the glass. -tables were filthy and not cleaned. -our waitress didn't know what elote was when I asked about it. -ordered two margaritas, glasses were mini and held maybe 6 ounces of liquid after ice. -menu states how authentic the food is. However, all food items we had didn't have any flavor, nor was not made with the freshest ingredients. -people and kids throwing all kinds of food into the pond that has ducks and turtles. None should be eating spicy food. See pic with a duck that had a chicken quesadilla stuck to its back and couldn't get it off after diving underwater. To me, that meant the cheese melted to the feathers and unable to remove because someone thought it was a great idea to toss a hot quesadilla onto the duck. -when we immediately showed the waitress the broken glass my wife was given, no apologies, only wow, how did that happen. Would not ever recommend this place. Tacobell has more flavor and better service. Been to many southwest restaurants from TX, NM, AZ, and NV, never did I encounter a horrible...

This is a must see place to visit when in Cave Creek. I love the atmosphere so much it was the first place I took family visiting from out of town.

There is a large pond inside the restaurant with an open air for about half of the restaurant. Not all of the restaurant has a view of the pond and not all of the restaurant is open air. The pond has birds ( mostly ducks) ,turtles and fish.

The restaurant has a lot of greenery, flowers and a mini waterfall. It is absolutely stunning and is a wonderful retreat from the desert life of Phoenix.

With all of that said, I don’t think there has ever been one thing I have ever tried from here I thought was delicious. I have been here three times and have tried something different each time. I would not consider this authentic Mexican food.

The most recent time we were here my boyfriend and I were assured by our waitress that two adults could share the Carne Asada Pasilla which essentially is a steak, cheese enchilada, beans and rice. The steak was good but the enchilada was 1/4 filled and it was dried out shell. We did need to order another dish but I was content with half. I would not order this again.

They provide 3 salsas and a basket of chips. The first salsa is an acidic green salsa. It tasted like a green smoothie or wheatgrass. The second (largest salsa) is very sweet and could use some herbs. The third salsa seems to be spiced with dried chili flakes. I mixed 2 and 3 salsa together and it tasted better.

They have a small bar that is halfway inside and halfway outside.

There is usually a guitarist playing dreamy music.

It’s a great place to visit for a date and or...

Let me start with the best thing about this place. It’s feels like a real cantina. We walked in to live music. We got a great seat by the window over looking the pond and were entertained by turtles our entire visit. My Diet Coke came out really fast and was delicious on a hot afternoon.

The bus guy brought over chips and explained the three salsa types which to be honest I loved all of them.

My wife had carne asada tacos she really enjoyed but she did say there were way too many onions. So if you’re not an onion fan be sure to ask about that.

I had some steak plate that said it was flavored with citrus. And it came with rice and beans and a cheese enchilada. I expected steak marinated in citrus to be very tender which was not the case. I think it said skirt steak which is generally tough this was slightly tougher than I like. The plate was super hot which I love but caused the rice to be crispy which wasn’t great. I thought the enchilada sauce was really good. Beans were tasty and I enjoyed the grilled jalapeño.

The pattern I notice here is great sauces and salsa so I’m thinking something like a Colorado would be great here.

Another note our server I think her name was Alison was amazing. Super helpful and really took care of us. Also the manager came by and checked on us which is something most places don’t do. I probably should have used that to get some better rice. I will say the food tasted fresh even if I didn’t love it.

Another thing I noticed was my enchilada ran out of sauce half way and I ended up not finishing so I probably needed to request a...