El Tapatio Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Chattanooga

I work in the area. I have a weekly favorite Mexican restaurant I have lunch at with friends on Gunbarrel 1-2 times a week. I have been wanting to try this newer to the area restaurant so my boyfriend and I decided to give this a try around 4pm on 3/18. Let me start off by saying the food is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Very well seasoned. They were probably the best fajitas I ever had but honestly my server treated us awful. I will probably never return because of her. 1. I ordered queso, it was so thick and lumpy. Awful. I asked for her to return it because it was not hot and fresh. She returned with a way better queso - hot and very fresh! So she chose to give us the non fresh one in the beginning. It was literally awful but the fresh one she brought out was great! That already gave me a red flag but I avoided it because it could’ve just been a mistake. We ordered double fajitas, way more then enough for 2 people. I boxed up my food and took my queso as well. I asked for my boyfriend to get some extra chips that we could take home since we took home our queso - can you BELIEVE the server made my boyfriend pay for the chips on a separate ticket? I had queso and salsa we took home. I could’ve easily told her to come bag the chips up that were left on the table but instead she charged us for to go chips when we purchased queso. Absolutely unbelievable. We felt very discriminated against. I even tipped her very well even though I felt as if she didn’t deserve it but we just won’t be returning due to the awful hurtful service...

Clearly, I'm disappointed. But where to start? I guess we start with drinks. House margarita on the rocks, basic, perfect. But when you ask me if I want salt on the rim, I expect to see those salt crystals on the rim, not the bare hint of it, I want a side of high blood pressure with my drink. Had to ask more than twice just to get a glass of water to go with it. The food was depressing. Their red sauce tastes like cheap tomato sauce straight from the can and onto the food.. tamale was so hard and overcooked I actually needed my knife to cut it, with bland chicken hiding on the inside. Enchilada would have been okay without the red sauce, but again bland, good thing there was plenty of watery salsa on the table to drown my food in. The rice and beans was the only redeeming food on the plate and those were just basic as well, kinda hard to mess that up. If there's a chef back there cooking, I'm sorry but I won't rave to anyone or come back. As much as I would have loved to try dessert, a girl can only handle so much disappointment and I wasn't willing to take that chance today. Atmosphere was nice, seated and greeted promptly. Had to ask for my napkin and utensils when my food arrived since there was none...

Raw meat in the salsa.

The server was pleasant and nice enough to not charge us for our cokes we had a few sips of and the few chips that we ate before we left because we found a piece of raw meat in the salsa.

My wife poured herself some salsa from the container they provided and initially though the chunk was a bit of tomato and cheese, so she set it aside and ate a few more chips. Upon my closer inspection, it appeared to be some lighter color meat like pork with some gristle, something you would cut off of a larger cut of meat.

Absolutely disgusting and speaks to terrible food safety practices in the kitchen, regardless of whether they make their salsa on site or buy it pre-made and pour it in those pouring containers. Meat preparation areas, the implements used to prepare meat, and the gloves used when doing so should NEVER interact with surfaces in which raw vegetables are prepared.

It is a shame because we have eaten here before and enjoyed it, but will likely never come back. I only hope is that they stopped serving that batch of salsa and disposed of the rest instead of continuing...