El Potro Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Chelsea

The margaritas tasted like someone had accidentally dropped a bag of sugar into my drink. While the service was good, the food and prices for said food were outrageous. This is the worst interpretation of Mexican food I have seen. This isn’t Mexican food. It’s a bland and uninspired imitation. The rice was stale and I suspect a day old. The tacos I had were the size of a Pop-Warner football. Tacos shouldn’t be the size of a chihuahua. Mexican cuisine is a simple one. It shines in its simplicity. I had more ingredients in my taco than are in my cupboard. I just don’t believe the people who have reviewed this venue have been objective. A good drink doesn’t equate to a good restaurant. Worst of all my drink didn’t live up to even passable. It’s a shame a meal for 2 consisting of in total 2 tacos, 2 flautas, 2 margaritas and 2 shots of tequila cost $80. It doesn’t justify its ludicrous price. This isn’t a Mexican restaurant, this is a restaurant living off the name of a cuisine that is antithetical to its reality. Please go somewhere else.

While I appreciate an owner willing to make an effort to salvage a bad experience at a restaurant. I don’t appreciate a copy-pasted response to any one review. Don’t give off the impression of care if you’re just going to copy-paste a response for every bad review (look at the response to every bad review.) It’s untruthful and in my opinion lazy. If you respect the opinion of a bad reviewer take the time to address it. And I do get that a small and local business owner won’t have the time to respond to every review. And if that is the case then own up to it. Don’t make yourself seem more approachable and caring when you’re not. You aren’t a chain. You are a local restaurant....

We went today to have a lunch/dinner for my wife's birthday, first impression, hostess don't give you the menu instead while she's seating people, or us in this case, she pointed to the wall and said scan there there's the menu, so absolutely we couldn't see at the first glance, cause was blocked by the little bottles of salt and pepper plus the hot sauces until I moved them. Surprisingly it was printed on the ceramic wall. We ordered sodas pepsis and they were syrupy with not fizzle we asked instead to change for Jarritos..which we like, we ordered the dishes Three compadres and the trio fajitas, food was delicious and super fresh. And we ordered our dessert for her birthday and I told our server her name is Diana, she was hardly visible and took her time to come to our table and everytime we need her regarding our Desserts mine I had the churros with ice cream was good but hers is called fried ice cream felt like you were eating little ice cream with sand, we asked the server why it tasted sandy..she said it has cornflakes, and it was supposed to taste like that. My understanding if you put cornflakes in ice cream it would be as soft as you have it with milk. She didn't said anything when asked about the dessert but just walked away, mind you that the Desserts are almost $ 9. Bucks each. Service needs to be improved and I'm sure we are not the only ones who went through this situation. I just wanted to my experience with you and the followers who always read and look my comments and pictures. Great food, POOR SERVICE. Dropped 80 bucks that we could have spent on a fancier...

I was surprised by the rating this restaurant had after our experience and I am hoping maybe we went on an off day since it was a weekday at lunchtime.

I realized from reading other reviews we were not served chips and salsa as other customers were so I’m not sure what happened this day. There were not very many full tables when we arrived. However, We were first surprised that we did not get plates with our shared appetizer we ordered and had to ask for some as well as ask for additional utensils for someone else in our party. While servers were friendly and kind I just wished they were more proactive with ensuring we had everything we needed.

We were also underwhelmed with the “house wings” we thought they would be in house cooked wings with a freshly made sauce but it was your typical precooked fried breaded wings you can get at any pizza/sub shop just overpriced and smaller quantity.

We also had plates with steak shrimp and chicken and rice and beans. But everything on the plate lacked flavor. It felt like an Americanized version of Mexican food not Authentic Mexican food we were expecting from a Mexican restaurant. The only thing that helped us finish the meal was the guacamole we ordered and bottle of habanero sauce we requested.

The only reason I’m sharing this review is because I just hope the restaurant takes the feedback and improves on it. I love to support local restaurants so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt when I don’t have a great experience but will definitely update this if we ever decide...