El Jalisco — Restaurant in Cleveland

Our initial impression, starting from outside, was "Um, what have we come upon?" A typical, dinky, neglected strip mall was not a good image. Once inside, it was pretty sparse, not in good presentation, easily being seen as possibly not clean.

Chips and salsa...nope, it doesn't exist, even to pay extra for. Huh? Maybe it's not custom in certain Mexican regions of cuisine, that it may well be an Americanization, an expectation in the US. Not sure why it's not an option here, and that sealed the deal. Our waiter, likely the owner, interjected, "But you will like the food." UM,....That's why we're at a restaurant...to like the food!!

The only thing to save a return trip was the food had better be amazing! No, stupendous, to get past the decor, the jankyness.

The steak fajitas were good, but the refried beans bland, and the rice, nondescript.

Now to the prices. Our two meals cost $28.00 and change. These prices were on par with other restaurants (high), but the ambiance, the choices, and the experience are $16.95 value.

And no chips and salsa!!! We've NEVER been to a Mexican restaurant that did not have chips and salsa, in Miami, Portland, San Antonio, Austin, Seattle, Kalispell, Lincoln,...

My boyfriend and I came in for a quick bite to eat and we’re ignored at first, until the only server actually working told us we could sit wherever we liked. They had no chips and salsa available, which our server didn’t mention until after we ordered our drinks. Whatever it was disappointing, but okay. We ordered limes with our water but they had a strange flavor/ might have been old and were very hard. We ordered meals such as the pollo loco with their “famous cheese sauce”, but it was seemingly just mixed Mexican cheese piled on top. I’ve tried nearly every Mexican restaurant in Cleveland, but this one was the worst by a long shot. Las Mas on 25th st is close by...

I thought I would try this place. Tables were dirty, only 1 woman working and she was server and cook but I was the only person in the "dining room" at 12:55pm. Alittle bit of a language barrier but we got thru it. After sitting about 5 minutes I Had to ask for salsa and chips (salsa is the good kind with chunks of onion)cheese dip is straight up nasty. Like had a strange taste and was so thick it wouldn't hardly stick to the chips even when it was steaming hot. I ordered "burrito el don" which was really good after I scraped the "white cheese dip" off of it. Didn't have red onion but did have some...