El Jalapeno Grill — Restaurant in Collinsville

Absolutely no taste, my first time ever going. We will not be back. They were definitely on top of things as far as getting it out quickly, staying on top of there salsa and chips. My husband ate a few bites of his beef chimichanga and I had one of my rancheros taquitos beef and chicken and we were done. I tried to nicely tell them we were going elsewhere and done, but they were curious as to why we didn't want a take home box and why we didn't want/eat the food. So we kindly told them it's watered down and no taste. We paid full price for food that we didn't eat of course. You'd think they would atleast put a half off on ticket. Also top shelf margaritas are not so top shelf, way too much sweet n sour way way to much. The waitress and mangement suggested that they could fix the problem by adding more ice and watering it down, tried it still to much sweet and sour, just take it off my ticket please I'm done , moving on, As far as our waitress instead of insulting us or blaming us as to why it tastes like it tastes, very bland, try fixing it or try to make it right, she stated it was the managers orders so maybe you need new management? ! IDK... I was told that they were just an okay place but I wanted to try for myself. I wanted to like it...

Arrived 6:24 Seated 6:24 Chips and salsa came 6:25 Drink came 6:26 Order taken 6:27 Salsa is really good chips come salted I ordered the #27 combo for $14.49

Nice atmosphere and service is very polite so far Server checked on drink 6:31 Food came out 6:32 The taco and tostada were pretty simple, but that’s a good thing. I will say the ground beef was a little underseasoned and I would’ve liked for it to be a little more caramelized. It was a little soggy. The tamale comes dunked in what looks like a chili with white onions. I didn’t know how I felt about that before eating it but after eating it, I can confirm that it is actually really good and a unique way to eat tamales . I got the steak enchilada with white queso The grilled onions and bell pepper peppers are seasoned well and sweated well the steak was good. The beans stood out. They were very well seasoned. The rice was pretty standard.

I ended up paying I thought it was really good. It would’ve been better if the beef was caramelized, but the chili tamale kinda made up for that to me because it was pretty unique.

Ordered dessert at 6:44 Flan arrived at 6:47

Flan was a huge surprise so good probably the reason I lean to 5 stars even though I gave the food a 4

Service 5/5 Food...

The food is hot, fresh, well prepared, looks good on the plate and the servings are large. The restaurant is clean, attractive inside and the service is fantastic. The authentic Mexican food served at El Jalapeno Grill is a very bland, lightly seasoned version. It tastes fine; it is just not seasoned to the level I enjoy. Very mild tomato salsa, very little heat in the salsa picante. The beef in the enchilada and taco seemed unseasoned. Neither was lacking in beef; both were generously filled. The chili on the enchilada was the exception to the absence of seasoning. If you order a sauce on something order the chili. The restaurant’s style of relleno was stuffed with yellow cheese, battered and fried to a nice crispy crunch. On its own it was very good. But the bland tomato ranchero sauce didn’t offer any flavor. The salsa couldn’t help either. If you order the relleno get queso or the chili on top. If you prefer very mildly seasoned Mexican food this may be your 5-star restaurant. If you are looking for other Mexican restaurants in the area, check out my reviews in my collection "Jalapeno Highway" on Yelp. I've...