El Milagro Market & Restaurant — Restaurant in Cookeville

1st off, the had nothing special in the store. No prices! Prepackaged sweets. Vegetables looked old. Cilantro was wilted. $2.50 for one 🥑 that looked old. Got seated & order 1 beer. They brought chips & salsa. Salsa was good. Had to ask for silverware & napkins. Food took quite sometime (they weren't busy/we arrived before the lunch crowd). Our appetite appetitizer came with our meal. Ordered another beer, half way thru meal had to ask for it. Never refilled my water glass. I ordered the carne asada plate. The meat was burnt. I don't think the homemade tortillas were cooked all the way & they weren't anything great. I don't know how people can say this is authentic Mexican food. Not anything close!! I definitely will...

Just ate here for the first time. Enjoyed a Gordita (JUST like the ones we’ve had in Mexico) and the Tacos de birria. Absolutely FABULOUS. Our waitress was super helpful and kind. If you are looking for a cultural experience, definitely come here. Be prepared for some smells outside if in summer. There was also less AC in the restaurant part but it was still very comfortable temperature-wise. The restrooms are not something I can recommend but it was worth it for the food and cultural experience. Edited to add: Plan to get a bottled drinks. The cups of water taste a little like mold. Edit: At their new location the water tastes great and there are no offensive smells! I’m changing this to a 5 star review bc their birria tacos are just...

The food was not great. The menudo smelled rancid as if they didn’t clean it well. It was also long and thick- like a bigger version of linguine pasta. The broth was good though. The torta (with steak) wasn’t great either. The steak was thin and hard to bite in some parts. They didn’t know what pápalo was when I asked if they had it. Seemed weird that they didn’t know what it was when they have a market attached to the restaurant. Surely Hispanic people have asked about this before- and if they haven’t then not a big deal. We also got the carne asada. It wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t terrible either. Came with rice which was good. Love the market side of it but had higher expectations for their restaurant side. Service...