Aqui Cupertino — Restaurant in Cupertino

I love Aqui’s food so much. So it was little wonder when I made the trip for lunch, yet again on a warm Friday afternoon. It is a 10 minute walk from where I work and is a very popular place for our lunch crowd. In a deviation from my previous review and future reviews where I would talk about the specific lunch dish I enjoyed (or hated) this one will talk about their entire vegetarian menu. The main reason being that I have sampled their entire vegetarian menu (which is sizable) twice over.

My love affair with Aqui started about 9 months ago when we were hunting for good Mexican food in the Bay Area. Yelp! reviews led us to a Cal-Mex restaurant in Willow Glen called Aqui. A trip with a bunch of friends and their toddler kids was a big success although the toddlers made it very hard to truly enjoy the full menu. When I saw them advertising a new branch in Cupertino, I was determined to give it a fair try. And that turned out to be the best decision ever.

Ambiance: The Cupertino Aqui is a large restaurant with a desert theme and very spacious seating. I would think it could seat over 150 people in one go. There is also some outdoor seating space.

Service: I love the service here. I have been seeing the same faces at the counter since the Cupertino branch opened up and they have all been kind, polite and wonderful. And yes, they make great recommendations.

The Food: Ah, the food. Every vegetarian dish is unique. The tofu preparations are a very unique Cal-Mex approach to tofu.The California Enchilada comes with a sauce that makes it otherworldly. The veggie burrito is the best bang for the buck for a hungry stomach. The Thai peanut veggie bowl satisfies the smaller appetite looking for a unique flavor. The potato and cheese enchilada is extremely filling and very tasty. For Indian folks looking for a spicy lunch, the salsa bar carries a couple of fairly spicy salsas that will give a nice heat kick to any dish or nachos.

And to top it all are their agua frescas. The fresh juice of the day ranges from watermelon lime (today) to mango peach to orange mango to pineapple and they are all to die for. I could visit them daily just for the...

Quantity was good, but I wish they cook the rice ( in burrito) a little longer ( I like very soft rice...like the rice at Chipotle but I just dont like Chipotle's flavour sometimes which is why I tried this place). I ordered Chicken burrito and my Dad got the special of the day ( Mahi with shrimp). I recommend gettting the special because it is made fresh. Everything was fresh but they might have forgot to put the FireCracker sauce in my Chicken Burrito. I recommend that you get the FireCracker sauce from the Salsa bar ( I got some other sauces because I thought the burrito will have the sauce on it). So to make the burrito more flavour you should get the FireCracker sauce from the free Salsa bar ( also get Sour Cream) so that you have more flavour on your Burrito. They also have ranch dressing and some type of orange salad dressing ( Thousand Island?) just in case you dont like hot sauce. I recommend the green salsa too ( just a little since sometimes tiny bitter). I think the Pico de Gallo ( which is Tomato/Onion/Jalapeno) might not have been fresh because I got that and it did not improve my burrito. The burrito was allright ( it had Chunks of Chicken but rice was kinda hard for my taste)...I should have immediately put Firecracker sauce, would have tasted better. I just put the Pico De Gallo ( tomato) and the Sour Cream. I ended up putting Thousand Island dressing sauce on it ( you can choose salad instead of soup that comes with the burrito). My Dad's Mahi fish and shrimp looked good tho, it had nicely cooked broccoli with it. We both got the drinks for 2.50 at the drink area, but the Aqua Fresca seem to not have enough sugar ( but Lemonade was good). I realize afterwards that I could have added sugar to it ( sugar packet). The Ice tea is unsweetened but you can add sugar to it. The Arnold Palmer...

🚨🚨NOT DOG FRIENDLY EVEN WITH AN OUTDOOR PATIO || BLAND FOOD AND BAD SERVICE || don’t recommend. I got fooled by the ratings so I gotta put my thoughts out there to warn people. Service is very bad, self ordering, my friend ordered burrito but they got his order wrong and had to wait again. AND, there was a patio but not dog friendly at all. They asked us to move from the outdoor patio to the back of the restaurant on a grass land that’s not even flat by the parking lot on a hot day for a group of 7 us (a kid included) with my dog. I’m grateful for whoever still let us dine in, but they kept saying it’s the rule, but what kind of rule is it to not allow animal even when there’s an outdoor patio?? Secondly, when I ordered my food, I asked the server whether there’s any dish with fruit because i wanted something light and refreshing, she said with no patience “no”. HOWEVER, when my food was served, the dish right next to mine had grapes and mango, which would’ve been exactly what I would order.

In general, I don’t understand why this place is categorized as Californian restaurant, this can be misleading. Food was okay, nothing standing out, chips + hummus was the best. BUT salsa is not even spicy, can’t find a good spicy sauce there. How dare they call themselves Mexican food 😭

OMG forgot to mention the swirl cocktails. They’re SO BAD. 12 bucks for a glass of frozen drink full of artificial syrup taste. I had one sip and I was done. 12 bucks for a really bad drinks worse than a club cocktail!

Never returning and DO NOT...