El Mejicano Tex-Mex Grill — Restaurant in Denville

My chum and I impulsively decided to mosey over here for an early lunch this past Friday. Neither one of us had been to Denville in ages, though I definitely remember frequenting Carver's next door back in the day. The interior has a Mexican kitschy vibe - a lot of bright colors and festive decorations all over the place. The place was pretty empty when we got there, and we had our pick of seating options; my chum is used to the finer things in life and immediately went for one of the booths.

I chose to roll with the brunch menu, which is reminiscent of one you'd find at any standard American restaurant, but with an understandably ethnic twist - rather than, say, bacon and eggs, you're looking at beans and chorizo. Unique, but not so drastically different that it's going to scare off more cautious eaters. I went with a chorizo, eggs and potatoes dish, the specific name of which escapes me (I wasn't able to find a brunch menu online, so that's some constructive feedback for their webmaster). It was pretty tasty - I thought the chorizo was solid, flavorful and pared well with the scrambled eggs. I wasn't as enthusiastic about the potatoes, which were a little undercooked and greasy. I left most of those on the plate. My chum went with the chicken enchiladas (and wanted it noted that she was impressed with the available meat options for that particular dish) and enjoyed them. Nothing was earth-shatteringly amazing, but it did its job by and large.

The price point was EXCELLENT. When my chum gave me the amount of the bill, I honestly thought for a moment that it was just the price for my portion of the meal. The generously portioned entrees are around $11 or so, which is great and arguably the strongest selling point of El Mejicano.

The service was decent until the tail-end of the experience. Our waiter stopped by on a regular basis throughout most of the meal to check in, and our food came by pretty quickly. For whatever reason, the waiter went MIA right around when we finished our food so we were looking around the dining area for assistance for 15 minutes or so, I'd say. Someone else ended up clearing our table and getting the check for us, so maybe we were merely victimized by an ill-timed shift change or something. But it was a little odd, especially given that there were almost no other customers on the premises.

The bathroom could use a little TLC. It was clean and smelled fine (which is the most important quality of any bathroom) but there were some obvious improvements needed. Notably, the paper towel dispenser was literally missing a piece in the front - thankfully it didn't affect your ability to obtain a paper towel - and the lights abruptly turned off whilst my chum was using the facilities.

At the end of the day, this is a pretty mediocre restaurant. Would I avoid it like the plague? No, definitely not. Would I go out of my way to stop by again? Eh. There are plenty of comparable Mexican places in the area, but if cost is your primary concern then this might be the...

This is our new favourite Mexican restaurant. For lovers of Tex-Mex, it may be a little less spicy than typical Tex-Mex, but the food is authentic and flavourful. The chips are among the best I've had - homemade, fresh, and with exactly the right amount of crunch. I wish I could buy the accompanying salsa by the bottle.

The waitstaff are friendly and attentive. When my toddler dropped his fork, Jesús heard the sound and arrived with a fresh one almost before we thought to ask for a new one.

The entreés are delicious! We have never had a meal that we were less than satisfied with. The kitchen is able to cater to food allergies and preferences. They've altered meals for vegetarians, vegans, and celiac disease. My mother recently visited and was delighted to have a quesadilla made especially for her dietary restrictions with fresh corn tortillas and El Mejicano's wonderful steamed vegetable mixture instead of meat. I also highly recommend any of their traditional masa flour bases. The fried quesadilla is a masa flour hand pie similar to an empanada. They are delicious! For lunch, I highly recommend the huarache. The green salsa that comes with it is slightly spicy and adds a pleasant zing to the beans and topping.

This restaurant opened in January, and I hope it will have a long, successful life in...

Today I decided to give this place a try, I was driving through the town I called at 250 pm to check if there was a dine out but unfortunately there wasn’t, take out only, I was about 5 blocks out once arrived I noticed a lunch menu which had 2 tacos with rice and beans for $7.99 by the time I placed my order it was 3:05 pm lunch apparently is from 11:00 -3:00 pm, 5 mins late and I had to pay for the same meal 19.00 dollars, I was given no kind of courtesy I decide to just pay the difference because my mother is Elderly and she needed to eat. I asked for my tacos to be mixed one steak taco and two carnitas, I was charged for the steak taco $8.00 dollars. Fine right ? nope I ask them so my tacos aren’t dry, for salsa verde each 2 oz cup was $1.00 so I got 4. I have never been to a place where they charge you for sauce, it’s just Ridiculous. The cashier Layla didn’t attempt to speak with her manager in regards to the 5 min difference, I understand a lot of business are effected due to Covid but you want your customers to come back, don’t take advantage of them. The food was okay... nothing great, and they have no alcohol to sell, just juice,...