El Gringo El Segundo — Restaurant in El Segundo

Known about this place and passed it many a time. But needless to say this visit was long overdue

Came in after doing some beach swimming and walked in. Only me and another guy chilling eating at the bar. Greeted by the cool dude behind the counted and got seated right away.

Ordered baja tacos with bison and while I waited had some chips and salsa with a Shirley temple

I gotta say first off. This salsa. Is legit. This coming from someone who grew up eating homemade Mexican food with my grandparents and my mom. I definitely say this could easily pass as authentic made in Mexico salsa

The tacos. The meat, savory, a little crunchy with some slight burnt ends. That's OK. Personally I wouldn't have any other way, it adds texture, and idk what kinda sauce they used on the tacos but it legit gave me some runny sniffles. It caught me WAY off guard lol

Idk why I thought they wouldn't be spicy cause it's not like a typical Mexican restaurant I've been to. But it definitely is worth a try. Highly recommend

THE ONLY thing I'd give a heads up about is the price and value for 4 tacos and the chips + drink was 25$ whether you think that's good or bad is up to you. But for the quality of what I got. It's not...

Worst customer service ever!!!!! They cannot handle a full restaurant. The best they could do for this experience is not charge me for one meal. We arrived and took 10 minutes for someone to take out order. Which it was ok since we weren't ready to place the order... after that it went down hill. They gave us water but didn't serve it out. One drink out of the two arrived. 20 minutes later half of the order arrived... the other half didn't arrive until 18 minutes later. Waiter in the meantime asked "what are you waiting for?" Lol hmmm "I'm waiting for the other half and the first half wasn't even complete. Oh and the other drink". He said "yeah I know but anything else besides that?" Seriously? Anyways my son "chicken noodle soup" might as well be "Maruchan" noodles because that's exactly what it was. My chicken tostada was soggy. The fajitas were tasteless and the same for classic tacos plate. If you want imitation Mexican food this...

I thought I was on a hidden camera show when I was here. My wife and I asked for a margarita with the chili on the rim instead of salt because we like it spicy. Seems simple enough right? They came out with plastic water glasses with chili flakes (the ones you sprinkle on pizza) completely covered in it. Lol we asked a gentleman why they didn’t put Tajine on it? And they pointed at the name “El Gringo” and said look it means the white so what do you expect.. I was too hungry to put up an argument so we just reordered without the pizza chili flakes on the rim. I then ordered the carne asada plate and it came out no later than 3 mins after I had ordered..it legitimately looked like dog food and was heated up in a microwave. Not sure how this place is in business. No effort or thought put into anything here....