Los Portales Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Englewood

When they first opened they were very good. Food, prices and service. Went there last night got there 25 minutes before closing. We were greeted by a waitress stuffing her face at a table no more than 10 feet from entrance. She didn't say hello or welcome. Instead the greeting was a full mouth of food muffled, "to go?". When we said we would like to stay and eat she pulled her phone out of her apron, looked at the time and sighed loudly. (In hindsight we should have left right then). We were seated, given menus and asked about drinks. We wanted a coke and cherry 7-up. She said the coke machine was not working. We asked what other non-alcoholic drinks they had. She said that the Dr Pepper machine was working. She went to get drinks and we opened menus. They were covered with salsa. Not just on the outside but every page of it was gross with old wet salsa. Wiped it off with napkins and readied our order for her return. She came back with the drinks and left our table quickly even though we were ready to order. I took a drink of my cherry 7-up; flat no carbonation at all. When she returned I told her about drink(this happens with carboration and i didnt want someone to go and have to change tank) and so I ordered a water instead. ordered a Shredded Beef Chimichanga with no beans and chili on the side, a Combo #3 with a beef and bean burrito and two tamales, a side on one extra tamales and two flour tortillas. She came back with water and then we waited and waited for our food. While we waited we saw at 15 minutes before closing that another car pulled up. Our waitress got up from her chair and sprinted to the neon open sign and turned it off and looked at the other waitress and they gave each other a giggle. When the people who hust pulled up walked in they were met with the "to go?". The customers said no they would like to sit down, they were told the restraunt was closed. The waitress didnt even seem apologetic, but more bothered that anyone would dare enter when she clearly turned off the sign as they were getting out of the car. Our order finally arrived. When it came it looked correct. She asked if there would be anything else, we said it looked great. I cut into my Shredded Beef Chimichanga only to find super greasy ground beef, hubby cut into his Beef and bean burrito that had no beans. The waitress didn't return for 20 minutes as she was rolling silverware and chatting up another waitress and another male staff person that appeared from the kitchen area.we finally got her attention as I didn'want to eat this greasy mess I was given. She asked if everything was ok I told her no. I didn't order a ground beef chimi I ordered a Shredded Beef and ground beef wasn't even on the menu. I asked her to take it off the bill because we knew they didnt want us there in the first place. She took the plate away without and comment and made a beeline over to the other waitress amd showed her the food pointing to us. She returned with the amended bill and we paid for the beef no bean burrito combo and left. I will never go there again. It was criminal how we were made to feel while patronizing...

If you have dietary restrictions, I’d avoid this place. The kitchen/server/cook situation can get…dicey and hard to guess on a given day. It’s a game of Russian roulette as to whether or not you’ll get glutened/food poisoned/etc.

I have celiac disease. This last visit, I explained, in detail, in Spanish (which I am fluent in), that I have celiac disease and asked if I could please have corn tortillas instead of wheat tortillas. Then I asked the young woman waiting on us if she could please make sure that the comal was wiped down between heating up wheat tortillas and my corn tortillas due to my celiac disease. She interrupted me and said that of course they wiped the comal down between uses, that’s how a comal works (it’s not) and comals are always wiped down (they’re not). When she came back, she gave me wheat tortillas.

The carne ranchera that I always eat also tasted different, so I’m not sure if the beef had gone a bit ripe or if they put new (gluten-containing?) spices in it I wasn’t familiar with but I didn’t finish the plate and I didn’t take my leftovers. I’ve always taken my leftovers for breakfast the next day.

We usually have the lady in her forties as our server (we’ve eaten here 40-50 times) but the young woman was not as good today. Maybe she was just having an off day. She’s seemed like a sweet girl in passing in the past. I’m just not sure what happened today and it scared me enough to not want to eat here again.

Bottom line, if you’re celiac, avoid. The food is very tasty but it is not worth it. If you are a person without dietary restrictions and a steel stomach, then this place will work for you. The food is extremely tasty if you don’t...

The staff was quite rude and seemed disinterested in serving our table. It was my first time going to this place that was recommended by a colleague. I had high hopes that came crashing down. I watched a 12 minute video on YouTube before the server even thought to approach us for our drink order. When she did I told her we’re ready to order food and she said one moment I’ll put the drink order first. After another 8 minutes she found her way back to take our order. I’d understand if they were busy but there only was 3 other tables present and they were eager to help the people a couple of spots away from us. I sat around for about 20 minutes waiting for a server to walk by to ask for a refill since they didn’t care to ask if everything was good. I found the sever on the other side of the divider playing on her phone. I shouldn’t have had to leave my seat to hunt a server down. Once again I had high hopes due to a recommendation from a work friend but ended up with a bad experience. Needless to say I’d be satisfying my hunger for Mexican food elsewhere...and also finding a new...