El Taquito Cafe — Restaurant in Harlingen

Ok, I know this place by reputation, by the bad service I've gotten in the past, and the questionable quality of some of the orders, and have wisely avoided this crude place for a couple years now.

The other day, the people I was working for decided they were going there for lunch, and I was stuck with them, so I went (they paid - I would never spend a cent in this place).

We arrived, and there was almost noone there, despite it being like 4pm - there were people in only 2 or 3 other tables. We sat down, waitress came a couple minutes later, took our orders, and then we waited- boy did we! Our food didn't come until about 15 minutes later, despite there being almost no other customers.

I had ordered coffee when the waitress asked us what we wanted for drinks. What she brought back was a disgrace: it was LUKEWARM, like it had been sitting since morning, and it smelled OLD. I took my cup to the front, and asked the owner if there was any way I could get fresh coffee. Long story short, I wated another 15 minute, convinced the watress had forgot about it, before she brought me some freshly made coffee. It was rather watery, to say the least!

Our food: the plates the other people in my group had looked good enough. I ordered the milanesa special, and the meat wasn't all that bad. The tortillas, on the other hand, were rather dry.

The waitress there had this bad attitude, acting like she'd rather not even be there dealing with you.

Next time I'm with a group of people who want to treat me to some El Taquito, I think I'll probably just stay in the car and wait for...

Terrible service, bad cuts of meat - mostly fat. I have been aquainted with this restaurant for about 7 years now, and it has left me cold. Too many times arriving and seeing people who arrived after me get served first. Too many times of getting meat that's mostly fat - bad cuts of meat. Too many stories passed on to me about people getting sick after eating there - a total of 3 times between my two friends, all on separate occaisions. My other friend witnessed one of the cooks with her hand down her pants and didn't even bother to wash up afterwards. And yet another cook, whom is on-again, off-again that I have reliable information has herpes. On another occaision I was there overnight, and witnessed the worker pouring dehydrated ketchup mix into the ketchup bottles from the previous day, and without even washing them out beforehand. I guess they don't suppose people will notice it's not really "Heinz" brand. But I would have to say my biggest problem with this restaurant is the service. I always have a terrible time getting refills, and rarely but occaisionally, get none at all.

A few of the employees thatv'e been there for years will go through the morning routines while going on and on about the latest gossip on so-and-so for like, forever and not pay attention to anything else.. And if you're waiting for a refill - yea...

Order two kinds of burritos from this location, carne guisada and beef fajita.

The carne guisada burrito recipe has changed since I started eating them 20+ years ago. They now come with bits of tomatoes which I’m not a fan of. I promptly discarded them when I discovered them in my burrito. That being said, this is hands down the best tasting carne guisada recipe I’ve had outside of my kitchen. I’ve been all over Texas and Arizona and nothing comes close. This is a must order when visiting this restaurant. I Their beef fajita burritos used to be a top notch as well. I ordered one and added avacado to it expecting greatness. Instead I got a subpar burrito which I ended up tossing after two bites. The fajita tasted like it was cooked too quickly. The meat was tough and tasted like perhaps someone had thrown a green pepper and onions at the last second for flavor. The avacado slices were not ripe i.e. harder than they should have been and tasted bland as a result.

I’ll stick to ordering what they do best at this location. And I...