El Real Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Lawrenceville

This place is Great! My co worker and I decided to get a to go order for lunch and we were pleasantly surprised at how clean the place looked (they have a 100A on their food inspection), the quick and friendly service, and the taste of the food! Rosy the Manager was so kind and she was handling taking the front orders and seating people as they came in. She was so graceful about it. She was polite, smooth and quick. I am a pescatarian so I got the Camerones Rancheros. It’s a plate of grilled shrimp in this really really good Azteca sauce with grilled onions, white rice, avocado slices and plantains…It was so good. The shrimp were perfect.. not too chewy, not too stiff, just perfect. They are about medium size and you get a really nice portion . My co worker got the fajita bowl with chicken. Comes with rice, onions and veggies, black beans, and he said there was cheese in it. He was so pleased with his meal and he LOVED the amount of food he received for only $13! He was also so happy that the manager Rosy gave him this nice spicy sauce to try with his meal. He’s from Jamaica and told her he loves spicy food and she was kind enough to give him the sauce. He loved it. We both ate every bit of our food and we were too full! Lol! We didn’t wanna go back to work lol The food came with chips and salsa as well and we could barely eat it. They had some nice desserts near the register. I will definitely be back to try those as well. Although we didn’t eat in, we could see how clean the floors were and the tables were spaced out nicely. Everything looked great. My co worker said he will be back with his wife this Friday because he loved the place so much. Rosy invited us both to come back. She was so very kind. I will definitely be back. I actually live closer to an El Real in Bethlehem but I’ve been to that one and I was not nearly as impressed. I have no problem taking the drive this way to enjoy more great service and food! I’m posting some pics. The pic of my food was taken after I walked to the break room and it got shuffled a little. The presentation when I received it at the restaurant...

Worst experience ever!!! I understand that times are different and they have been closed for a little while and are working with some new staff members, but what I went through couldn’t be dismissed as such, at least not in my opinion. I went there to order because I couldn’t get a “take out only” restaurant to answer there phone. Should have taken that as a red flag and went to some place nicer like Taco Bell in a third world country. Placed my order at 5:15 it was ready at 6:30 took it home and it was wrong to the extent that only 1 out of the 4 dinner orders (dinner order = 1 entree) was correct not to mention NO salsa or chips! So I go back because once again nobodies answering the phone. Explain what was missing from each entree and that I had no chips or salsa, they then tried to tell me that I needed to go to the back of the line and REORDER!!!! I once again explained that I’ve already ordered and payed you over $100 and I am not going to the back of the line to wait 45 to order all over again! They said they understood and would see what they could do so another hour and a half goes by I inquire as to how much longer it’s going to be and they say oh I think it is ready let me go check. 20 mins later they come back with “my food” and explaining to me that I’ll have to pay for all these items they forgot Individually, to which I said let me see your manager. After waiting another 15 min with no manager in site I left with “my food” only to get home to see that they got it wrong yet again! I mean it’s cinco de Mayo for gods sake and you can’t even remember to put corn tortillas in with the order of Carnitas or something as simple as chips and salsa?!?!? This really really sucks because they had the best cameras in town but I will never spend one thin red cent there again. You try to charge me again for your screw up without so much as an apology, I spent 4 hours there nearly and made two trips only to NEVER have the order completed or...

What do I love about El Real? Where do I begin? For starters, their tomatillo sauce is off the charts good. They make a fresh guacamole at your table with diced avocado, diced mango, diced seranno peppers, diced red onion, and lime juice. The servers wheel up a tiki looking lemonade stand and start scooping the avocado and start dicing. My other favorite to get, the enchiladas verde. This has their creamy devine tomatillo sauce all over it with a little drizzle of sour cream too. The refried beans are spectacular. Another to get is the enchiladas tri colores. This is a solid dish, too. The shining star of the establishment has to be hands-down the Molcajete Real. It is this huge volcanic stone pot filled with tomatillo sauce and cheese, onions, chicken, cactus, and flank steak draped over the sides. And they throw in four or five shrimp into the bumbling tomatillo sauce. You get a side of tortillas, chorizo, rice and beans. This essentially is fajitas in a huge volcanic stone pot. It is delicious. The hardest part about El Real is trying to make up your mind. Everything I have had is top notch...and I'm a bit of a Mexican food snob. If you are looking to get away from the carbon copied Fronteras of the world, then do yourself a favor and go eat at El Real. It is...