El Potro Mexican Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Malden

Why, oh Why, is it such a difficult task to make a good Margarita in a Mexican restaurant?

It's gotten to point where i'd rather just order a beer, than be insulted again...

OK, "Great Mexican food near me" in Google ranks this place highly. It was this or Tenoch. I wanted a Maggie, so opted for this.

Place found ok, no wait, seated promptly. Busboy brings chips & salsa, asks if we want Guac also.. No thanks, not yet. Waitress shows, I note single Margaritas are $11... Steep price, better be heavenly. I ask if there are pitchers, she says 'I think so, $35...' nvm.

She brings a glass of ice, with about 2 ounces of mixer... No hint of the Patron I ordered, and wanders away... Strike 1.

5 minutes later she returns 'Everything ok / ready to order?' I mentioned the poor drink, she laughs and walked away. Strike 2, should have left then.

The Mrs is hungry, doesn't want to leave, so when Giggles shows up again, we order & I switch to a Modelo... hard to screw that up.

Plates arrive, food is OK, in fact, the beef stuffed Relleno is pretty good. At the end, she again asks if all is well, again I say the Maggie was very bad. She hands me the check.

Couple thoughts.. this is yet another example of a) no communication skills b) no onsite mgmt Really asking if all is OK and c) no training of customer facing skills. SO Many otherwise good restaurants have failed these essentials. Heads up Potro, you may be next!

fwiw - wife & I are foodies, cultural flavors (mexican in particular), are not that hard to excel at... If your chef is unmotivated, Fix that ASAP... Same for bartender, the extra 50 cents, on an $11 Maggie, is a no brainer! Wanna be in business in a year? Get it done.

So, food, ok, service, unskilled, ambiance, meh, drinks, poor, value, poor. I'm sure better can be found.

All i wanted was a good drink...

We got to the place and it was extremely disorganized. We stood at the front area waiting for someone to greet us. A waitress came over and looked around and said we'll get someone for you. I waited another 5 minutes before someone else came over and also looked around and then said the exact same thing. A bunch of other guest came in and was greeted with the exact same confusion. Well, we requested for a booth and literally witness the guest after us got seated in the booth we waited for. By the way, this is our very first visit to this restaurant. Finally we were seated after 35 minutes. They were in such a rush, we were seated with zero utensils or dishes. Chips came out and we were asked if we would like guacamole or queso... what they dont say is that this is extra. They offer it like it was free bread at a cheesecake factory. The chicken soup was pretty good which is the one extra star they got. Throughout the rest of the night we had to flag down people to get water, napkins and extra drinks. Not once, did they come over voluntarily. It was pretty awful and sub par. Our entrees came out and it was a bit overcooked and was sitting under the hot plate for a bit. All the empty plates have all been just stacking up on the table. I finally had to flag someone down for the check and at that point is when they decided to clean up one of the finished dishes. I thought that was it but guess what? I had to ask for the check twice! Well, it took another 10 minutes for them to process my...

Extremely good! Has a lot for everyone and still feels a bit authentic! The place is beautiful and tiled everywhere with custom wooden chairs and dividers! Our server Kevin was magnificent, polite, and well-spoken even with the music playing we could hear every word perfectly. English and Spanish spoken and accessible via menu.

Im not a drinker but I always try one when I plan on reviewing. I could smell the alcohol right away with a quick whiff which worried me as I don’t like the taste but it tasted fantastic! I got a frozen passion fruit margarita and it tasted great!

I got carne Asada which came with rice, refried beans and cheese, guacamole, pico de gallo, lettuce, and your choice of flour or corn tortillas. It was a whole steak, thin, tender and charred. I asked for a side of sour cream and it was out in less then a minute.

My mother got chicken fajitas. It came out sizzling for a good 10-15 minutes after it came out. She loved the chicken and it came with all the sides listed above with flour tortillas.

She usually rates things much lower then I but she said “rate this place an A!”

It was great. Everything we had. Both English speakers and Spanish speakers all throughout so I’d say it gets the stamp of semi-authenticity if not full authenticity! Would highly recommend! Thanks...