El Portal — Restaurant in Marshalltown

This was my first time here and I wasn't impressed with anything really. The Spanish music was too loud the atmosphere was glum, we got sat in a booth that was placed where all the servers had to walk back & fourth by us to get to where they filled water, got the silverware, napkins, whatever else & walk back by us to deliver it elsewhere. Our meals were cold when we got them and the presentation of the food looked like they threw up on it. It really did. We had the taco Verena dinner, which included 3 soft tacos w/3 different fillings. We couldn't even see the tacos because they smothered them with so much lettuce & a big blob of sour cream it was ridicules! I never do this, but I asked them to take it back & remove all the lettuce & sour cream, then heat it up (this time) please. They remade the whole plate, leaving off what I asked & returned it piping hot lol. They apologized & so did I. My dad isn't one to speak up & insisted his was ok. We both only finished about half our plate & had enough. Neither of us cared for the taste of anything but the $2.50 margaritas that were on special this night. I had a strawberry daiquiri & it was $6,50 & I couldn't taste any alcohol. Dad said there was enough in his for both of us. He likes to have a drink (two) when I pick him up from the VA Home & take him out for dinner! So, I'm not a big fan of this restaurant, but maybe its just me. I'm not picky though, usually! The meal for two of us was only like $24 & with drinks...

I was referred here by a local so I assume my experience was not close to the norm. Not overly impressed with the flavor of the homemade salsa and basket of chips that we finished long before we had wait staff stop for the first time for our drink order. We fortunately also ordered our food order at the same time as our drinks because this is the only time we saw our waitress in the 45 minutes we spent in the room. We did flag down another man to refill my drink, and also asked for a to go box. We ended up getting up to get our own to go box after a 5 plus minute wait. The check never came to our table, but the good news is that as we stood at the register waiting for him to figure our bill I did get to see that our waitress had time to be standing in the corner of the other room. SERVICE SUCKED, food I would...

Hands down the WORST Mexican place in town. Notice all the great reviews are for the alcoholic drinks. I guess if you've had 8 margarita's you might think this food is good.

Ordered super nachos, got a plate full of chips, some meat and 4 lbs. of lettuce. Not sure if they understand the concept of nachos.

It went downhill from there. Tried the three enchilada thing, got three burnt tortilla shells with some kind of meat covered in 2 lbs. of lettuce. A decent sauce and maybe more than a spoonful of cheese might have helped but that is probably asking too much.

Wife tried the special fajita, lots of green peppers and some overcooked beef, chicken and shrimp. Very dry, very sad BUT 2 more lbs. of lettuce.

Maybe if we had 8 margarita's we might not have noticed, but if you are dining sober, might want to try...