El Cid — Restaurant in Oakhurst

While visiting the Yosemite area my husband and I came upon El Cid restaurant. We have a theory that if there are a lot of cars in the parking lot there’s a good chance the food is pretty good. Our theory proved true with El Cid.

The restaurant is located in a lovely community not far from the south entrance to Yosemite National Park and seems to be a local favorite. It has a wonderful family atmosphere and is just a nice place to share a meal. The staff were very friendly from the moment we entered until the time we left. We told our server we had never eaten at El Cid and asked for her recommendations. She gave several dishes to consider and gave us time to look them over and make our decision.

Now, as a native Texan I’m a dyed-in-the-wool TexMex fan. This can be problematic sometimes. Not this go around. The food here is full of flavor and freshly cooked.

Fans of any style Mexican food know that good chips and salsa are a must and are the all-important first impression. El Cid has totally bypassed any potential salsa issues and jumped straight to serving fresh pico de gallo with their deliciously seasoned chips. What a great surprise. Absolutely loved this!

For our meal we ordered the El Cid burrito (highly recommended by our server)with chicken. It. Was. Massive. This feast was totally loaded with fresh grilled green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes and then there was the perfectly grilled chicken. It was served with refried beans and rice. We had guacamole and sour cream on the side. Our food was piping hot when it was served and was completely delicious.

We also treated ourselves to a house margarita - very tasty and very refreshing.

I heartily recommend stopping by and having a meal here. El Cid does...

A 3.8/5 from me, I'm rounding up in this case. It's a sit down restaurant, and the menu is pretty big. I ordered a taco with carnitas and a burrito with asada, if it were dinner maybe I would have a combination but the sides and rice and beans are just filler. I like the extensiveness of the menu.

The Pico de Gallo that came with the chips indicated their tomatoes are pretty generic low quality mealy out of season tomatoes, not too surprising. The basket of chips wasn't evenly seasoned some very very seasoned and others hardly.

The carnitas taco came with shredded cabbage and cilantro and a bit of green salsa on top. Not bad but oh so close to the golden authentic combo of onions and cilantro. The meat was a tad dry... that could be different depending on time of day and day of the week. 2.5/5 stars on the taco

The asada burrito was good. 4/5 stars. The ingredients were the meat, rice, refried beans, guacamole... great mouth feel and flavor. My main dislike about it is that if I ordered a combo it'd be rice and beans on the plate and rice and beans on the burrito. I would have happily settled for a smaller burrito with a little bit more meat and no beans. Hard to get a good taste of the meat the guac and beans were a little stronger.

Besides the Pico no hot sauce... I didn't ask as if they had one I would have thought it'd be presented. Did use a tapatio from a nearby table. Can't rate 5 stars without authentic house made hot sauce/salsa besides the pico shrug

The patio view is nice and the furniture/ ambience pretty good quality... take those away and it's a 3.2 stars. House made salsa and a few adjustments and...

In Oakhurst, if you want to eat Mexican Food..... I would normally recommend Plazuelas!!!! BUT THEY ARE EVIDENTLY CLOSED ON SUNDAYS!!!! That being said..... we found El Cid!!!!!

Remember.... YOU NEVER WANT TO EAT AT AN EMPTY RESTAURANT!!!!!!!

This place was close to full and by the time we left..... probably completely full.......

They were very busy..... and to be honest... I was worried... knowing that we were eating at 6:00pm on a Sunday....with a drive back to LA ahead of me......

But the time to be seated...... nothing...... the time to be greeted by our server..... less than 5 minutes........ the time for our appetizers/salads to arrive 5 minutes...... the time for our food to arrive.....10-15 minutes......... For such a busy restaurant...... this is BASICALLY UNHEARD OFF!!!!!! The service was incredible... we were always.....attended to exactly when needed.... offered refills of drinks, chips and salsa..... and our waitress..... managed to check in with us "just the right amount of times!!!"

The food itself..... well I had read the reviews.... and thus personally sought out the Chile Relleno...... but the fact that their incredibly complete menu didn't contain the specific combo of a "Chile Verde Burrito and a Chile Relleno"... but I was accomaded as requested...... well that simply should suffice anyone to visit the restaurant. The portions were ample.... the service PERFECT... the Price..... well to be honest a bit expensive..... but everything else made up for it

10 out of 5 stars for: Time of Service, Quality of Food, Quality of Service,...