El Puerto Restaurant — Restaurant in Rancho Cordova

In Short - YaY...Cute, very friendly, very fast, very yummy. On the low price range for Mexican food.

Notes - You can easily get a full blown semi in and out of here. In fact you could make a U-turn in the parking lot. It's easy to miss if you're not using "Maps" It is in the Harbor Freight tools shopping center and it is kinda hidden from view because of the "fish and chips" restaurant.

In long - I seen this place before while looking at "Maps" but just haven't been yet. I would be passing it and never saw it. (But "Maps" will take you there) I decided I would "Map" it out today for a snack.

It feels like a closed down shopping center, there are hardly any cars in a huge parking lot. The exterior of shopping center is old and kinda dingy. But...as soon as you step in to the restaurant it's like a cute little oasis of Mexican food! It was completely different than I expected.

It was completely empty when I showed up, which was perfect because I don't like posting pictures of other people's faces.

It's a sit down restaurant, but when I was there it was a take any seat type of sit down restaurant. I snagged a menu on my way to a corner booth. Popped off a couple of restaurant interior pictures and was greeted by my waitress, who spoke perfect English and Spanish, with some chips and salsa. (Which are now definitely in the top 5 best chips)

I ordered the Friday Special, a Carnitas Plate with corn tortillas.

The daily specials are like 9-11 bucks!

Food breakdown on the plate.

👍Beans... Refried, slightly chunky, with a little cheese (perfect amount for me, but I know some people will take a bite straight out of a brick of cheese, so you might want to ask for extra if you are one of those people)

👍Rice... Pretty standard good rice.

👍Carnitas... Really good! It was shredded, but it also had some good sized chunks in it, I like that. It had a few crispy ends and was very moist, but not really juicy. Get it🤔 (it was good)

👍 Onions and peppers... They were under the carnitas, and they were perfect!

👍 Tomato salad... Or it was a really chunky Pico on lettuce, whatever you wanna call it it was good!

👍 Corn Tortillas... Soft and yummy! Made for some great tacos!

Biggest regret, I should have asked for some salsa verde, that would've been awesome.

Thanks everyone! It was delicious! Remind me to try your salsa...

I don't understand anyone saying the food is bland. I've been going here for approximately 25 years and it's amazing how consistent the food has been over that long period of time. Everything I've tried has been very flavorful and delicious and well-seasoned, and again, CONSISTENT.

There's only so much you can do with Spanish rice and refried beans, so those are never going to wow anyone, but they have as much flavor as you can expect without totally changing them. Their salsa is delicious and consistent and well-seasoned. I like that it is blended well and not super chunky.

They do not have, nor ever had hard liquor, so the margaritas are wine margaritas. You can't judge them against real margaritas, so you have to appreciate them for what they are. That's why I normally just enjoy a couple bottles of Corona with my meal.

Someone else complained about their prices, but compared to other Mexican food places, and taking portion sizes into consideration, their prices are actually quite reasonable. Their prices are so reasonable that I don't even mind ordering from...

As a person who has ate mexican food all his life didnt expect much but they where the Worst enchiladas I've ever had its hard not to be mean but it was terrible the menu is all the same ingredients only served differently me and my girlfriend where the only ones there and the service was very bad my girlfriend was very upset I recently tried again and got a taco I couldn't think anyone could mess up a 4 ingredient item but they managed to ,the meat was so bad and it's so pricey I honestly prefer to eat adalbertos then here I would think they'd step it up and I hope they do wish them well and hope for the sake of their business they start tasting the food before...