El Pique Mexican Food — Restaurant in Springfield

If you are a fan of traditional chile rellenos and love burritos, look no further.

El Pique is a classic hole-in-the-wall SCORE if you're into homemade sauces & (near as I can tell) AUTHENTIC flavors of classic Mexican grub. This tiny sit-down Mexican restaurant at the intersection of 19th and Main St in Springfield is easy to miss (South A St merges with Main St. right here). LOCALS (working guys, latinex families) hit this place up around lunch time; it's sweet.

For me, thee sit-down function of El Pique is fine (but not their strong suit: no beer). My partner and I had dropped in a few times for sit down over the past few years and were non-committal (no beer)... Not sure we tried anything like a chile relleno, but I will do so today and will report back.

El Pique, by the way, translates to English as "the bite." Bold marketing. Good start, and yes these folks make a red salsa that has serious el pique!

I'm a HUGE fan of green chiles in general (HATCH greens, poblanos) and of traditional CHILE RELLENOS (light crust, NOT buried in sauce, with a great tasting Anaheim or Poblano or Hatch Green... like they make at 1960 Cocina in Eugene, btw).

THE CHILE RELLENO BURRITO

About 8 months back, while working on a recording project in Springfield, I discovered their CHILE RELLENO BURRITO and my life was changed (the recording engineer and I have lived on these things ever since . He likes the 'supreme,' while I go for the 'regular.' El Pique fed our crew on a near-daily basis....)

The lovely and personable Sanguan works the drive-up window around lunchtime (tell her "Lee" said hi!), and I'm pretty sure she recognizes my voice over the intercom these days (I could drive in and say "the usual" and she would know what to do, but I like to listen to her talk).

I'm sorry it took so long to get this onto YELP. I'm to plagiarize it over to Google Reviews, too.

So now we need to go in and explore the menu a little more. I'll report back.

Enjoy,...

The food is "OK". Definitely using canned beans and pre-made salsa. Their green salsa tastes like nothing and has no spice to it. The chicken fajitas I got tasted like a store-bought taco mix with a large amount of cumin as the primary flavor and, unfortunately, was a tad greasy. The salt levels were pretty good, which I appreciate. The rice was goopy and lacked the flavor of chicken or tomato bouillon instead tasting more of a "Spanish rice" seasoning packet one may find at the grocery store. The store-bought corn tortillas that they use were tasteless and although steaming in foil, turned into a crumbly mess after a few minutes.

Their prices that you will see on their online menu pictures are about $2 cheaper than what you will pay at the store. If you want something (relatively) cheap and are stuck at the hotel next door, this might be the...

Average, but I directly asked if the lengua de res ( Beef Tongue ) had the taste buds and skin removed and the girl at the counter told me, yes of course we remove them. I even let her know that it was a pet peeve of mine and if the meat was not trimmed it would cause me to never return. Low and behold, I got home and took one bite of my $10 burrito and it was pretty much all rubbery taste buds and skin... Gross! Take the time to trim your meat or at least be honest. Some folks don't mind but I do. The rest of the meal was just ok, but no one in my family mentioned that it was good and nobody finished their food. Being as the portions weren't huge I take that as a sign that it just wasn't that good. Also I don't know why it cost $40 for 3 burritos and some rolled tacos??? We...