Echalee Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Tallahassee

I'm from California and for those of you who haven't been there it is the mecca for good Mexican food (aside from going to Mexico of course). Most of the Mexican Restaurants in town are glorified Taco Bells and while many people in town really like Chipotle as their Mexican food place of choice I challenge you to try this place and see if you'll go back to the other place ever again. Reasons why this place is better: Corn tortillas-yes people real tacos are made with corn tortillas and this place has them. Oh and if you are avoiding gluten in your diet then corn tortillas will work. Meats-they have a larger selection (i.e. steak, barbacoa, fish, chorizo+potato, pastor (bbq pork). One other note, they don't weigh the amount of meat portions on your food unlike the other place that mainly fill your burrito or bowl full of rice and beans. Condiments-Guacamole or sour cream sure thing, how much more for that...nada. Yes those "upgrades" are included in your meal ticket (as it should be at all mexican restaurants). Service-If you prefer being treated like cattle and placed in a line only to finally get your food and find limited seating in a super noisy place then this is not the place for you. These guys are fast and there is always seating. Oh yeah, they also have a pretty good salsa bar too. Taco Tuesday-Tacos are $1 on tuesdays after 5pm. Seriously the BEST bargain in town for eating out on Tuesday hands down.

There you have it folks, don't believe me in anything mentioned here then by all means go give them a try and comment on anything I said was wrong.

P.S. their quesadillas are pretty damn big so come prepared with an appetite

8/15/24 Edit - Echalee relocated from their Tenn St location to John Knox Rd, this has caused me to update my review. This is now a sit down restaurant and no longer a "build a burrito/bowl/taco" assembly line. The food is average, the atmosphere is not great, and there is a bit of a pest problem on...

Tallahassee, FL. Not the best but 5 stars for being a small business surrounded by mediocre franchises and trying hard. The guacamole salad tasted great but actually didn’t contain guac, it was a green salad with lots of avocado, tomato slices, bell pepper slices, lime wedges and an artfully carved orange. I chose to use the house salsa as dressing and that was great! The salsa came out with the chips and contained blended tomatoes, a hint of cilantro and cumin. My husband got the chipotle chicken and cheese quesadilla. Instead of the salad he asked for refried beans and rice. The beans had melted white American cheese on top. At the end he ordered the flan for dessert. The chef plated it really well.

They put on a loud radio station playing American country music then switched it to Central America accordion music with the radio announcers talking in between songs. We could’ve done without that since it made it hard to hear each other. But maybe others might’ve thought the music made it fun.

Inside the restaurant was clean and cheery with Central American art on the walls. The outside deck area looked really cute from the parking lot.

The parking lot looks like the rest of the roads in the immediate area: full of cracks. It’s seen better days.

If I lived here I’d come here. Erasmo was our very nice server. He did a great job being cheerful and knowledgeable...

Extremely unimpressed. I arrived at roughly 6:15 pm on a Wednesday. I had the street tacos and supreme burritos. I had steak, carnitas, and pork for meats. All were dry and felt like they had been kept on a steam table for a WHILE. The meats had little flavor. My opinion is they had just been kept on a hot table too long. The server was nice and did a good job recommending things. The speed of service was also good. My server never asked how the food was. At the end, I volunteered to the server that the meats were all dry and rough. He acknowledged that, but made no apologies nor offered any remedy.

My daughter had the enchiladas. She said they were fine.

I ordered tamales and flautas 'to go' for my wife. She said they were both good except for the meats. She had pork and chicken tamales and chicken flautas. She said both had the potential to be great but were failed by the meat.

I'm assuming that if I'd arrived earlier or on a busier night when the food was fresher, I'd have had a better experience. I have no plans...