El Mariachi — Restaurant in Taunton

Me, my wife, and our two beautiful children moved to the neighboring town of Berkley last year and let me start off by saying this; the food at this location is PHENOMENAL!! For the passed year we ordered from this restaurant using Door Dash literally 2/3 times a week. Door Dash no longer delivers to our area so we had to resort to less frequent pickup.

...so why the 1 star??

My mother, sister, and brother and law came into town 2 weeks ago and we decided to treat them to the best Mexican food around. This place was slammed with people and we were more than happy to wait 30-45 min to be seated. Again...food was great...drinks were great....

Until my mother was about half way through her meal and found a hair in it. No biggie; this stuff happens right? We politely told our waitress and I watched as she walked over and told her manager. The manager then looked up at our table; made an extremely dismissive gesture; then continued on with whatever he was doing. My mother didn't eat anymore of the meal and they took the meal away to dispose of it.

As the meal was winding down the waitress brings the check over; and my mother's meal is still on the bill. We ask the waitress why that is??...She says she's not sure; she told her manager. So obviously we asked to speak to the manager.

The manager DAVE comes over with an angry look on his face. We ask him why we are paying for a meal that had a hair in it, needless to say this bill with tip was close to $200 and that dish was only like $16. He then states "Well I must see the hair in the dish for me to take it off the bill"..... Umm, welp your staff took the meal away and threw it in the trash. He then states; well no one in the kitchen has long hair. Well sir, ALL of your waitress staff does and there were numerous people that handed us our plates.

DAVE is basically ARGUING in front of a restaurant full of customers over a $16 dish. DAVE has NO IDEA how to run a restaurant. DAVE then without apologizing, talking through it, or deescalating the situation just turns his back and walks away. WELL DAVE; you just lost a customer that probably spent $50-$80 a week in your restaurant. I...

I have been visiting this establishment for many years and have always enjoyed the food and the service. However, during a recent experience I would no longer recommend El Mariachi. My office placed an order and picked it up. When we brought it back to the office the order was incorrect, two of the orders were combined into a combination dinner and the Tableside Guacamole was missing. I called to let them know that it was not correct and a different hostess than the original answered the phone and retook the order and assured us they would fix it, no need to bring the wrong order back in. The original hostess called back a minute later stating that the manager packed the order himself and that he would like us to bring the food back in so that they could check it. When I returned to the restaurant the original hostess was extremely rude pointing out NUMEROUS times that problem was my ordering skills, she wanted to charge us the difference even though we made 2 trips to pick up lunch, and asking for a receipt for the order that I just picked up. I have no problem with people making mistakes and would have been fine if they replaced the missing items and would have gone on about my day with no problem. But this hostess continued to be rude at every turn, we ended up leaving with the order still INCORRECT. I asked to speak to a manager on my way out since he must of been there in order to have packed my order as stated earlier but nobody could produce a manager. I have never been treated this poorly at a restaurant EVER. I sent an email to the manager and never received a response. I don't want to be compensated in any way, what I would like is acknowledgement that they will not let their staff treat...

I have dined at El Mariachi on several occasions in the last 2 or 3 years with my son, friends and family. Each time we've enjoyed a lovely meal and nice atmosphere.

Yesterday was another example of the same fine quality, however we did not eat in the restaurant.

We were having a little celebration for a coworker's birthday. When given the choice, she selected El Mariachi. The order was not made up of several of the same meals or large dishes for everyone to share, but instead was quite complex. Almost every meal selection was different and most with special requests and preferences. I phoned in the order at around 11:30 am, they told me it would be around 30 minutes.

I ended up very late picking up the order, but even then, it was fantastic. They had cooked, seasoned, dished and garnished every single order to perfection! I had requested the Shrimp Tula, and was not disappointed. Being a legendary gourmet chef with my own cooking stage (ok, I live in an apartment with a galley kitchen), I consider myself a foodie. I love to explore, create and experience new tastes, textures, ingredients and combinations of almost anything edible. That was why I ordered the Tula. I'd never paired mushrooms and shrimp. I'd always thought the textures and flavors of both were to distinct in some way that would not work together.

El Mariachi showed me on that day, how wrong I was. The tender mushrooms along side plump, expertly sauteed shrimp bathing in a sumptuous buttery garlic sauce was AMAZING, to say the least!

That being said, we will definitely be visiting El Mariachi in Taunton again soon, and I would recommend...