Manuel's Mexican Restaurant & Cantina | Tempe — Restaurant in Tempe

I want to like this place. Every year or so I give them another try and I'm surprised I never left a review. Last night we had fairly good service. but in the past the service has been questionable. The service is not my issue. I like mexican cantinas and this is one of the few that is left. It's run down and a little dumpy but fun. The food was terrible. $12,99 special for tuesday taco and enchilada.

I find it disrespectful for a cook to put a crispy taco in the sauce and not over the rice. So the taco is a soggy mess. The beef was so salty I tried eatting it by pulling out half the meat but that didn't help. and it just fell apart anyway. Nice amount of cheese but the meat was so gross I hardly ate it. Then the enchilada sauce is junk. and because the taco absorbed most of it was more like a dry soggy corn tortilla with cheese. Rice and beans not bad just no flavor very bland. Salsa I remembered being good but I found it lacked flavor with lots of salt and was very watery. Died coke was fine and the server brought a few refills. The guacamole was sour. I would have sent it back but I wasn't the one who ordered it. All around terrible experience. I doubt I'll be able to convince my wife to give this place another chance. She literally ate nothing.

As I write this I'm amused that $12.99 is the sale price for 2 basic item mexican entree. But that's the world we live in.

I think a lot of these restaurants are going to be in a world of pain soon. As people get tired of over paying for sloppy food. I'm very sure that entree didn't cost them $4 to make. I know we have inflation but food costs should be 30% beans and rice and tortilla didn't double in price. Frozen foods and canned foods did. But when you make things from scratch they are still...

We went for early dinner and we happen to be of a certain age, so we get to order off the lunch menu any time we want.

We were greeted enthusiastically as we walked in, taken to our table and our server, April, came right away to take our drink order, which after a day of driving, was just water. We were both a little dehydrated and didn't need anything sugary.

The food came out quickly, but not before we finished off a small bowl of chips and salsa, which were immediately refilled by the very competent chip man.

Do not be afraid of the salsa picante. It's not over the top (although if you don't like cumin, you won't like it). It's more like taco sauce. It's extra wonderful mixed with the regular salsa.

My husband got the classic taco and tostada, and I ordered the most wonderful chili relleno! Oh, so good, so mellow. So scrumptious! I only ate about half and will finish it off tomorrow.

Manuel's has been a family favorite since it first started on 32nd Street and Indian School in Phoenix, back in the...late 70's (?), when I was a child. That's 50 years or so of feeding 5 generations of my family, Wow! We've eaten at all the locations and they're all good.

I just wish the prices hadn't gone up so drastically in the past year or two. It's hard to go very...

I'm sorry, I don't like giving poor reviews, but in this case they really need improvement. First off, it was really dark in the restaurant, and not a romantic dark. I couldn't even see the menu, all the windows were covered, and the place was poorly lit by patio lights that you buy at Costco; which is great for outdoor lighting, but a sad choice for inside. There were cameras all over the restaurant, one of which was pointing directly at our table, way to go for having a relaxing dinner; Not! There was also quite a bit of food on the floors, I was there on a Saturday night, about 7pm; they were not busy. Now for the food, to say the salsa was lacking in flavor and spice, is an understatement! It tasted like someone just took tomato sauce and maybe some green chilies, mixed it together, forgot to add salt, pepper, and spices. The root beer had zero carbonation, so I told them and got an ice tea instead; not much better. I ordered the bean chimichonga, it was average. The only thing that was not a disappointment, was that the staff was friendly. I will never eat here again, and I'm disappointed that I wasted $$, and could've eaten...