El Barco Méxican Restaurant — Restaurant in Urbandale

The food is very good--best carnitas I've had since the West Des Moines El Águila Real closed (sob! The original in Beaverdale isn't quite as good), and the choripollo is tasty indeed.As people have said, the quantities are very generous. The staff is courteous and helpful, and willing to put up with my use of what Spanish I remember.

One thing you should know if you order the shrimp cocktail or the soup with shrimp--you get the whole shrimp. If like me you have a hard time peeling crustaceans, or like some are put off by el camarón entero looking at you, you might want to think twice. That is not to say these items aren't delicious (my wife tried the broth of the shrimp soup and it was excellent), so don't be discouraged from ordering them if you are good with peeling and such. (Our server cheerfully took the soup back and brought choripollo; we felt guilty about wasting good food, but left full and happy.)

Des Moines is long past the bad old days when Mexican was the Chi-Chi's at 22nd and University with dishes buried in most of a head of shredded lettuce, and quality restaurants like El Barco are the reason. We'll be back and I hope you will...

EXCEPTIONAL WAITER! This was my very first time coming here and it was great. I thought I was going to sit at a standard Mexican Restaurants but this restaurant turned out to be one of the best Mexican restaurants I've ever been to in Iowa. I ordered a burrito off the menu and I asked if they had chorizo (Mexican sausage) and the waiter literally was like "We can make your burrito out of water ever you want" I've never heard anyone say that. I always get the usually response of no, or its not available ect but this guy made it seem like I could tailor my order as much as I wanted. The burrito was delicious. The beans tasted like homemade. It was great! We had to give a great tip for a waiter named RICARDO. He was so good at what he was doing. He had a small incident where he hurt his hand but he still came back and served us. Our experience with Ricardo has made us love this place and we will...

My husband and I came here to get some oysters and have a drink. The bartender seemed like he was rushing the whole time with maybe 5 tables occuping the whole restaurant. He came and dropped thebchips and sauce. We tried to order drinks and oysters. Before we even finished our order of just ordering drinks the weitress walked away. We tried to order some oysters but didnt even get a chance. Then we had to stop the guy to bring us oysters. After a while he did that and walked away. Still not even considering to ask if we wanted to oder any food. But ok. My husband and I started eating the oysters and they were just nasty. The top of oysters were dry if they have been sitting open for a while. At this point my husband and i just grabbed the check for what we already ordered and decided to leave. Waitress didnt even come to see if we wanted anything...