El Chucho - Cocina Superior — Restaurant in Washington

Let me start off with the good. The food is incredible. Everything we had was excellent.

Let me also just get the bat out of the way. The restaurant at a 1.95% surcharge on all checks, however, the issue is that the surcharge is actually not 1.95%. It is closer to 2% or 2.1% . This is a little scummy by the establishment.

However, like I said, the food is excellent.

We started off with the queso fundido. This had so much flavor with the fresh tomatoes and onions on top, but the Cheez itself was grilled beautifully. The tortillas were also double layers and tasted fresh and homemade.

Then we got some tacos. The duck tacos are by far the best that this place has. Super crispy and flavorful duck. That taco lives rent free in my mind. The Ahi tuna taco was also very unique as I had not tried this before. Seared ahi tuna was cooked really well. I do wish they had served this with some lime to bring it together. Finally, we tried the chicken tacos. These were also excellent, however, I personally prefer Pollo Asado over shredded chicken. Again, I think if they added a salsa or some lime, this would really bring the dish together well.

The mango Agua fresco was delicious. Refreshing, bubbly, but they only give you a small quantity and fill it to the brim with ice.

Service overall was fine. They came by once to fill up our water, and maybe two other times to just check on us.

The atmosphere is also excellent. They have an upstairs enclosed heated area, which was nice to get away from the rowdiness at the bar downstairs.

Overall, I would come back just for the queso as well as...

We had the pleasure of dining at El Chucho’s last night. The restaurant was half full when we arrived at about 6:00 pm and had a buzz about it. My wife had the carne asada tacos and I had the Lengua tacos. We didn’t have margaritas but had their winter soda because the don’t have soft drinks or ice tea. The soda was delicious as was their food.

Our server, sadly can’t remember his name was very casual and efficiently friendly. Excellent service.

The one knock and it is a blight on all restaurants is the service charge, which is not a gratuity. It benefits the owners and quite honestly frustrates me as a long time hospitality executive.

Granted this was one of the lowest surcharges I’ve seen at 5%. I am not familiar with tax law, but it has to benefit the owners because the least offensive was would be to increase prices (which of course have steadily gone up), which at least would be more honest that stating a fee on top of the price increases is insulting. I want these establishment to thrive, but not this way.

Thank you for an incredible dining experience, but ask that you do this in a more direct way, you will only impact your wait staff, as some might take away from the gratuity they deserve. Unfortunately, until this practice is stopped, we...

El Chucho was fan-frickin-tastic. This is not a family oriented establishment, but we were feeling adventurous so we gave it a try kinda late on a Saturday night. Me, wife, and three kids ages 9-15 were welcomed enthusiastically and seated right in the middle of it all. Groups of young (well, younger than my wife and I, anyway) and trendy (way cooler than I, anyway) patrons filled the place. It was loud and fast. If they had bleeped the music it would have been a continuous tone. Every manner of dress and undress, and every type of alcohol you can think of moved past us.

But we were there for the food and holy amazing tacos, Batman! Atun, Pollo, and whatever they called the pork belly. Just one mouth-gasm after another! My kids aren't chicken nugget kids, but they can be a bit fussy at times. Not here, not with this display of superb tex-mex craftsmanship. They ate it up faster than you can say "more guac, please" (which was also great, BTW).

Again, this place doesn't target families of middle aged adults with kids, but the staff was awesome, and the food was killer. Thanks, guys.

And if you are the hip, young demographic this place is built for get your free time, disposable income, stay up past ten-thirty...