Del Carmen Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Westmont

I've been looking for somewhere like Del Carmen ever since I moved to Chicago a few years back. Holy moly. This one really is the definition of a hole-in-the-wall spot. Isolated shopping center, but slanging some of the best Mexican food in the area. This one definitely bring back late night college memories back in Southern California.

Not much of a spot to dine in as there's only a handful of bar seats along the window, but takeout is the name of the game here. Anyways, what keeps me coming back here for more you say? The breakfast burrito and tacos! Breakfast burrito consists of a large flour tortilla stuffed with a healthy eggs, chorizo, rice, cheese, green peppers, and onions. Oddly enough they don't open early enough for breakfast, but do offer all their breakfast items all day. Tacos come with your choice of meat with cilantro and onions or you can opt for American style with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes. In my opinion, meat, onions, cilantro is where it's at. They do offer both red and green sauces on the side to pour on for each bite.

Other dishes worth noting... The Tres Amigos plate which is basically the trifecta combo of a NY steak strip, oversized grilled chicken, shrimp served with rice, beans, and tortillas. And the Mojarra Frito, their whole fried tilapia over fries with butter garlic sauce also served with rice, beans, and tortillas.

Anyways, if the sauces/salsas are packed into those mini solo cups and the large horchata is the size of a double big gulp, you know it's going to be good.

'Til next...

I really wanted to love this place. My neighbor raved about Del Carmen and I love good Mexican food. Unfortunately this wasn't it. Since it's Tuesday, I thought I'd try the Taco special. And because I was hungry, I also ordered some beans and cheese nachos.

The tortillas on the tacos were soggy and stale tasting. The shredded chicken was dry, and there was just a small amount of melted cheese, lettuce and tomato pieces on each taco. The special came with rice and beans, which I was hoping would make up for the sad tasting tacos. The beans were bland, which is fine, but the rice was hard and dry. Pretty much inedible.

The nachos were made with very stale tasting tortilla chips and completely drenched in nacho cheese sauce. Normally I like a lot of cheese sauce, but there was so much it made everything a disgusting and soggy mess.

So I salvaged what I could...scraped the chicken out of the tacos, scraped the beans and cheese off the nachos... and threw the rest away.

I told the person at the counter that I was looking forward to trying their food. I really wanted to love this place. But I won't be going back here. Wasted my time and money. I'm so very...

Staff was incredibly rude. Called to place an order over the phone and asked if they would honor the buy one get one Uber deal. They said yes so I placed the order and went to pick it up. Once I got there, she immediately had an attitude and told me I never called and she never said she’d honor it. Saying over and over WELL your food is ready. I kept saying that’s all I had on me because that’s what we agreed to over the phone. In the end, would rather throw the food away than honor what we spoke about when I could’ve literally ordered “pickup” through Uber eats for the buy one get one and she would’ve had to hand me the food anyway. It costs $0 to be a kind person. Regardless of whether or not you want to sell me the food, you could at least be a nice person. You never know what someone is...