Fiesta Cinco Demayo Restaurant — Restaurant in Windham

We've been dining at Fiesta Cinco de Mayo since shortly after they first opened over twenty years ago. The food is always fresh and well-prepared, the service top-notch, and the atmosphere welcoming and kitschy. Friendly, fresh, flavorful and filling. The owners are originally from Puebla, and their tastes and menu specialties reflect the cuisine of that region.

Some other reviewers have commented that they find the food under-seasoned or bland. I would answer that this is what authentic Mexican food tastes like. The typical American Mexican restaurant is as close to real Mexican food as American Chinese food is to what they eat in China. I've traveled (and dined) throughout Mexico, and can attest that true Mexican food is seasoned with subtlety and sophistication, not the Taco Bell assault on the senses to which we gringos have become accustomed. One reviewer mentioned Tex-Mex over and over again, and judged this restaurant's cuisine by those standards. True, the menu here has many of the usual tacos and burritos, but these are concessions to the American palate. If you come to dine at FC de M, skip the usual nonsense and order something real. Try their enchiladas mole, pollo en salsa verde, or camarones empanizados, and you'll get a sense of what real Mexican cooking...

Maybe we hit them on a bad night, I honestly don't know. However: the chips were stale and the salsa was bland, relying primarily on garlic and cilantro for flavoring, with little in the way of additional flavors and no heat. When my husband asked if they had a hotter/hot salsa, the response was that they had hot sauce; not quite what he was looking for.

He had a beef burrito, and found it to be fairly flavorless - or in his words, "this is NOT good." I had the carne asada; perhaps I was spoiled by the Mexican restaurant we loved in our old town, but I found it to be utterly lacking. I was used to it being served with corn tortillas, guacamole, a sliced lime, and fresh jalapenos. This came with none of the above, the steak was barely seasoned and quite fatty, and the accompaniments were also quite bland.

Overall, we were very disappointed. We felt that the food was quite overpriced given the poor quality and lack of flavor. The staff was quite pleasant, and the atmosphere was good, but neither of those will entice...

Went in to "celebrate" 5 de Mayo and thought the name of the place guaranteed the real thing. I ordered a Chimichanga and they brought out a plate of flautas. I sent it back explaining what a CHimighanga is...the cook came out to my table outraged that I should question what a Chimichanga is. I showed him various Google recipes and descriptions of what a Chimichanga is (A fried Burrito basically) - they refused to make me a new dish, I'd have settled for a regular burrito.

But the owner said, "the kitchen will not cook for you anymore" so I simply got up and walked. Oh and the "tamale" tasted like a corn meal turd. Bland, no pork, no nothing...just ground corn in a husk. Sent that back too. But the margaritas on the house...