If you ask people who frequent Mexican food downtown for a suggestion, El Patio is a name that comes up pretty often. It seems to be a local favorite and even though it's been forever since I had been there, I seem to remember that the food was pretty decent. Since our schedules worked out to meet downtown, we decided to make it stop #32 on the tour. Again. So let me explain.....
A few weeks ago, Chris and I actually decided to go to El Patio for the tour. Travis couldn't make it that week, but we decided to go anyway. A few days later when I asked Chris why he hadn't written his review, he basically said he'd "forgotten what the food was like." Not a good sign. But then again, Chris doesn't exactly have an eidetic memory. So.... we decided to go again. This time with Thing #1. When we got there, the place was pretty busy, much as it was the first time around. We were seated and helped immediately and got our complementary chips and salsa. I liked the chips here, but the salsas were meh. The mild was just runny tomato juice. But the hot salsa had a little kick to it. I decided to go with three tacos - asada, barbacoa, and chorizo.
After a reasonably short wait, the tacos came out with the usual street dressing - onion, cilantro, and lime. I started with the chorizo taco, which also had some egg mixed in as well. Apparently chorizo isn't on the taco menu, but they'll make it for you if you ask. I thought the chorizo was ok. It did seem to have some of the burnt after taste, but not as bad as some other places. Barbacoa was next, and I could honestly say the same for this taco - pretty middle of the road. The meat was tender almost to the point of mushiness. But flavor wise, I thought it fell a little flat. The asada was probably the best of the three tacos. Decent amount of steak, and with some lime and salsa on it, I thought it was a decent taco. On the service side our waitress was very nice and did a great job, although I think Chris is still waiting on his pineapple Jarritos. Bleh. Actually he should thank her for forgetting.
In the end, I think if I were downtown and had a hankering for some Mexican I would come back but maybe go for something else. I looked around and noticed that the crowd for the most part wasn't eating tacos, so maybe that's what I remember about it from a long time ago. Also, for the price (2.50-2.75ish/taco) I can get better tacos at other places not too far from there for a better price. My overall rankings on the 5-Taco Scale are below.
Food Quality - 2.5 Tacos
Price - 2.0 Tacos
Value - 2.5 Tacos
Cleanliness - 3.0 Tacos
Service - 4.0 Tacos
Overall Experience - 2.5 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 2.0 Tacos
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