Recently I had a craving for Mexican and being the awesome daughter I am, I treated my mom to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Plainfield. My mom had been there several times already with my step-father and apparently they were rather fond of the place. I have less than stellar review.
First of all, the place was busy and I’ll give them that much. I also liked how they decorated- it was all very bright and positive collars and the place is very family friendly.
My problem starts where they sat us-right by the entrance of the kitchen. Since they were busy, the entrance was busy-people were constantly going in and out, my mom felt the need to lean forwards several times and since we didn’t have one person bring us everything, it caused confusion on who our waiter/waitress actually was. You really shouldn’t have a table next to the kitchen’s entrance if you can’t treat it like any other table.
My second issue is that several times my drink ran out, and at one point when I got a refill, the waitress accidently spilled some of the drink on the table-this generally is no big deal. I have no fuss with accidents. My issue was that she didn’t even attempt to clean it up; she apologized and then bustled away. Um, isn’t it kind of your job to clean up messes, especially ones you create? Could you have at least given me a few extra napkins to clean it up with?? I ended up wiping the puddle off the table with my hands. Nice.
My third issue was the food. It’s almost traditional with my family to order the queso. First of all, the guy that gave us our chips was not our waiter and didn’t speak English so when my mom tried to order it from the guy, he just looked confused and left. If you’re going to have someone even make minimal contact with a customer, they need to be able to somehow communicate with them.
When we did get the queso, it was pretty small:
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| About the size of a tea-cup plate |
When ended up getting two.
The salsa wasn’t bad, but it was pretty run of the mill.
The menu needs some spacing-everything is single spaced, cramped and in dark font so it was hard to browse through. I decided on getting the Cancun something or another (shrimp, tomatoes, cheese sauce. I'm sure it was suppose to have something else to it, but that's all I tasted/could see) with a side taco, while my mom got the shrimp fajitas.
The rice is very dry and the refined beans were pretty salty. If you mix the two, it’s better tasting.
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| Mom's rice, beans and fajita toppings |
My own dish I did not like. I found everything to be soggy and mushy and under flavored. My mom’s dish was actually pretty awesome, so I might have just ordered the wrong thing.
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| Fajitas |
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| Cancun something or another |
My taco was cold, soggy and the only thing that really stood out about it was how bad it was. It might have been good warm, but cold it was pretty nasty.
We also didn’t get our meals at once. My mom got her fajita plate first, followed by her and my plate of rice/beans/fajita toppings, followed by my order and then my taco. It wasn't like they followed each other shortly after, it was a good 10-15min wait before another plate would come out. This is a sign that the kitchen has bad timing. It also means that my taco should have been very hot as it had come out last, which meant it was ‘fresh’.
While the staff did apologize, no explanation or compensation was offered. I'm also not very sympathetic because you work/own/run a restaurant, and you business isn't NEW, you should know how to handle this.
All in all, for the $40 (including the $3 tip) I paid, I was not impressed at all. I don’t even know what cost what, as the receipt isn’t itemized, it's just one of those generic 'company info, SALE, date, cost, tip line' receipts.
Chances are I won’t be going back on my own. If I’m offered to go back, I might but it isn’t some place that I’m jumping to go back to.
El Meson Mexican Restaurant
1724 E Main St
Plainfield, IN
3147-839-8717
