Saturday, September 1, 2012

El Mexsal Restaurant


Where: El Mexsal Restaurant, 325 S Freedom Blvd, Provo

Who Went: Roy and Heather

Number of Visits: 1

What I Ordered: 
  • Beef tamale, Beef enchilada, 
  • Beef and bean burrito with chile relleno combo
  • Pupusa Revuelta (cheese, beans, pork)

What It Cost: $17.50 (before tip)

What I Thought:

Roy and I are always on the look-out for good Mexican restaurants in our area, and fortunately, we've found a few places that are muuuuuch better than Los Hermanos (review to come). We heard about this little mexican place and were excited to try it out.


First, the chips and salsa. First impression for both of us: Woo hoo! The chips were still warm and the salsa was perfectly spicy. But, as the minutes passed, I started to notice how quickly the chips turned cold (which was fine) but what I disliked was how hard they became. Crunchy is not the way I'd describe these (because crunchy is good and what we want). They were hard and I found them sticking my gums and mouth and hurting them. But maybe that's me being too overcritical. The salsa was amazing though! Super flavorful and spicy (Roy and I like spicy food a lot, so we were happy). It was a little watery, but the flavor made up for it.

This is Roy here.  I just wanted to add that they were delicious!  

First to arrive, our AMAZING Pupusa. Filled with pork, cheese, and beans, I couldn't wait to try it. Roy raved about Pupusas from his time in Nicaragua so I jumped on it when it came, and burnt my tongue! But it was worth it, because it was tasty! The tortillas were perfectly crisp.

The Pupusa had good texture as my wife has pointed out and the flavor was great.  Comparing it to other pupusas though, I thought it lacked in cheese and beans.  But it had plenty of meat and flavor to make up for it.  All and all, it was great to eat pupusas again and it was super cheap ($2).


Then, my dish of a beef enchilada and beef tamale came, with beans and rice. The rice was the best Mexican rice I've ever had. Even Roy, who dislikes mexican rice, said it was good. The beans were delicious as well. Nice and creamy, hot, and with good cheese on top. The beef enchilada was very good. The meat was savory and the tortilla was anything but dry. The tamale was another story. While the meat was alright, the masa (the corn dough around the meat) was kind of gross. I couldn't get over the texture. It was squishy and mushy and made it super hard to finish. I wouldn't get it again.


Now for my dish.  You can already tell from the picture that this will be delicious, and it was!  The burrito had a slightly crispy tortilla with plenty of moist meat.  The rice also had more flavor than most other restaurants, which is a huge plus in my book.  For those that don't know, the Chile Relleno is a pepper filled with cheese and covered in cheese and some fried dough.  It was not too spicy which is important considering some people don't like a lot of spice.  The last few bites had turned quite cold but that is my fault for being a slow eater.  The salad was good, but I felt it was too fresh for a mexican restaurant, meaning the flavor did not mix as well as I had hoped.  Overall, though, this plate was very good and very filling for such a cheap price.


Roy was pretty excited that this came with our food. The right is more salsa, which was great, since we were out just a short time after we got there since it was so good. However, they never refilled our chips, so it was pretty pointless... which was sad...
Anyway, on the left is ensalada, which Roy had in Nicaragua. I didn't try it, because I've had some before and didn't like the dish. But Roy tried it and said it was nothing special.


Overall, we liked the place, and they gave a lot of food for the price. We were pretty bummed that our chips weren't refilled, but we were really full by the end of it anyways. It's a family owned business, so it's cute. The environment from the outside is a little disappointing, but once we were inside, it was fine.  I did feel a little out of place, however, because we were the only white Americans in the establishment. But I guess that just means it was really good food!

What you should do: Go! Overall, it was full of flavor and for a good price. And you'd be supporting a cute family in their business!

10 comments:

  1. Hey lovely people. Was the chile relleno crispy on the outside? I've had a problem at a lot of restaurants where the chile relleno is super mushy and extremely lacking in the fried dough/egg outside. I like mine a little crispy. But they are my favorite Mexican dish!

    -Kari

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    1. Yeah the Chile Relleno was mushy and probably would have been more of a favorite of mine had it been crispy. It still had good flavor though

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    2. I wasn't super excited about the chile relleno. It was the first time I tried it and it wasn't my favorite dish, but that aside, I could hardly taste the pepper and the dough stuff because the cheese was just so overwhelming. But maybe that was just that one bite Roy gave to me.

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  2. Wow, racism showing through yet again! You were the only white Americans in the place, and that made you uncomfortable, huh, little sis? Sheesh!

    (You know I still love you!! Racism runs in the family, so I don't expect you to have escaped it-- none of us are at Gram's level though, so there is hope for the rising generations).

    If we ever come visit you, sounds like we'd want to go eat here. Does Provo have an Thai?

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    1. It's not racism, it's giving a fact that there were many mexican families in the restaurant, and if they think the food is authentic and good, then it must be! What's wrong with that?
      Yeah, Provo has this place called Spicy Thai and Roy and I love it. We'll do a review on it the next time we go. That's one of the three that we would always go to, so we kind of got tired of it, so that's why we're trying new places.

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  4. This looks like a decent place to eat. I know it's hard to find good Mexican food outside of California and Arizona. I was wondering though, why didn't you eat your pupusa with the ensalada? That's part of the dish. At least the three times I have had pupusas the ensalada has been given as a topping. Overall good review.

    If you see that I deleted my comment from earlier you can be assured that it was the exact same post as this but has a spacing error.

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  5. Yeah, Peter, generally I probably would have eaten the ensalada with the pupusa but it wasn't the greatest ensalada I had ever had as I mentioned in the post. So I opted not to water down my pupusa with it. It might have just been a fluke batch too. I would like to go again and try more of their delicious food!

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  6. I luv the Pupusas and go there frequently. What a great local place and nice local people working there. We refer lots of people from Lakeside Storage to go there for good food with fair prices

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  7. Don't waste your time here. I ended up waiting over 50 minutes for my food and it was already made they just didn't let me know until I asked them. I've gone before and they would let me know. The food is good but their service and processes are terrible. You're better off going somewhere else where you don't have to worry about getting your food on time. If you dig through reviews on other websites you'll come across people who have had similar experiences.
    They also double charged me for my food. I didn't notice until after the fact but I confirmed the price from their website with the price I paid. I won't be going back.

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