El Chile - Cafe Y Cantina
1809 Manor Rd, Austin, TX
512.457.9900 • website>
Rating: 37.5 out of 50

RETURN ViSIT:
We ate El Chile again this past Friday night with my lady and some friends. El Chile did NOT dissapoint! Do be prepared to wait on busy nights as the place ony sits about 50-75 peeps. But the food is worth it.

Here’s what I got:

Arrachera
Sirloin steak topped with melted Chihuahua cheese, poblano rajas, and grilled onions. $12.95

Basically beef fajitas, but I had to cut it up myself. It was very tasty! tender, perfectly cooked, savory, supple beef. This cow must’ve had a personal massage therapist. I Placed the cuts inside their home-made tortillas with peppers, cheese, my favorite chipotle salsa in town, and behold…a truly world-class fajita taco.

Also gotta give props to the Holy Grail of beer mugs- I had about 4 Dos Equis in these monster glasses, they weigh about 20lbs. each. Sarah ordered the Chilango Margarita: Spicy orange infused frozen margarita. I don’t really dig spicy drinks, but this one was outstanding.

oh, and check out El chile’s website.

Also, stay tuned for a review of the NEWEST spawn of El Chile, the taco stand EL CHILITO.

ORIGINAL VISIT & REVIEW:

This place is on the east side right where Manor Rd merges with Dean Keaton. Its almost next door to the other relatively new taco joint “Vivo”. And actually the 2 places a re very similar, but I’d say El Chile is a bit more on the creative Mexican cuisine side (think Curras), while Vivo is more Tex-Mex style.

We arrived at about 11am, pretty early for lunch so they’d just opened. by the time we finished the place was packed. They have a small but comfortable and artsy interior area, and an equally nice outside deck seating, which is covered.

Our server was very courteous, but I noticed later that she’d failed to offer us the day’s special before taking our order (which sounded damn good from what I overheard at our neighbors table. I think it was pan-seared trout with mango-jalapeno aoli). But luckily there was more than a few tasty looking plates on the menu, so I still had a hard time deciding what to get. The fish tacos looked good, and so did the verde enchiladas. here’s what we settled on:

my order:
Enchiladas de Mole Rojo

NTOTB’s order:
Chicken Puffy tacos

The food came out relatively quick (maybe 10 minutes). And we NAWSHED on the great chips n salsa to pass the time. The Salsa is a dark chipotle variety that was fairly mild, but had a very rich and slightly sweet flavor. The best Chipotle salsa I’ve had in recent memory.

The Enchiladas were filled with braised pork- very moist and delicious, and smothered in red Oaxacan mole sauce, then sprinled with sesame seeds. the mole was rich, decadent, but not overbearing. It had a slight hint of bitterness, which is common in mole, but I thought It was EXCELLENT overall. The pork was perfectly cooked and I savored every bite. My plate was garnished with Black beans (adequate) and white spanish rice (yummy). A very impressive mole dish overall. I’d say it comes in a close 2nd to Curra’s mole enchiladas…

I had a couple bites of NTOTB’s Chicken Puffies. Now, I’ve tried Vivo’s and Taco Village’s puffy tacos and these are in a different category. They are not fried- almost like a cross between a gordita and a chalupa. thick corn torilla thing topped with chicken, tomato, guac, and lettuce. they were too full to pick up. Very fresh ingedients is all I can say. No, they didn’t comfort me like Taco Village, but they are really too different to compare, so I’ll just say they’re fresh and good…

for dessert, we tried the tres-leches cake on our waitress’s recommendation. It was like a sopping wet sponge, just DROWNING in sweet milk. Now, I like a moist cake as much as the next dude, but this was just too moist. We both agreed that it was kinda gross to have that much liquid pouring out of cake. I’d rather have 3 glasses of milk and a piece of relatively moist cake.

Overall- El Chile is a good restaurant. There’s at least 3-4 things I’ll go back to try. With a couple of exceptions, the service was informative, friendly and prompt. I do RECOMMEND this place.

Atmosphere: 8
Service: 6
Quality: 8.5
Salsa: 8.5
Price: 6.5 (everything was around $9 or $10)

score: 70%

Rating:

El Chile - Cafe Y Cantina
(512) 457-9900
1809 Manor Rd
Austin, TX 78722

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