I keep trying to like Mexican food and this time I thought I was heading to a Restaurant where I would not be disappointed. I thought the reviews sounded promising, it was on the wonderful Clarendon Street and the overall vibe and menu of El Habanero is promising! Alas! The food and wait times were a massive let down.
We ordered the white fish ceviche to share as an entrée which came out promptly enough, the taco shell it was on was flimsy and added nothing to the dish. It would have been much preferred not to have it on there. The ceviche was overcooked in the citrus and the herbs had deteriorated, the tomato pieces has become graining and tasteless and there was nothing to taste but lemon and no texture but rubber. A real let down, considering how wonderful ceviche actually is.
Between the entrée and the mains we waited 43 minutes, does this seem excessive to you? It seemed excessive to us. We were really hungry and planned on going out afterwards, so it was a little frustrating, but we enjoyed the night air and ignored it. The waiter came over and asked if we "need anything else?" about half an hour in when we informed him we were waiting on mains, he looked puzzled and dashed off to the kitchen and returned saying ours was the next order. Urgh. It's worth mentioning there was a group of maybe 20 teenagers there for a birthday party, we were sure to put in our orders just as they sat down to avoid this exact problem from occurring.
It is hard to stay annoyed about the service staff at El Habanero, as they are truly friendly people and genuinely seem to be working as hard as they can to make the experience a pleasant one for their patrons. They even had what looked like the Manager walking around asking tables how they were going and if they needed anything.
My two friends and I all ordered differed combinations of the tacos, three each. The combinations of flavours were great and were so close to being awesome. The portions are way too small and as you expect from the ceviche; it was all over cooked, not fresh and/or package tasting. Nothing to write home about unless to say "over cooked fish gives me nightmares." We ordered a Mexican beer and two virgin Mojitos which really were the high light of the evening, all in all cost us in excess of $80.00.
We were feeling pretty let down by the food so we didn't order the Flan for desert like we had been planning. I am not sure what is going on in terms of the food, they seem to have the makings of a genuine, tasty, Mexican restaurant- it just does not seem to be getting executed properly. read more