El Patron

Staff was friendly, or at least the woman who took our orders. Food unfortunately was not there. Salsa was yuck tasted like Pace from a jar. Chips were definitely from a bag. And the main dish seemed to follow suit, nothing fresh everything was just not authentic or even good.

What a treat to find this gem in downtown Windsor! I’ve read some poor reviews since visiting this restaurant but don’t recognize the items described — it looks to me like there’s been a menu revamp.
The low-​down from my experience: This place serves very fresh, reasonably authentic Mexican food at a good price point. They offer a full menu for lunch and dinner, and a restricted late-​night menu for the «happy customers» leaving bars downtown. We’ll definitely be back, and I’ll be urging my friends to visit. Give it a try!
The detail: We came in as a party of four for the full dinner service, not the late night menu which only has four items. Having enjoyed Tacos El Gordo in Vegas less than a week before I was worried my standards might too high, but we weren’t disappointed by the authenticity of the food here. The owner is extremely friendly and may have spent a little too much time talking to us, but she was also very helpful.
To contend with Windsor’s conservative palates, the restaurant prepares all of its food mild, and you order a hot pepper paste if you want to kick it up — habanero, ghost, or scorpion pepper. (I ordered the trio to try them all) If you like things spicy, be proactive and order this right away so that you can add it into everything.
Three fresh salsas and tortilla chips were brought to the table right away and our drink orders were taken (they’re not licensed, but offer a variety of Mexican sodas and house-​made horchata). Sodas came right away but I’m a fiend for horchata so I ordered it — there was a bit of a wait since she made it to order (!) and it’s the same price as the bottled beverages!
For appetizers we ordered «build your own» guac — the house guac comes without the tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cilantro you might be used to unless you pay the extra $ 1 — and the queso and chorizo — both were really good — the queso and chorizo dangerously so.
For supper, three of us ordered tacos (and added an extra taco each so we could try a variety) — carne asada, chipotle chicken, and fish. My favourite was the fish tacos, especially spiced up! but they were all good. The enchilada was also tasty. Surprisingly, the refried beans were a real treat — rather than mashing them completely, the restaurant leaves them chunky, and they’ve got just a hint of chipotle. They converted a bean-​hater at the table.
After the chips, two appetizers and four entrees the four of us were really full so we declined dessert, but the owner came over with a complementary house-​made flan for us. It was tasty and reasonably sized — it would be hard to turn it down in the future, so bringing it over was smart!
With all that food and a few rounds of soda, we clocked in at around $ 20 per person — very reasonable for a multiple-​course dinner.

If you want authentic fresh tasting Mexican food you can do no wrong. I can say I was on the ground when the burrito craze hit Canada. I worked at the first Burrito Boyz in Toronto. It was a pretty simple concept, good fresh food rolled together. Sadly it looks like this place is going out of business, but for all the wrong reasons. Its a bit too far from Oulette, on the other side of a strip club, its hard to tell what it is or what to order, and most of Windsor doesn’t appreciate it.
If you want an interesting spin on Mexican this is the spot.
The hipster taco craze that has swept Brooklyn has just been reincarnated in the wrong place.
Try the diablas shrimp with their large selection of delicious fresh hot sauces.
The option for corn tortillas is delicious and super authentic. Chipotle chicken is amazing. They had something on special with chunks of mango and cilantro. Unreal.
This is inspired cooking, its different, fresh but doesn’t take 5 minutes. Its not quite fast food, but most Windsor couples don’t want a big serving of mexican style refried beans with their taco so its not really going to be a popular sit down place either and has no liquor licence. So it wont last. Get their soon while you still can! Delicious choice when there isn’t much cooking around.

On a recent weekend trip to Windsor my girlfriend and I ordered delivery from El Patron. With no exaggeration it was the worst and bland tasting Mexican we have ever had. She ordered the tequila lime shrimp taco which had zero tequila or lime flavor at all. . very very bland. I ordered the beef fajitas which were big chunks of tough over cooked beef that tasted like they were just tossed in a pan or in the oven and baked and had absolutely no flavor at all. If we were dining in we would have sent the food back and left to go elsewhere. I also forgot to mention they gave use about a tablespoon of sour cream and salsa for both of us. Was a horrible ending to a hungry evening. Do yourself a favor and avoid this place.