El Palenque Tacos & Grill

Dropping in town on the way to west Texas. Nice mom & pop place. Good food, made to order.

Great food they have a fajitas combo with steak, chicken & sausage that is not in menu that is great! Friendly staff and owner

El Palenque is a hidden, cute «mom ’ pop» in Del Rio, Tx. The food is great and the buffet options vary by day but always delicious. When I’m off during the day, I love to stop in for lunch! YUMMY!

Excellent fresh mexican food. One of the best in del rio. The complimentary salsa and chips are pretty spicy.

Dinner here was fantastic! Fresh authentic Mexican food. It wasn’t busy or packed, but don’t let that deter you. So delicious!

One of the better Mexican eateries around Del Rio. Great chips and salsa verde when you show up. Ordered the Queserizo appetizer which is basically a giant glob of melted cheese with some chorizo that came with some tortillas. Great, but needs to be eaten quickly. Also ordered the northern tacos with cilantro and onion. A little heavy on the raw onion, but better than average Del Rio fare.

Mexican food in Del Rio, it is hard to go wrong. The Viva Mexico plate is the best deal on the menu, it comes with three different enchiladas (a beef one, a cheese one, and a chicken one with salsa verde), a beef taco and rice and beans for $ 9. The enchiladas were all unique and delicious! It is nice to have a bit of variety on your plate. I really liked the salsa that came with the chips too. It tasted like a smokey poblano salsa. The only bad thing about the restaurant was the service. It took a very long time for our orders to be taken, our drinks to come out, and even the chips and salsa to come out! The standard for service in Del Rio is pretty low in general, so it wasn’t really that surprising, but it is disappointing nonetheless. I’d go back for that enchilada plate though, just not when I’m starving.

El Palenque is a little family run Mexican restaurant. It is hidden at the end of a strip center and doesn’t see too much traffic. I am perfectly happy with that, that means I can get the place all to myself.
They have great enchiladas, I love their rice, and even their lunch buffet is good.
Their chips and salsa are awesome, but only if you like spicy. The Chile is pretty much straight roast jalapeños. Yum.

The free flour chips and salsa were good, the chips were really crunchy and the salsa really spicey.
My boyfriend and I both got the cheese enchiladas plate and it was really cheesy and pretty good.
We got a side of flour tortillas. This is a staple that I judge at every Mexican restaurant and I was pleased.
The tea was refreshing and didn’t have that bitter weird taste that some places have with their tea.
Overall, it was cheap and the food was good. We will be coming here again.

We came to this place because we mistook it for a well-​known restaurant called Palenque Grill that we go to in Laredo. We thought it was a chain offshoot but it wasn’t. This is a family restaurant, and it’s clear. The food is homemade and it shows in the presentation. The owners could work on that a lot better. The green salsa was very delicious but the chips were a bit greasy. My enchiladas were good as was the rice. This is very traditional Mexican fare. I can see that the place is struggling but I would advise the owners put more money in tightening the décor up, make the portions a bit smaller, and work on presentation of the food.

Average Del Rio Mexican. Nothing special about this place. You can get the same food for the same price at just about any Mexican place in town. A little bit less greasy than say Don Marcelinos or Julio’s, but whatever. It’s Del Rio. Don’t expect much.

My experience at El Palenque was another restaurant that appeared to maintain the status quo of what many other Del Rio Mexican restaurants are offering, but I a few experiences have me thinking that there might be more to this place than meets the eye.
The side wall of the restaurant is decorated with pictures of old Del Rio. I found it interesting to take a look at the building of the Del Rio-​Acuña border crossing in 1929.
The free salsa and fresh tortilla chips that came with the meal tasted like they were made from nothing but roasted jalapeño, which was great for me (I’m a bit of a masochist at heart), but others might find it a turn-​off. By the time my meal came I had tears running down my face and snot down my nose, but I was enjoying the capsaicin-​induced endorphin high.
I ordered the Mexican plate — a sample plate that came with a taco, tostada, and enchilada. The tastes were in-​line with other restaurants at which I’ve eaten, but I found the presentation interesting — the taco was fried just to the point where it held its shape but it was still soft, it provided an interesting texture «bridge» between the crispy toastada and the soft enchilada. Each item seemed to highlight a different ingredient, as well — the ground beef of the taco, the refried bean base of the tostada, and the cheese of the enchilada.
In addition to the Mexican plate, I ordered a half dozen taquitos. They were rolled around carne asada and covered with a cabbage salad. It was an indulgence that I only took because the main dish was so cheap, but I wish they offered only three of them as a side dish, because I was not able to finish all six.
While the food was good but standard, the presentation leads me to believe that El Palenque have what it takes to make some awesome flavors for the people of Del Rio.