Cilantro Mexican Restaurant

The menu has always had limitations. For example there has never been any simple food type menu options. Everything is smothered in cheese and sauce. However, they used to execute relatively well on what they did offer. The place has slowly and steadily declined. The fajitas are now nerve filled and their signature rice, cilantro rice, was overlooked and hard. Other diners were screaming at the top of their lungs at 7:00 pm. Never going back. Too bad bc many years back it was better than acceptable.

Service was good salsa with the chips was good I ordered a beef fajita burrito they serve a generous amount but the meat I did not like the flavor at all to me it was like they only use salt and pepper to season it I will not come back first and last time!

Have been coming here to eat for over 10yrs and it is delicious! Their handmade flour tortillas are one of my top 3 of any Mexican restaurant I’ve been to. Great service, and it’s always nice and clean when we go.

Been my favorite all week. Great service and wonderful Tex-​Mex food! Their salsa and tomatillo sauce and chips are great. Try their wonderful Chilantro Margarita… very yummy!!!

Just another Mexican restaurant… yawn! Not the worst I’ve ever had, but far from the best. $ 2.99 happy hour margaritas. Decent chips and green sauce, salsa is just nothing to speak of. Good service.

Ordered a caldo de res soup to go and when I got home the soup was bad, and the rice was horrible. Called to let manager know and didn’t do anything about it.

I LOVE coming here. My husband and I are absolutely crazy in love with Mexican food and cilantros ALWAYS exceeds our expectations. The staff is on the ball every single time, the food is amazing and always to the table super fast. We make the 20 minute drive almost twice a week.
This is our favorite restaurant.

Margaritas… meh. Salsa and salsa verde weren’t the worst I’ve had. They have a very nice patio area, but the awkward circle tables make a party larger than 5 – 6 very uncomfortable.
I had the Cajun Chicken Fajitas. At first they were very tasteful, but after a few bites and swallows became a bit too salty to enjoy. I would eat there again if convenient, but I firmly believe you can find better food and margaritas for a cheaper price.

I want to say first that I’ve only ever ordered the deliver from this restaurant. The food is pretty decent and the delivery time is normally 30 minutes tops. However the last two times we have ordered from this place we were A. missing part of our order and B. took over an hour and forty-​five minutes for our food to show up to our door. This is all within one months time span.
After calling and asking what was going on we were told oh the driver is on his way, after the first hour so we gave it about twenty minutes at a time, the second time we called we spoke to a manager «oh he had to come back due to us messing up an order, he’s on his way and should be there in three to four minutes». The third time I called while on my way to find something else for dinner and I got another oh he should be there from the girl who answered the phone, I then told him I want to cancel the order he said fine he would do it. After getting off the phone with them both about ten to fifteen minutes later (making it a total of two hours and fifteen minutes) the driver calls and says «oh no one is here at the house», I told him yes because we ordered over two hours ago and canceled the order ten minutes ago. He just hangs up so… I probably will never order from this place again.
No sorry or anything, needless to say perhaps if the manager felt any remorse or had bothered to address this situation we’d order again.

Went for a late lunch on a weekday. Ordered the lunch beef fajitas. They were pretty terrible. They looked like beef fajitas for the most part, but the taste and texture reminded me a bit of the Vienna sausages I used to eat from a can when I was little.
Green sauce was good, red sauce was very spicy and a little sweet. Not bad, just different.
Service was good, restaurant was clean.

Family in the hospital. so we went near the hospital, someone saw 5 star reviews. Their service is okay… our waiter was not one to laugh at our jokes. The food was good and their happy hour margaritas were really good according to our party. The green sauce is really good! That’s why I gave it 3 stars! Don’t think I would go back hoenstly.

Been here twice and I can say, it’s fine Mexican restaurant. The place is well maintained, good service and good food.
Try the cilantro combo. And for some reason I love their virgin pinacolada.

HORRIBLE ATMOSPHERE & SERVICE. Mgr David has serious attitude. He could care less about your opinion. 1^st & Last time coming here… food was only ok… you will get MUCH better service @ Taco Bell!

This is a great restaurant I have to give 5 stars the service is great. All servers are really friendly and the food is exceptionally good. Before you order they will bring chips to your table as another Mexican restaurant but the salsa is from another world it is too good! I encourage you to try this place

I’m not sure I could recommend this restaurant to anyone. The floors are nasty, servers do not speak English. We asked for ketchup, they brought us a high chair and a coke.
They also allow smoking. With that said, keep your kids out of this place.

Water is straight from the tap– has that tasty «Houston» flavor.
Proportions are generous with the fajitas. Do you LOVE onions? You better, each one of our plates came with at LEAST 1 large onion in our fajitas, smothering them. Not that its a bad thing if you love grilled onions, but just saying. Food was average– not pappacitas level but better than taq. Arandas!

Came here August 2012 with a few friends on a Sunday night at 7:30 and found the restaurant was about ¼ full. Parking is a little tricky but very ample. It is not obvious if this is the first time you have been here so you might actually end up going through the back door which could pass as the front (Hooter’s side) or the actual front door (I 45 North side).
Could not comment on any greeting since my friends were already there but we had to move to another table to accommodate 7 of us but there was a hostess that I noticed who cordially sat people as they came in the front.
There is a patio on the «back» side if you call it that with rustic iron material. I think there were about 8 tables.
The chips, red and green salsa seemed pretty good. I saw where somebody said it was oily but I did not detect an Exxon spill. The sauce was thick, not runny, plus!
As far as the hit or miss service we had a decent server. Nothing stellar but nothing bad about him. As far as filling drinks I think they team work here because a lady filled my water up 3 times while he served the food.
It wasn’t that busy so a nice touch would have been for at least a manager to come around the tables and see if everything was ok. No special touch, that is ok, they do not realize that little stuff like that goes a long ways in the way customers view your place. You either care of you really don’t about clientele returning or not.
The food:
I had the bean and cheese nachos (12 for $ 6.99) which were ok except for the movie theater quality cheese, I don’t care too much for translucent cheese too much but if I closed my eyes it was salvageable. Evidence picture posted bin KCUY 2.72 A 97A Exhibit A.
I originally ordered the 10 chicken wings since I would have rather gone to Hooters for their wings, yes there are people that go to those places for the wings and not the eye candy. My friend ordered 10 and so did I. With my luck the server came back and said they were out of wings, ruh ruh ruh ruhhhhhhh… Ok, that is when I ordered the bean and cheese nachos.
The two chicken wings that my friend gave to me were dark! Like they did not change the oil for a couple of weeks. I was going to be forgiven since I was craving breaded chicken wings (I asked if they were breaded or birthday skinned, reply was like Hooters, NOT!). I so wanted to give the benefit of the doubt but patooey, I felt like I was a dog chewing on one of those toys you buy at PetSmart. To not draw attention I continued dipping into the ranch dressing that is provided thinking to my self «big juicy bounch bite of tapioca, large chicken flavored gummy bear», didn’t quite curve my brain to let me think that but it helped a tad. Note: Don’t order the chicken wings. I must say however that these are not your itty bitty Buffalo Wild Wings chicken parts, these are like your Chinese restaurant size where they are as big as your baby siblin’s fist.
Ambience, pretty well lit, not sun in your eye lit but you ever been to those annoying places where the lights are turned down so low as to try to create a romantic ambiance that you can’t see the menu without using your phone as a light? Been there, done that, even for Mexican restaurants they like doing that for some reason. Plenty of lighting here, the laminated menus will have you shifting a little bit because the reflection will render you Asian… er you’ll squint a little.
Water does not taste like fish water. Had to say that because every once in a while I’d get a glass of iced water that tasted like it got ran down the backside of someone’s sweaty back or something (ex gf, don’t ask).
The deal killer, remember when I said this is outside of Houston city limits? I totally forgot, guess I am spoiled to Bellaire, midtown, downtown etc. We kept on smelling smoke, arrggh, I have sensitive nose and can smell a burp a block away, this does not help. Maybe we should have asked but I can’t remember when I ever had this problem. Maybe my bad for not asking for a non smoking section but I havn’t had to do that in like10 plus years. I asked the server if there was a smoking section because I do not see anybody lighting up, he pointed to my 5 o’clock…oh ok so this is the non smoking part I am in? He nods…
People…a smoking and non smoking sectioning of restaurant is like the peeing and non peeing section in a public swimming pool… IT JUST DOES NOT WORK!
The place was not loud, in fact I think we might have been the loudest ones there but we were not obnoxious. You know how you can get in a group and not realize where you are and get out of hand. This place is good for groups.
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Tip for new Unilocalers: I did not know about the «talk» forum of this site until I went to an actual browser
. You’ll find us in the background there. I did not know this when I first started as well.

Yes, you can judge a book by its cover… especially at this restaurant.
Walking in, through its sticky floors, I was already underwhelmed. I flipped through the menu and one of the shining lights that I was excited about was horchata. I am a huge fan of horchata and am always searching for the best. Unfortunately, they do not serve it… why put it on the menu? I ordered the flauta platter ($ 7.99) which comes with your Spanish or cilantro rice and choice of beans.
Let’s cut to it… the rice could have been better. It was bland and severely lacking in taste. The beans were average. I don’t know how you can mess that up though, and flautas were over fried with small bits of chicken. If that wasn’t good enough, a homeless man walked in through the patio doors and was asking customers for change. The staff looked the other way until he left.
With all these great qualities, I doubt I will be back.

This joint is solidly average in all respects if not slightly below average. Located in a shady strip mall, it looks deceptively authentic until you walk inside and notice that most of the clientele is decidedly non-​Hispanic. The menu contains Tex-​mex favorites such as enchiladas, burritos, nachos, etc and even has «Traditional» in front of certain menu items to let you know you are getting the real deal.
The special of the night was a fajitas plate for 2 and we decided to order that and split it three ways (my dad, my brother and I weren’t that hungry). The portion size was definitely on the larger size, and we had a hard time finishing the food because there was so much of it.
The steak fajitas were mostly gristle; it was pretty hard to chew. The rice was devoid of flavor and so were the beans. The guacamole looked and tasted like it hadn’t met a real avocado, and the pico and salsa were similarly bland and unexciting. The only bright note in the whole meal were the tortillas, which at least seemed to be made on the premises.
While it seems like Cilantro is going for a south-​of-​the-​border flavor, the only thing they succeeded in is cooking mostly inoffensive dishes that while lacking in flavor, will always be the standard go to for unadventurous, suburban diners who want to «spice up» their date night.

Typical decent neighborhood Tex-​Mex restaurant…
Place was about half full of customers at lunch.
Chips y salsa: ¹⁄₃ of the chips are shiny-​greasy, but salsa is good and medium hot
Lunch special «Cilantro Steak Jalapeño» ($ 9):
The fajita steak was a bit over quarter of inch thick, cooked medium, tender enough to cut easily with knife, and served over a bed of grilled onions, topped with white cheese and a few fresh coarsely chopped jalapeño slices. They advertise that the meat is «marinated in a special sauce», but I could not detect any unique flavor. I could get 3 full wrapped corn tortillas with the meat.
Fresh all green (no black spots) avocado slices.
Service was prompt enough. Waiter checked on me twice during the meal.