Isabel

We sat here for over 3 hours. And it as great =) I will say though I did appreciate that they won’t kick you out before you finish your bottles of wine! Definitely enjoyed this BYOB. It’s on the first floor of a condo building.
I got the carne asada burrito with the jalapeño cream sauce on top and it was SO delicious! My cousin and I split the salsa verde and ranchero and both we’re also really good. The ranchero we a bit smokey.
I understand it’s a smaller place and there were quite a few customers and our server was busy, but our only complaint was the service was a bit slow to take our order, open wine, and fill waters. The view outside was nice. The art museum and rocky steps are across the street, but the windows got foggy and we couldn’t really see it anymore halfway through the meal. I felt like the décor and atmosphere were a bit random and sloppy. Overall, I think would try another Mexican place for atmosphere purposes, but if I couldn’t find one if come back bc that burrito was damn good!

A lovely Spanish restaurant in the Art Museum neighborhood. Had guacamole with bacon (yum), the surf and turf in a lava bowel (delicious), and the 48 hour short ribs (tender with a crispy exterior). You can bring your owe wine but they do serve margaritas and sangria. Overall, good Spanish food that wasn’t super expensive.

Isabel is a great little hidden gem of a Mexican BYO. You can bring your own tequila and get a pitcher of margaritas made in house. My favorite dish on the menu would hands down be their fish tacos!

Let me first say this: I actually live in the location (The apartment complex that the restaurant is located in), and have ordered the food from them for pickup 2 – 3 times prior to this experience I am going to describe. The food? Decent. Not the best, but for a place where I can literally walk to in a minute or two, it seemed like a great option to me.
After the last experience I had? No way. I called, and someone answered and told me that I would be put on hold. Okay, I thought, no big deal. 5 minutes passed. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10 minutes passed. At this point, I was wondering how the hell someone could take that long to order food.
I tried to call again — I was blocked from reaching and was told that the call line was busy. I waited for 5 more minutes and tried again. Same result.
Frustrated, I go downstairs to see what’s going on. And what did I see to my surprise? Two waitresses fumbling around trying to do basic tasks — all the while, the phone was IGNORED (It’s been so long since I used a phone that wasn’t an iPhone, so I can’t say exactly how they redirected calls to be blocked, but they did).
I told a waitress my situation on how I had to wait for 15 minutes essentially for nothing. «Oh, sorry,» she said in the most nonchalant way possible. I try to keep my cool, and proceed to order my food– Oh wait, the waitress just walks away and goes to a table and refills someone’s water.
Yes, so as you can tell, I’m just floored with what’s happening here. «Sorry,» she says in again the nonchalant voice. As I’m waiting for my order, I witness a 6 – 7 people waiting to have their tables prepared for 5 – 10 minutes, I see a group of 4 still waiting (You can tell by their facial expressions of just how pissed they were), and of course the waitress spilled a bowl of sugar.
I’ve never written a review before on a restaurant on Unilocal,but for me to go back on this site, retrieve my password that I forgot, and actually right a review for this restaurant? Yes, you can probably tell how pissed I am about this experience.
For food that’s not even great (Hell, you have a lot better options out there) with service that is ABYSMAL, I advise you to not waste your time on this and stay away.

In a city with fantastic food options Isabel really drops the ball. I dined here as part of the terror behind the walls package deal. The options were poor and most of the table ordered quesadillas because it seemed like the only appetizing option. The chips and guacamole were too salty and the rest of the food was dry and lacked favor. Yes it is byob but they charge $ 12 for the margarita mix (so beware). Do your self a favor and dine at one of the other many better Mexican restaurants in the city.

Was pleasantly surprised by this restaurant. Always excited for a byot– we picked Isabel’s as the dinner portion of the terror behind the walls dinner package. It is rather small but very elegant looking without seeming too pretentious. They had a fabulous selection of margarita pitchers to put my tequila in, we chose the frozen peach and were not disappointed! Would love to come back and try some of the other flavors!
For appetizers we had the guacamole and the seafood ceviche, both very delicious and fresh and the portions were bigger than expected. For the main course we went with the chicken quesadillas and the fish tacos. These were both presented very nicely, also very big portions. I didn’t have much room for dessert but since it was included tried the chocolate hazelnut mousse cake, it was good not great.
My only complaint would be that had we not had the dinner package their prices were a little steep for the quality of the food. However, compared to Lolita (the only other byot I can think of) the prices are cheaper and the food is great quality.

We came here for my sister’s birthday and had plans for 2.5 hours after the reservation time… plenty of time for us to imbibe, eat and catch an Über. I think we know where this review is headed. Isabel sat us 25 minutes late and because of their mismanagement our party was running behind. I should state that we told them multiple times that we were worried about time, to which they dismissed and said «you’re fine.» Moving the review along…
Because Isabel offers a prefixe menu for $ 25/​person, we asked for Isabel to excuse the dessert course and let us pay a little less per person. Our waitress said that’d be fine so when we were ready to settle up and confirmed the waitress said we’d have to ask management. After a lengthy conversation, we were told it’s prefixe and that’s that’s. Regardless of the fact they never refilled water glasses, took 10 mins to approach the table after seating us and did not accommodate our request… ugh. The one redeeming moment was when a restaurant employee offered someone in our group a ticket to ESP the planned activity for the evening. Needless to say, Isabel could not figure out the check until 10:30p…too late for us to enter ESP with our 8pm tickets.
Overall, very disappointed in management and service, will not go back.

Don’t be surprised — this restaurant really is in the ground floor of an apartment building in the Art Museum district.
But looks can be deceiving because the food here was very good. It was a little expensive for Mexican food ($ 90 with tip for four people), but at least we all enjoyed our food.
I ate so much guacamole, and we still didn’t finish it. They give you a lot!
This restaurant is a BYOB, so you bring your own liquor, and then the restaurant makes all sorts of drinks, including sangria, with it.
I would recommend this place, but with the warning that it is pricey.

At first glance this place is in a secluded area, off the beaten path of most of the other local bars and restaurants. But don’t let that detour you, the food at this place is absolutely remarkable, at a really good price.

THIS REVIEW IS FOR FAIRMOUNT FOOD CRAWL ONLY
SPOT 5
Isabel is one of those places that I wished I known had existed when I lived closer to the Art Museum. Food — Pork Tacos /​Fish (Cod) Tacos /​Chips /​Salsa /​Guacamole /​Beverage — Hibiscus Iced Tea
Since it was a pork event, we ordered a pork taco. Since I am who I am, we also ordered a fish taco. Pleasant enough, our waitress/​hostess/​food runner, brought two plastic glasses filled with ruby red iced tea. This ended up being our favorite non-​alcoholic drink of the day. The hibiscus normally bitter, was perfectly balanced with sweetness with a hint of what seemed like cinnamon. The pork taco was tasty enough, but the flavor was off putting by some suspicious looking pork rinds. Surprisingly, the fish taco won me over the pork in this case. The cod cooked perfectly, garnished with some radish slices and a big shmear of a spicy mayo (most likely chipotle). It may have been a bit too spicy for some, as it had the potential to hide the delicate flavor of the fish, but was a much welcomed spice kick.

I remember I started Unilocaling just because I needed to leave this place a review lol.
So when my friends suggested this spot for dinner, I was like… oh god.
I find this place pretty unimpressive still. The ambiance doesn’t really exist. There’s nothing Mexican/​Latin about it. It’s just a lot of small tables in a small restaurant.
The menu is really confusing and overwhelming and when we asked our server a few questions, she literally said «I’m not sure» to some. For a Mexican place to serve the usuals like enchiladas, tacos, burritos, etc, I feel like they should nail it. Or maybe, introduce some creative flavors/​twists (I did see a thai something though). I didn’t think they really nailed anything. I honestly felt like it was your run of the mill Mexican chain place type food except at $ 15 an entrée.
I give them the 3 stars as a bump up from last time because after Lolita’s got their liquor license, this is the only «nicer» BYO tequila place I know. Their mixers are $ 9/​pitcher and they have cool flavors like pomegranate, guava, etc. Again, I find them underwhelming but at least I didn’t get an acidic heart attack like last time.

The house chips and salsa are the best! They were surprising good, I just wish they threw the chips in the oven so it came out warm. The salsa was nice and flavorful, but not spicy.
I ordered the cochinita pibil, which is a pork dish with a whole bunch of other stuff thrown in: Mexican rice, black beans, pickled onions, and a baked banana. The pork was tender, but not that flavorful, most of the flavor came from the fatty pieces. Everything else was pretty good, although I think a plantain would’ve been better than a banana.
Definitely would go back to try something else, or atleast to see if i can get the salsa bottled to go.

I was in this Saturday with a group of ten for the fright and bite package. There was a mistake on the website about pricing. The owner was more than accomadting and honored the prices on the website. Service was very good and I appreciate an owner who is willing to honor their advertising. The pork shoulder dish was very good.

Love having a byob restaurant in my apartment building! Just moved in and already went down to eat twice in one week. It doesn’t open until 5pm on weekdays which is fine with me since that’s when I get home. If I’m ever tired and don’t feel like cooking, I can just go downstairs! The food and service is amazing! Really surprised to see poor reviews about this restaurant.
Bring a bottle of tequila, they have so many different mixers. Be sure to try the empanadas, guac, and bread pudding! I also tried the fish tacos, pork belly tacos, crab and shrimp enchiladas, bean and cheese enchiladas, and nachos… making my way through the entire menu haha!

We visited Isabels for my birthday with a group of 6. I read the reviews and I was really impressed however readers beware things are not always as they seem on Unilocal.The restaurant was ridiculously small, which would’ve been fine if it wasn’t for the tacky 1980s glass blocks that acted as a wall between the dining area and the lobby to an apt building. There was absolutely no ambience. It reminded me of a diner. It was close to 86 degrees (we were sitting next to the thermostat) and we could see into the kitchen. Not appealing.
We had made reservations so thankfully we didn’t have to wait long to be seated however that would be the only «short wait» of the night. once we sat down we waited for over 20 mins just for our waitress to come and greet us. No menus no water no glasses for our wine. After we asked multiple times for water and glasses we were told the wine glasses had to be washed and that they had ran out of menus… what?
Now I will say that there was only 2 servers for the entire place so I guess slower service was to be expected. I tend to think that an 1:45 min wait for our entrée is a bit much. thank god we got appetizers otherwise I probably would’ve left. I would like to note that the food was actually excellent, which was probably the most frustrating part about the whole thing. Every other aspect of this establishment ruined what would have been a really great experience.
Finally it came time for dessert, which was presented to us on an ipad. I understand going green and what not but I would much prefer to read a description rather than see a quick 30 sec slideshow with some pictures that look nothing like what I actually got on my plate.
overall I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone.

BYO Tequila! The Guanabana margarita mix is the best.
Isabel’s was the scene of Philly Din Clubs July gathering. This was by far the biggest party we’ve had with 12 people total. The restaurant was on the smaller side but was able to accommodate us without any issues. We also had plenty of space despite our size.
The management actually called us beforehand to see if we’d rather do a fixed menu, which we did choose for $ 25 a person. Each person was given the choice of one appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Pretty good deal if you ask me! There were so many options it was difficult to chose. The duck enchiladas were a favorite and probably some of the best I’ve ever had. Other hits were the Mahi Mahi with garlic sauce and the pork shoulder with fried bananas. Everything was outstanding! And you can’t not get the guacamole of course.
One last thing… this place is BYO and we highly recommend bringing your own tequila to try their various margarita mixes. The Guanabana was our favorite and the guava was amazing too.
Obviously, we highly recommend Isabel’s for anyone looking for a great BYO Mexican place in the city. Great food, great service, and reasonably priced. Enjoy!

I’ve had dinner here twice and also gotten take-​out twice since my initial review. I really like Trio and had my expectations set high when I found out both restaurants were owned by the same people. Maybe I haven’t been ordering the right thing, but so far the quality of food hasn’t been comparable to Trio. However, it’s convenient and the food is decent so I keep finding myself back here.
Mexican Style Beef Tips — I remember really liking this when I dined in, but was kinda disappointed with it as a take-​out option. The beef was on the chewy side and drowning in sauce the second time around.
Duck Quesadilla — My favorite thing I’ve had here so far. I got take-​out and it came with sides of salsa, sour cream, and guac. I want to try the crab and carnitas quesadillas next.
Duck Enchiladas — I was a fan of the duck, but not the enchilada as a whole. I think I’ll stick to the quesadillas for now.

BYOT (equila) for margheritas (and BYO wine for sangria), this is a great lil’Mexican joint with no sign outside (other than the square tables and chairs in good weather) marking its presence. Although the service was on the slow end, it wasn’t unforgivably so, and the food (cooked in an open kitchen) more than made up for it.
Appetizer-​wise, that was some fantastic guacamole (with pica de gallo – not spicy) and in-​house made chips. The crab quesadilla was well liked, as were the Mexican Style Beef Tips, Pan Seared Rib Eye. And I truly enjoyed the Especial Pork Belly tacos (man I love pineapple mixed with spicy elements!). However, the star order of the night was the Cochinita Pibil. Something about the slight cinnamon, cumin, tomato sauce just clinched it (the chef wouldn’t share the recipe, but that’s understandable).
Will definitely return!

Although I had a really good time here last weekend with my friends, unfortunately I can’t say too many good things about the food or drink mixers. There were 10 of us, and we ended up ordering 3 pitchers of margarita mix to go with the tequila we brought. The margarita mixes were so sour! We ordered the limon (lime) and passion fruit, and they both gave us pucker faces :(. At the end of the night, we just gave up on the mix and started taking tequila shots.
The menu is tex mex and looked promising. I wasn’t in the mood to have a heavy meal, so I ended up ordering the scallops. The dish was just ok… it tasted like the scallops were seasoned with soy sauce (weird for a tex mex place), and the rice was a bit mushy. It came with a side of grilled squash and carrots which were good, but that didn’t really make up for the rest of the meal. My friends thought their dishes were ok, but none of us were really wowed by anything.
I will say that the service was pretty good. Our waiter was super nice and kept the refills of chips and salsa coming as we waited for our meals. He was also very patient with our group of 10 when we tried to split the bill at the end of the night — props to him for that.

Yikes.
I really wanted to like this place but from the moment I walked in I knew it was going to be difficult.
Our waitress really ruined things for us. She did not smile at all. Not once. The entire time. My boyfriend even tried to crack a couple jokes with her but she carried on as if we weren’t even speaking. Even when we said «thank you» we never got a «your welcome» in reply. Look, I understand we all have bad days, but come ON.
I honestly have no idea why. We are your average looking couple and were perfectly pleasant as we always are to waitstaff. We ended up mentioning our displeasure to the manager at the end of the meal.
Now for the food… eesh.
We ordered the guacamole for our appetizer. The portion was enormous and the taste… well, not so much. It had just enough salt (nothing worse than over salted guac) but could have used more lime and cilantro.
As far as my entrée… I’m pretty sure my entire plate was microwaved. I ordered the beef shoulder and it was tough and chewy. The sauce was really enjoyable but obviously didn’t make up for the texture of the meat. The fried plantain turned to mush as I tried to cut it and the rice and beans were bland.
My boyfriend ordered a steak and while it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t anything special.
There are way better Mexican choices in Philadelphia. Needless to say, we won’t be back.