El Indio

Very nice bubbly waitress (you’ll know her when you see her). Food is bland and underwhelming besides the shredded beef which was good. I didn’t enjoy it but hey if you go at least get the shredded beef enchiladas.

This place put faith back in Portland and Mexican food for me. Burrito was super delicious. They shall see me again. Not much else to say. ⁵⁄₅

Ordered lunch from El Indio a few times and always enjoyed it. Went in to the restaurant the other day and ordered the chicken mole lunch special but did not enjoy it as much. While it was quick to come to the table, it was super basic and hastily slapped together. Bland would be the correct adjective in this case. Even though the flavor was absent, the waitress was most definitely present. Great, speedy and authentic service did not override the outrageous pricing. Just glancing at the non-​lunch menu made me upset. Double digit menu items across the boards. Nothing was reasonably priced including the non-​alcoholic soft drinks. The chips and salsa were delicious but it is a shame that you only get one complementary bowl. It’s clear to the customer that management is trying to milk the products to get as much money as they can from them. It’s also clear to see where corners were cut i.e. understaffed and stingy on the chips and salsa. Other than the few qualms I have, it was still an overall good experience.

Eh… Good bland and boring.
Margarita mostly ice. Service sparse and décor was actually pretty alright. I know it’s hard to compete mexican food in Oregon to California but I was really
Hoping for a better meal! My friends really love This place but I thought it was less then awesome!!! Chips were gummy and old tasting, the salsa was okay. The margaritas were expensive and for having next to nothing alcohol related in them I was a little irritated! They had a giant birthday party there so that could have been the reason the service was sparse but I wouldn’t come back here for food. Felt terrible later
That day :/​sorry el info. You didn’t win me over.

This has been my go-​to Mexican spot for the last 4 years. I usually get chicken enchiladas mediana combo. Omg dip the chips in the beans and rice and put some salsa on top. I can hear my body thanking me as the food goes down. It’s heavenly. If I’m in a spending mood, I’ll grab a casuela bowl or margarita, their VIP is pretty good, but drinks are very pricey here so consider yourself warned. The serving staff treats you like you’re family, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad experience at this place. Been to Mexico and Venezuela, I can tell you right now, the food is 100% authentic. I’ve tried several of the seafood dishes here as well, and I don’t even like seafood. It was all incredible. I give this place 2 thumbs up, I will always keep coming back here.

There are so many good choices for Mexican in the Portland area. I urge you to go somewhere other than here.
Besides the fact that they had the door propped opened and it was cold outside, everything seemed okay upon first sitting down. The waitress was attentive about our drink order and brought chips and salsa right away. Things started to go downhill from here. They forgot to blend one of the margaritas and we had to request the salsa verde twice. Fine, little things, whatever.
Then the food came.
The steak fajitas I was served at El Indio were the worst I have ever had. The meat tasted as if it had gone bad and they were smothered in a disgusting sauce. I barely ate any of it. Even the rice, beans, and tortillas that came with it were bland and unappetizing. I started to feel sick while still at the restaurant and my stomach hurt all night.
Other peoples’ food didn’t look much better. I had a bite of my fiancée’s shrimp enchiladas. Totally unappealing. Do yourself a favor and avoid this one.

I have had much better Mexican food than this. Food tasted like microwaved food. Chips served at the start were clearly old. Lucky I am not from around here but next time I visit Portland I am not coming back to this place.

GOOD Mexican food with acceptable service
Large filling portions and a decent Mexican beer list
3.5 star worthy in my book

I thoroughly enjoy this restaurant!
The food is delicious and made to order. I always order mine without beans, and they’ve never brought me an incorrect order. Portion sizes are big, and I always end up with leftovers.
Service is on-​point and absolutely efficient. The last time I came here, I was with my husband and his family. So there were 5 of us and a kid. We were never out of drinks, chips, salsa, or anything. The waitress engaged the kid, making him smile and just having fun.
I absolutely love their flan! I can make pretty decent flan, having been taught by a Hispanic in their restaurant, but this is even better. It’s the size of a big slice of cake, with a lot of the caramelized sugar sauce. It’s so big, I can’t even finish it without help.
This restaurant is very close to my in-​laws house, so whenever we are in the area, I always hope we have the opportunity to go here to eat.

Everytime my boyfriend and go here we are always welcomed. The waitress ALWAYS knows what we are going to eat! The food is amazing!!! I just love this place. The food is always good.

Finishing off the Shrimp Nachos, they’re bomb. Everyone in our lunch party enjoyed what they ordered.

I eat here all the time and I often call in my orders. They are always very nice on the phone and today when I called she walked me through the menu based off what I told her I was looking for. Would recommend and it’s a beautiful restaurant

This place is normally really good. But tonight our service sucked so bad. The server was rude. And the staff stood at the bar and stared at us while we patiently waited for our food for like 40 minutes. My drink we never refilled we had to walk to the bar top to get a new Sprite. I ordered shrimp fajitas and the shell and legs were left on the shrimp. One of the people my bf and I were with ordered fajitas as well and they put both of our tortillas together in one container, like we aren’t together so now we both gotta dig into the same container with our fingers. Smh. Then she charged me for two sodas. Dude I had to get my OWN refill. I will never come back

I used to come here way back in the day when I was younger with my family/​grandparents and from what I remember the food was fine. Fast forward to present time, after years of absence, I decided to take my husband to try it out. The décor looks the same as I remembered. But the food quality has went downhill, SEVERELY. After that meal we both had upset stomachs that night and didn’t feel like eating normally for a few days. I would not recommend this place to anyone. You have been warned.

I am sorry to disappoint some people, but I have to be truthful about this one. The food, the service, the place it self, I mean come on people, putting 5 stars for this place? I guess you just didn’t have any better then this. I will not, and I mean NOT recommend to any of my friends or family, until this place improve-​how it looks, how it cooks, the service was ok. The fajita that they serve some other people, it smelled burn so bad, I can only imagine how it tastes.
I am saying all this because I make better Mexican food at home then I had in here. I hope that they make the changes that they need to bring people back.

I love the chicken enchiladas. !. This is an above average Mexican spot, out of all the choices for standard Mexican. This ranks top tier. I like this salsa food drinks the best, I highly recommend.!!

Im a huge fan of this place. I go here all the time and love it. Their portion sizes are large for reasonably priced food. Although their food doesnt have a huge array of flavors, and can tend to be a little bland, it does taste mexican and thats all I care for. I love their Chicken Mole (Mo-​lay) they make it nearly perfect everytime and its always hot and fresh tasting when it arrives. Beans and rice taste consistent every time and I will admit, are not the greatest, but i love them and would just eat those if I could, they grow on you for sure and then you crave them. Their food is always persistent and I can always count on the taste im looking for.
Their drinks are always strong and delicious, they also have a big variety of Margarita flavors, my favorites the blackberry. V.I.P comes in a huge goblet ($ 14) but they dont hold out on the alcohol!
Staff is always so nice! However, they do recognize us since we are there so much. but still! The manager is interactive with the customers making sure everything is right and the waitress helps my mom pronounce the menu items in Spanish (every. single. time.-even though she gets the same thing every. single. time. –you’d think she’d have it down by now…) but she always helps is nice to us about it.

This might be a controversial review, since I have numerous friends who religiously visit El Indio and frequently state that it’s their «favorite Mexican restaurant»… sigh. I’m actually so grossed out by the food that the last two times I went, I just stuck to drinks. Their margaritas are ok (nothing special and moderately priced), but last night I ordered a piña colada and there was no discernible amount of alcohol in it. Which was disappointing to say the least.
As for the food, and I’ve had my fair share of it, the quality is barely above Taco Bell. The meat is terrible, and the sauce they use to masque the low quality of meat is equally as terrible. Rice and beans are bland and they have the off-​putting consistency of diarrhea (speaking of diarrhea, I always inevitably get hit with a spell of it every time I’ve eaten the food here). The lack of taste/​flavor has been commented on numerous times in other reviews, but it’s almost like they’re afraid of using any fresh ingredients or spices with discernible taste. I will most likely be visiting this place begrudgingly in the future with my white friends who think mustard is spicy… hopefully next time the piña colada will actually have some rum in it.

Quite a bit of food for the price. That said, the food you get is super bland, the service was too sparse to inquire about hot sauce, and their table salsa was watery with a few onion chunks.
An underwhelming visit was capped off by the luck of being seated next to a table of 15+ who were less than quiet in an otherwise very loud space.
I have friends who love this place, but it wasn’t my thing.

I’m increasing my rating of El Indio as I’ve now seen them to be very consistent about serving great food. A recent visit I tried the chicken nachos and they were delicious, everything was very freshly made and service was great. Really low prices and you get a lot of food.
If I lived closer, I would be in here weekly.
**Oh, and their house hot sauce is the bomb! Forget the commercial stuff. Have them bring a little bowl of the homemade. It is super delicious and has a good kick to it!