El Ranchero Bar and Grill, Tex-Mex on Wilson Blvd Just West of Ballston - Closed

[ktmoomau]

The fridge, cabinets and freezer are excrutiatingly low on supplies right now, so the other night it was Doctor Delivery to the rescue.

I wanted Thai or Mexican so I was scoping out the selections for the best options sans gluten. Decided to give El Ranchero a try since it had been a while and the menu clearly stated what had corn tortillas versus flour and a lot of the options were with corn, yay!

We put in an order and when it arrived there was a bag of fresh hot corn chips and salsa, which I guess comes with every order. The chips were awesome and the salsa was really spicy, a little chunky and pretty good. A nice unexpected addition.

I had one of the specials with a spinach and chicken enchilada and beef chalupa. I really liked the dressed lettuce on the chalupa, I put some on my enchilada, as well. The chalupa had gotten a bit soggy in the delivery on the bottom, but the flavors were still very good. The rice with the enchilada was well seasoned, Hubby thought his was a little underdone, but I liked mine and thought it was just right. Enchilada was good, the sauce needed a little kick, but most places do as many people in this area don't like spice as much as me. I believe it was a Ranchero sauce. But overall really good and they had good packaging for delivery and had everything we ordered which is a plus.

Anyway it was good, probably would have been better if you had it at the restaurant. I always love the decor of this place when I go, it is cheesy in a good way.

[hopsing]

This is good news. I used to be a regular over there years ago but stopped after the new ownership which resulted in the firing of all waiters and cooks. The food was bad after that, but that was about 5 years ago. Sounds like they now have their act together and maybe we should give them another try.

[ktmoomau]

This is good news. I used to be a regular over there years ago but stopped after the new ownership which resulted in the firing of all waiters and cooks. The food was bad after that, but that was about 5 years ago. Sounds like they now have their act together and maybe we should give them another try.

Ok so went again the other night, and now I dunno, maybe we caught it on a good night before, or a bad night the other night. Had two tamales. They say they are served with salsa verde and cheese and sour cream. I asked for no sour cream and they didn't come with any, a plus. I had a pork and chicken. The tamales themselves were a little overcooked, but were good in flavor. The problem was there was way too much cheese on top, I picked it off, maybe next time I will ask for them naked. And the salsa verde was spicy enough that you couldn't taste any delicate tamale flavors. It was ok, not great. But they were very nice to serve us with doggie on the patio, as we were coming from Petsmart back to Ballston and starving.

[beachgirl54]

El Ranchero is closed - heard that a Turkish restaurant would take its place.  I went once - and never went back.