Maria's Mexican Restaurant

Welcome back!  This week, thanks to you guys being so awesome and voting on our poll, we decided to try a oldie but a goodie, Maria's!  We've been there before but we both wanted Mexican, and it wasn't on the site, so we decided to go for it.

We went for lunch as usual and were greeted and seated immediately.  We sat in the bar area on the high topped tables there.  Maria's feels like a Mexican restaurant.  I know that seems obvious, but as far as atmosphere goes it is a pretty standard Mexican restaurant.  It's nice because it's not so obviously Mexican it's tacky, but it just feels like a Mexican place.  That might not make sense to anyone, but thats how we feel about it.

We were immediately greeted by our server and before we knew it our drinks and chips and salsa were on the table.  The salsa at Maria's is pretty unique.  It has a strong flavor of what I believe is cilantro.  Regardless, it is really good fresh salsa with a pretty unique flavor to it.  We also ordered the queso because everything is better with cheese, especially chips.  The queso was pretty standard but mixed with the salsa it was really good.

Sarai ordered the Sergio and I ordered three fried tacos.  More on those later.  Our service was good, I wouldn't say it was great but he was talkative and recommended things off the menu.  He also was running the bar as well.  He did a pretty good job bouncing back to check on us.  Our glasses were never empty and he brought us all the sour cream we could handle.  It was refreshing to have good service after last week.

The menu was pretty standard Mexican stuff with names in Spanish that make you feel like an idiot when you can't pronounce them right.  They do get big props for their menu doing a great job explaining exactly what you are getting.  The price is really good for the amount of food you get.  The portions aren't so gigantic you can't eat all of them, but it is enough food that you can be satisfied.
  

Overall Experience:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Service:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Food:  ★    ★    ★    ★    ☆  

Atmosphere:  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Justin's Impressions:

First off, thank you guys for giving me an excuse to eat Mexican and drink beer on my day off.  I mean it, thanks.  You're the best blog followers ever.

I'm a big fan of fried stuff.  I'm also a big fan of tacos.  So I obviously got fried tacos.  I ordered a three pack because I thought, "I'm a man, a man needs three tacos."  The tacos won, I only ate about two and a quarter tacos.  I almost felt defeated, but I was so full and happy it didn't matter.  If only eating a little more than two of those tacos makes me less of a man, so be it.  I tried a chicken taco, a taco with carnitas (marinated shredded pork), and a seafood taco.  All were really good.  They were a little dry because its just fried meat, cheese, and lettuce, but I just threw some sour cream and salsa on them and voila!  I'm still full.

I ordered a beer for lunch this week too.  They have pretty much everything you would want from Boulevard Brewing Company on tap, including whatever their seasonal is at the time.  They also have a "Daytime Drinker" special on margaritas before 5 PM.  So it's obviously a good place to have lunch and a drink on your day off.

I'm a  huge fan of Maria's and think it's definitely the best Mexican place in town.

Sarai's Impressions:

I admit, I have been to Maria's once before, and was pretty excited about the poll going that direction. It was a great experience once again. Thank you to those who took the poll to make this week everything that it was :)

Now, about the food. I always recommend the Queso dip with your free tortilla chips before the meal. It's fantastic at Maria's. Their chips are also "freshly fried" which means that they have that great restaurant style taste and consistency.

This week, I ordered the Sergio. It's a large flour tortilla stuffed with shredded seasoned beef and FRIED! That's right fried. Then, they cover it in Queso con Chile Verde. They serve it (as they do with most dishes) with a side of refried beans and rice. It's just the right amount of food for me, and the taste was terrific. Unbeatable. I have yet to have Americanized-Mexican food that matches the flavor of Maria's.

The atmosphere rating for me was on the low side. Generally, this rating is based on how accurate the atmosphere is versus what they are trying to portray. (ie: If it's a Mexican restaurant, I want to see something Mexican on the walls, tables, etc.) It's also based on cleanliness. The restaurant was clean, no doubt. But I felt  like they were trying to pull off something with the decor that doesn't work.

Service was great, so kudos to this guy for making up for last weeks experience :)

*To find out more about Maria's and other local eateries that we have visited, click the "eateries visited" tab located at the top of this site. Thanks a million for following our site. Have a great week, everyone.