San Jose Mexican Restaurant Review

Dining Out

After reading an article in a community magazine about San Jose Mexican Restaurant in Lutz, Florida, we were in the mood for Mexican food. The article described a fantastic place to eat, so we went for lunch. As we drove by to find a parking spot, we noticed they had an outdoor patio with only a few customers. Eating at restaurants is one of the things we have missed the most in the last year. We decided it would be nice and reasonably safe to have lunch on their patio.

The host allowed us to pick our table. We chose one on the outside corner of the patio with no other customers nearby. They brought chips and salsa to the table within a few minutes. We scanned the code to look at the menu on our phones, and soon a server came by for our drink order. I ordered a margarita, and Chris had a beer. The margarita was alright, but nothing special.

A Floor Show

We placed our order for food and enjoyed watching the birds as they danced around us, looking for a handout. We saw a couple of worms on the sidewalk outside the patio, flipping and rolling. We noticed a small lizard stalking them. Just as the lizard was about to pounce, another slightly larger lizard bounded in to chase him away. Our own personal National Geographic show thoroughly entertained us.

Outside Our Comfort Zone

As we waited for the food, the patio started to fill with guests. The staff did a decent job at keeping people spaced out. We did start to feel a bit uncomfortable when they sat a couple at the table behind us. The woman sat next to the fence, but the man picked the outside chair, which was directly behind Chris. It was close enough that we felt the need to move our table away from him. We are generally not those people because we know how annoying it is when customers move the furniture, but there was a chair between us and the table behind me to prevent the table from being seated. We also made sure to move the table back before we left.

Service Issues

Our server seemed new to at least the restaurant but more likely to serving in general. We had to point our choices out on the menu before the server understood what we wanted to order. Our food came out promptly, or at least part of it did. Chris ordered Trio San Jose, which lets you pick any lunch combo served with chicken or beef soup and a small salad. The combo he chose had a chili relleno, a taco, fried beans, and guacamole salad. Chris asked for a chicken taco, beef soup, and blue cheese dressing for the salad.

The food arrived without the taco or salad dressing. Chris immediately asked for the taco and the salad dressing. Our server said that the dressing comes on the side. Chris had to point out that there was no dressing on the table at all. When the server brought the taco out, Chris asked if it was chicken, which it was not. Eventually, the chicken taco arrived.

I ordered Tacos De Asada, steak tacos with pico de gallo, beans, and sour cream. The steak was the only thing in the taco, with the extras on the side. In addition to what was on the menu, there was also a tasty, spicy tomatillo sauce. I had to ask for the sour cream that the menu indicated came with it.

From the article we read, we expected delicious, scratch-made food. What we got was unexciting, blah food. There were none of the Mexican flavors we look for at a Mexican restaurant. Chris asked for salt and pepper to add to the food. I noticed the people behind him asked for some as well. He would have asked for hot sauce but felt like we would only be running the server to death at this point. The only thing with any pizzazz on our table was the tomatillo sauce.

Being only the sixth restaurant that we have eaten at in over a year, we found it a most disappointing experience. We looked at the article in the magazine again when we got home. As it turned out, it was more of a paid advertisement designed to look like a restaurant review. We will not make that mistake again.

Cost for two entrees, a beer, and a margarita $33.17.