El Sarape II (West Olympia)

Reviews 4

DA

Daniel Brent

Sad to say it but this used to be a top place to get consistent , well crafted, flavorful savory Mexican food. But NOT ANY MORE. Not sure what happened but the quality and consistence just goes lower and lower each time I go there. On top of that their are jacking the prices way way up. Simple dishes are way over priced now. Beans are bland and flavorless, not like they used to be, savory and robust complex flavors. Did they loose their head chef? Or trying to save a few pennies? Corn Chips --VERY disappointed They changed their perfect super thin buttery corn chips they give you with salsa to start, to this hard overly thick tasteless powdery almost fake tasting corn chip, they taste like theres some kind of non food filler in them or something. Im not kidding when I tell you I got a small rock one time in one of them. And on top of the nasty chips , half the time the basket if full of broken over cooked chip fragments with just few nice looking on top. I used to like their salsa. Had a nice Smokey Chipotle spiciness with hints of cilantro. Now the salsa is completely inconsistent and different. lately its been bland or worse it just taste like tomato juice, like they were running low and dump a big jug of tomato juice in it!! Yuck. Also took one of their best items off the menu the Fish Tacos. Some of the best you can get anywhere. Ive tried to have them make it and they did each time even though its not on the menu but it was half baked and not very good at all. Nothing like the old days when the cooks seemed to care about consistency and quality. Maybe with enough feed back they can get back to those golden days of top notch Mexican. UPDATE: 7.4.2017 Went to new location on the west side to see if things have changed. Sadly they havent. Salsa was again watered down with tomato juice (gross flavorless) Imagine a bowl of tomato juice not kidding. Chips are same nasty synthetic tasting thick cheap chips. Even store bought packaged chips would be better these are strange in texture and flavorless. They taste fake like plastic or something. >Please go back to the super thin buttery chips you had before!!!< Ordered a chimichanga , it was spongy not crispy didnt taste fried! Not sure if they even fried it or fried it ahead of time, pasty soft not even really brown and not good at all, nasty. Chicken inside was the old buffet dry hard inedible chicken not the tender shredded chicken you used to get. Beans and rice were bland. Beans taste like Grey paste. Why did they stopped flavoring the beans? I used to savor the refried beans and get extra with every meal. Rice is same bland like they forgot to use chicken stock and butter. Totally bland and not really edible. We left most of your food there it was so gross. Im done with this place. So sad. Sad that we paid so much for the meal as prices are ridiculous for sub-par slop yuck. Please fix El Sarape!!!

LE

Leanne Tarr

I actually couldnt believe the low reviews when we walked into this restaurant. From the outside it looks very upscale, and as soon as you walk inside, the decor is wonderful and welcoming. They did an excellent job of decorating this restaurant, and if my review were purely on the Ambiance and Decor it would get a five. Alas, it is a restaurant and therefore I have to judge this place and based on the food quality and service and for that this restaurant gets nothing more than a two. Very disappointing I must say. For starters, the waiter was very abrupt when he greeted us, did not offer any suggestions on the menu, nor did he bring up any features or FYIs about the food we were going to order. What I mean about that was we ordered ceviche. Now as far as I have ever been aware, Ceviche is shrimp and or seafood which has been marinated in some sort of citrus juice or acid in order to cure the fish so that it is no longer raw. It is also a cold dish served with chopped cucumber and onions. When we got our Ceviche from this restaurant, it was warm. The shrimp were very large, not chopped up, and warmed like they had just cooked them in a pan and then added them to cold cucumbers and put very large slices of onions on top. Needless to say we sent this back. I feel like if you are going to recreate an item which is completely different than the rest of the world makes it then you should let the customer know. Moving on, we got the fajitas Trio which was supposed to be chicken, steak, and prawns. We asked for flour tortillas and received corn. The fajitas were mostly sauteed bell peppers and onions. There were no mushrooms, and it was minimally flavored. The prawns which I had imagined to be very large shrimp were indeed tiny and few. It was mediocre at best. Even their chips and salsa left something to be desired. The salsa tasted like tomato paste with a little extra added to it. Overall we were highly disappointed and will not be returning. Its a shame, because the inside really is beautiful. It might be a good place for drinks and socializing, but not for getting a good meal. Especially at the price you are paying.

BO

Bones to the Grindstone

We have gone to El Sarape for over 20 years, first on Martin Way in Olympia/Lacey and then on Cooper Point Rd in West Olympia. We have always enjoyed the experience, the decor the service people and especially the food. When El Sarape moved to their new location they changed all of those elements, for the worse. We ate there tonight; the food was terrible, the ground beef was seasoned with what seemed like a cheap taco seasoning from a packet in the grocery store. The decor has been altered so that it no longer has the feel of a cozy Mexican family restaurant but rather a LOUD and brash BAR, the food is no longer palatable and that is being kind. I spent nearly a hundred dollars for the three of us (dinner and appetizers, no drinks except sodas)and could not even eat a third of my meal; the pork tamale had ONE small piece of pork and the rest was bland corn covering. The chips and salsa were still very good and plentiful, I should have stopped there but ordered the combination plate and it was no where near the quality of the old restaurant. I would not recommend this restaurant and do not plan to return

SA

Saber Cybulski

The salsa is flavorless. I had a chili relleno and it was not anything at all like traditional chili relleno. The only plus was the queso cheese dip was good. But they only brought 1 bowl of chips for a party of 4 and when they brought the queso out seen we were out of chips and didnt even bring more till we asked. They never offered refills on any of our drinks where we had 6 empty cups on the table. We also sat there for 10mins after the waitress cleared our table for the bill. She asked if that was it cleared the table and never came back. We went up front to pay and they ask us for our bill lol because she never gave us one. I guess if you are used to authentic Mexican food dont go here you will be dissapointed. Im fat and never leave food on my plate and if I cant finish I take a box. Not here. Half my plate stayed there.