What Happened to the San Angel?!?!?

[emmrut]

The San Angel Restaurant in the Mexico Pavillion was always my favorite restaurant. I loved the atmosphere! The food was always very good. I especially loved the Chile Quiles that they used to serve for lunch. They stopped serving those several years ago. and I was very disappointed, but I was able to find other dishes that I liked almost as much.... until last Tuesday! It was AWFUL. There was nothing on the menu that interested me.
I was planning to order shrimp. But the only shrimp on the menu came with PASTA. What's up with that? If I wanted Pasta I would have gone to ITALY. I then looked for fish and there was some Tilapia that looked interesting, But it came with plain white rice!
I wound up ordering some sort of steak . It was over done and came in a bland thick brown sauce. It tasted like leftovers! My 13 year old son ordered the combination platter. He enjoyed it., but he likes his food on the plain side. (Onions and tomatoes are a No No.) I tasted a few things on his plate and found them passable. Better than what I ordered...but rather dry and boring.
I had really been looking forward to eating at the San Angel. It was SUCH a disappointment! I won't be returning unless they get a new menu and a new chef.... Better still, Find the Old Chef who used to make those Chile Quiles!

 

[barbeml]

Your experience is really troubling--most people who complain about San Angel are disappointed with their "Tex Mex" renditions, but we have always loved the Mole Poblano and other specialities. It sounds like they've suddenly made some really bad menu changes.

Sorry you had such a disappointing meal. I hope they get their act together soon.

 

[Beast2Prince]

I have a question for you......Why would you go to a MEXICAN restaurant looking to order shrimp, then fish, and finally settling for steak? I would think you would get burritos, enchiladas, or even tacos. I have eaten here twice and never had any complaints about the food. Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never gone to a Mexican restaurant for shrimp.

Not flaming you, just curious about your food choice at this restaurant. Hopefully the food's still good when we eat there next month.

 

[DisneyKidds]

I have a question for you......Why would you go to a MEXICAN restaurant looking to order shrimp, then fish, and finally settling for steak?

Real Mexican food is not the typical burritos, tacos and enchaladas we find at most "Mexican" restaurants in the US. Mexicans do eat quite a variety of foods and have many ineresting ways to prepare them. Remember, Mexico has an awful lot of coastline and fish is plentiful. Chicken and steak are also widely used in Mexican cooking. If all you know of Mexican food is the chimichanga you had last week you are missing a lot.

That being said, San Angel hasn't been doing a good job lately (IMHO) preparing what could be very good Mexican food. I think I had the same steak (tenderloin) that emmrut did. The piece of meat was small and so smothered in sauce (that wasn't anything special) that I could hardly find it. DW had a 'combination plate' - it was average at best and really nothing special. We won't be heading back to San Angel anytime soon.

 

[Beast2Prince]

I apologize, I just saw their updated dinner menu and noticed that's all they offer. Now I'm not so sure I want to eat dinner there. The lunch menu looks much more appealing to me.

Again, I apologize. I didn't know their menu was like that now.

 

[Beast2Prince]

DisneyKidds,
You're right, I am only used to the "Mexican" dishes you get in the U.S. But these are the same dishes I had at San Angel a couple of years back. I can honestly say I've never seen shrimp and fish on a Mexican restaurant menu. They either didn't have it, or I wasn't looking for it. That's why it seemed strange to me that someone would plan on having shrimp at a Mexican restaurant. I'm used to the basic taco, enchilada, burrito type menus. Maybe I need to get out more.

 

[webray]

We have eaten at San Angel twice in the past few months and we have found the menu and the food to be better than ever, and we are very picky about our mexican food.

Sorry you had a bad experience.

 

[emmrut]

I often have shrimp at the Mexican Restaurants near me. My favorite Mexican dish is Shrimp in a Cilantro sauce.
I know that the San Angel is not your typical Tex-Mex restaurant. I was not looking for that. I can get that anywhere. As I said in my earlier post, San Angel used to be my favorite Disney restaurant. It used to have a large menu. You could usually find something special. If not, they had great "regular " Mexican food. Since noe of the special items interested me, I would have been happy with a plate of enchiladas! (preferably Chicken with green sauce) but that was not an option.
I guess I'll be restricting my Mexican dining experiences to my local favorites in Massachusetts. Casa Romero, Sol Aztec and La Paloma.

 

[sha_lyn]

I really wish there was a place aroudn here that cooked real Mexican food and not the Texmex stuff. Living a few moths on the border spoiled us. Believe me a real Mexican Taco is nothing like what we are use to here. They are amazing. My favoirte was a beef hash, with bacon onions, hot peppers etc on soft corn tortillias. Another good one is more like a really thick beef stew on a samll flour tortillia and then browned. We weren't near the coastline, so not much fish or shrimp. Mexican cooking tends to be very regional, the north has more beef, tomatoe sauces etc. Coastline more seafood, the plateau area near Mexico city more chicken.

 

[CoolDisneyCat]

We've eaten at San Angel twice b/c the Mexico pavilion is my DD's favorite. I wasn't very impressed with the food either time. I love Mexican food, and so does my DD, but even your old standby tacos and enchiladas weren't very good. It was very disappointing.

To address the shrimp/fish issue... I get shrimp at the Mexican restaurant in my home town all the time. It's very spicy, completely different from just "shrimp." Also, fish is very, very widely used in Mexican cooking, just not in American Mexican cooking.

To have to settle for a steak at a Mexican restaurant, however, would be a disappointment, esp if it wasn't that good.

 

[Pig Pen]

But our Chinese buffet in town serves pizza, pasta, and "mexican chicken" which is the best chicken I have ever had! It's boneless strips of white meat with spices.

They also serve shrimp sauteed in a garlicy sauce which is awesome.

And this is an all-you-can-eat buffet for $5.99!!!!

Sorry. It just makes me laugh to get such good Mexican and Italian food on a chinese buffet.

 

[MelissathePooh]

I wouldn't tell a Californian that their fish tacos aren't mexican food - you may get slapped!

Most Americans tend to like amercianized versions of ethnic food. Not all, but most do. Much the same as Olive Garden is nothing like true Italian cuisine - WS restauranst have a need to play to the most common denominator of palets in order to be profitable. As far as seafood items being Mexican - there's an awful lot of coast on that country!

And no offense to any of us who live there, but lets face it - the midwest (aside from a few places in Chicago) has never exactly been known for its fabulous regional cuisine!

 

[travelitis]

Now if you really want authentic Mexican food, that involves insects. That's a bit too authentic for the tourist areas and probably for most Mexicans these days, but their culinary roots most certainly included creepy crawlies that I wouldn't even want to use as bait. yuck! Just thought I'd share that trivia I read in an airline mag to beat the boredom of the flight.

 

[Jay H]

I agree that the San Angel Inn has gone down in the quality of their food. It was our favorite place to eat for about 5 years and the last two times we have eaten there it was bad. I hope it changes.

Jay