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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Super Mex - Irvine


14370 Culver Drive #F
Irvine, CA 92604
949-726-1608

13 Locations in CA and NV

My wife and I were running some errands the other night and were looking for a place to get a quick, casual dinner. We were in the mood for Mexican, so I suggested Super Mex. We hadn't been to Super Mex in years. We had only gotten take out from there once and I remember it just being so-so. This time we decided to dine in.

We walked in and were quickly seated at a nice table. The waiter came over and greeted us immediately. He told us that they were having a $3.50 margarita special that night. He also brought us a basket of chips and salsa. They were very good, although we didn't really like the fact that they were so large that you had to break them into pieces yourself to eat them. Not that big of a deal though.

After looking over the menu, I realized that some of the combination plates came with only the items and beans, but no rice. I first thought of ordering the combo with the cheese enchilada and one taco (beef or chicken) with beans ($7.50) but I wanted rice so I looked for something else. This is what my wife ended up ordering, but she substituted grilled fish in her taco for an extra 50 cents. I looked over them menu some more and decided on the combo with two cheese enchiladas and one taco ($8.15). I substituted carne asada in my taco for an extra 50 cents. I also found out later that I was really lame. I was trying to make sure that I ordered a combo that came with rice, but for some reason I still ordered a combo that came with only beans....I swear the menu said rice and beans when I ordered it......They must have run around and changed all the menus after I ordered. :-)

Our entrees were served fairly quickly. Both of our plates looked basically the same because the tacos came wrapped up in yellow paper. The enchiladas were smothered in red sauce and cheese and the beans were garnished with lettuce. I fully expected our dinners to just be another bland, boring, Mexican experience.

We both opened our tacos and were immediately amazed at their size. The tacos were wrapped with two large corn tortillas and were stuffed with so much filling that you could easily split it into two tacos. The tacos also tasted fantastic.


I scooped up some of the beans and put them in my mouth. My eyes opened wide. These beans were amazing! I couldn't believe it. These were some of the best beans I had ever had. They were full of flavor, not bland like most cheap Mexican places. I took a bite of my enchiladas and I was very pleased as well. They were much better than the enchiladas I have come to expect at places like Don Jose or El Torito.

Overall, I was very impressed with Super Mex. The food here was much better than I expected, and much better than your average Mexican chain. The service here was quick, efficient and friendly. I immediately went home and told my roommates about Super Mex. This was a place that all of us always drove by, but never went to. I'm so glad I finally decided to eat here.

Super Mex on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always liked Super Mex, but the problem I've always seen with them, is that most of their food all tastes the same. It's good but there isn't much difference from item to item.

Also if you were interested in getting rice you could have had them substitute the rice for the beans, but I'm thinking you wanted both! :)

The only thing I don't like at Super Mex are their "chips", they just don't seem right because of them being whole tortillas! Not to mention they aren't salted, and aren't freshly prepared so when you try to salt them the salt just falls off, it has no oil to stick to.

DanGarion said...

Hi Griffin,

It's Daniel, I post on your blog from time to time and you included a link to my website on your site. I wanted to let you know I am now doing my food reviews on their own website and I have linked to you on there.

The site is http://www.eatinoc.com . You can update your links if you are interested, and remove my personal domain dangarion.com which still has my old reviews, but I'm only going to link to the new ones from now on. My new site has all my old reviews in one place. The new site is about 95% done, just need to fix up a couple things.