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Name Of Establishment	El Rodeo Restaurant Taqueria
Address:	1313 E Pacheco Blvd Ste D Los Banos, CA 93635
Phone Number:	(209)
Website:	Unknown
Prices:	Moderate
Date Of Review:	January 2007
Check out the Official Merced County Health Inspection of this Restaurant - If that link isn't working try this link (note: these links are slow to load)
Our Overall Numeric Rating
Summation Opinion: Nothing special here.

In January 2007, we made our second visit to El Rodeo Restaurant. Our first visit was uninspiring, but sometimes a restaurant needs a second chance. Unfortunately, this second visit didn't change our minds. El Rodeo, in our opinion, does nothing to stand head and shoulders above the other myriad of Mexican restaurants in our town. It was "O.K" but "nothing special".

When you first walk in, you can see that El Rodeo is a casual, family style eatery. The interior is decorated with Aztec and Southwestern decor. Things such as a large smiling metal sun, a cow skull, strands of garlic and various paintings and other items adorn the walls and posts and show that the owners are trying to give the place a personal touch. Large bay style windows which look out onto the parking lot are filled with plants and let in plenty of light. There are sturdy wooden chairs and tables throughout the establishment. A sign standing near the doorway directs guests to seat themselves. All in all the atmosphere was pretty positive at first glance.

The decor was, however, tempered by a dirty restroom and Mexican music that was much too loud and bass heavy. I guess the constant thumping boom might cover the sound of noisy children but it did nothing to enhance our night out - sans kids. The other problem was that the entire place was too cold. We were fairly uncomfortable throughout our entire meal and saw other patrons who, judging from their body language, were also appeared to be suffering some discomfort as well.

The menu at El Rodeo has your "typical" Mexican fare with a decent amount of seafood including octopus. Meals are moderately priced learning a little towards the expensive side. Most meals are accompanied with beans and rice. As might be expected a basket of chips and a little bowl of salsa are brought to the table to much on while you are waiting for your order to arrive. I settled on a shrimp enchilada with a "creamy" ranchero sauce. My husband decided to order a shredded beef enchilada combination plate. We both ordered sodas which were promptly brought to the table. Sodas are varied in that some are served fountain style and others are in the bottle or can. We weren't informed when ordering what would apply in our situation and so we ended up with free refills for one of us and a can of Dr. Pepper for the other.

Our meal portions were pretty big and everything looked promising. Our food was very hot and this was a plus as some places have a tendency to serve things lukewarm. My husband was very happy with the flavor of his enchilada but was NOT happy with the three large pieces of fat he had to pick out. I didn't like the sauce on my enchilada. It was excessively runny and had an odd flavor to it but the plentiful shrimp inside was tasty. We both thought the rice and beans were acceptable but not exceptional. They were, in our opinion, just "run of the mill". All in all, the food was alright but nothing special and we felt disappointed at spending twenty-four dollars for what we considered a mediocre meal.

The service we received was like the food: nothing to applaud. Our server was fairly prompt but not especially friendly and somehow all of our interactions with him felt a little awkward. My husband noted that this individual did not smile even one time.

When our meal was over we both agreed we won't be going back to El Rodeo. In our opinion hey aren't bad, but they aren't great either. With so many Mexican restaurants in town to choose from, we'd rather spend our money on something we like a lot better and in Los Banos, that's pretty easy to do.

Specific Opinions By Reviewer One
Overall Rating :
Food:	good flavor meat rest was uninspiring
Service:	a bit on the dour side
Decor:	I actually think they did very nicely for this type of place.
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness:	graffiti carved in seats etc.
Romance Factor:
Family Friendliness:

Specific Opinions By Reviewer Two
Overall Rating :
Food:	Nothing special.
Service:	Prompt but lacking friendliness.
Decor:
Price/Value:	A little expensive for the quality.
Bathroom Cleanliness:		Not Observed
Romance Factor:
Family Friendliness:

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Reviews in this section are simply personal opinions. We are sharing these, our experiences and opinions as a means to further discussion in our Los Banos Forums section not to promote or discommend any particular business. In fact we absolutely encourage our readers to make a personal visit to each of the restaurants we review and form your own opinion which (if it is respectful and honest) you are encouraged to post on the Los Banos Bulletin Boards where you are also welcome to discus OUR reviews.

More About Our Los Banos Restaurant Reviews

In this section, the staff of Our Los Banos .com shares our personal opinions on the restaurants that we patronize in the City of Los Banos. We would like to stress that we are not professional reviewers, that we have had little or no training in the food arts, and that we are simply expressing our own personal views and opinions on particular visits that we made to the establishments under consideration.

Subjectivity. We make no pretense of the fact that we are not objective. As with art, food is a subjective experience subject to personal opinion and even whim. Some people love a particular artist's work while others can not stand what is put on canvas. Picasso comes to mind. Similarly people's appreciation for a particular chef's abilities are uniquely their own. While our tastes are very eclectic and we enjoy a tremendous variety of different types of food, we do not expect our readers will agree with all of our opinions and views. We DO encourage our readers to try each of the places that we have reviewed and then you can discuss (politely and in a positive fashion) your experiences and opinion of our review in the Los Banos Forum section.

Merced County Health Food Facility Inspections Site

Finally, we strongly encourage our readers to make use of a truly wonderful online resource we discovered last year. Merced County has put together a very cool Food Facility Inspection website which discloses the results of the County Health Department's last few inspections of each restaurant. The results are sometimes quite fascinating and are always interesting. Beware however you may not want to eat at certain places once you read some of the more dramatic entries. We at Our Los Banos .com very much appreciate and support the county of Merced putting these Department of Health food facility inspections online for the public to see.

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