El Azteca

On way home from the Islands and needed to stop and eat some authentic American food. Yep, Mexican American that is. Stuffed Pablano peppers oozing with Caso were to die for. My wife got a great order of Macho Nachos as her meal and shared with me. IT was enormous and really hit the spot. She had been craving this and I found the place on Unilocal thinking it would have what she wanted and we were not disappointed. Not sure I will ever find this place again but if I do the Nachos are out of this world! And free chips and salsa of course which is a must for us. Service was a little slow but it was New Years Eve and probably understaffed. Great option not far from the highway!

Went here on a whim and was pleasantly surprised to find authentic Mexican on the menu. The standard salsa is what I refer to as Mexican ketchup but ask for the tomatilla sauce if you like good spicy salsa. Had the AL pastor tacos and close to same ones I get when in Mexico working from the taquerias. Service was excellent almost overbearing but seemed to be mostly family. From eating at many so called Mexican restaurants that are amercanized it is nice to get a taste of authentic food.

First of all, I have to say that I hate to have to give this bad review because it’s obvious this is a restaurant that is supported by the locals, because most of them knew each other and there was friendly talk between most tables and new customers upon arrival. That aside, being someone from out of town, my husband and I went to El Azteca because it had the highest rating on Unilocal of a Mexican restaurant in Commerce.
Our disappointment started as we drove by the overgrown landscaping into an almost abandoned parking lot. My husband posted a picture of the broken planter filled with trash that graced the front door. I wish I could post a pic of our menus. Yes, not one, but both of our menus were nasty with evidence of spills having leaked between the plastic covers to discolor and smear the ink of the already low quality, «copy-​machine» pages.
The waiter hadn’t seen a shower in a few days and seemed only half conscious. He was uneducated with regards to the menu and didn’t know what kind of beers were available. My beer was only barely cold and the limes were dry and smelly with brown spots. They went unused. The guacamole was pretty good. My husband liked his entrée more than I liked mine (chicken fajitas nachos). The bottle of hot sauce that I retrieved from another table was coated with blackened, dried hot sauce from the several uses of patrons before me. We never saw our waiter after he took our order until he brought food to the table next to us at the end of our meal. This was lucky because we were more than ready for our check at that point.
Upon exiting, I went to the restroom which had an entryway coated with filth and worn paint, then coated with thick dust on the inside (see pics).
The building looks as if it were built years or even decades ago without an ounce of maintenance or improvement since. Not even a coat of paint. There is a broken water fountain in the outside, overgrown yard that has internal pump parts and tubing in the second layer of the fountain, while a green mess of algae forms in the bottom.
The one thing I do have to say for this restaurant is that the lady who acted as hostess was friendly and accommodating upon arrival. I even saw her go out of her way to wipe the rain off of a customer’s walker’s seat before she sat on it. There was also a man who repeatedly brought the plates to the table from the kitchen who was well dressed, friendly, eager to please, and very professional. He sometimes circled the room after he brought out food to make sure we had every thing we needed. Thank goodness, due to the vanishing waiter. He really was a one-​man show. I’m sure the restaurant relies heavily on that man. He needs a raise!
All in all. .. go somewhere else.

I have to ditto most of what Jason K. has to say, except that I think I liked the food a little more than he did. Although I will say that this restaurant’s menu is like every other stereotypical Tex-​Mex restaurant where I’ve eaten. The biggest problem with this place is that it’s nasty. The doors are not just dirty, they’re sticky. There is a deck in front with mismatched tables and chairs — and not mismatched in a quaint way, but a trashy way. The grass was un-​mowed and there were weeds growing up in a lot of places. If not for the «Open» sign and the flags out front, I might have thought the place was not in business. There’s a fountain in front (just outside the window where we sat) that’s broken. I know this because there are pieces in one of the fountain’s bowls. Speaking of the bowls, they are full of water and green with algae. There was a nasty pepper shaker on our table, but no salt shaker. My wife picked up a bottle of hot sauce from another table that had a thick coat of dried hot sauce around the lid. Her beer was not cold — mine was good.
What the heck is hanging from the door in the uploaded pic — it looks like toilet paper. And the broken cigarette receptacle in the other pic was at the front door — appetizing!
To make matters worse, in my particular case our waiter was bad. He couldn’t tell me what kind of beer they had and after he took our order he never returned. In fairness, I must say that the other wait staff appeared to know what they were doing and were friendly and helpful to their customers, so maybe we were just unlucky with our waiter.
One might ask why in the heck did you stay and eat??? We almost didn’t. The only reason we went to this restaurant was because of the overall Unilocal rating of «4.»

Friendly family service, good salsa and chips, and margaritas. Generous portions. Recommend the spicy Chili Colorado with a margarita.

Went here in search of some good Mexican food and certainly found it. El Azteca provided both great food and great service. It seemed sketchy on the outside, and at night it certainly is outside, but inside things are different. The waiter was friendly and took our order quickly, even provided the typical complimentary chips and salsa in a very timely manner. All of our food was delicious, and though I would have rather been there in the light of day, I would definitely recommend El Azteca.

Great Mexican restaurant! Awesome service! Never had an empty glass or basket of chips! Really good food!

I don’t know if the 5-​star reviews are for the same place (this review is for the restaurant at the given address), or if it’s changed management, or what.
The place was mostly empty on a Saturday evening (first bad sign). We’d passed by at least one other Mexican restaurant with people waiting outside based on the reviews, thought, so we went on in. The décor looks like a re-​purposed Chinese place, but that’s not a problem. The men’s bathroom was completely out of paper… towels, toilet, everything. I mentioned this to a worker who had just taken a phone order, and I honestly don’t think he understood a word I said. I don’t have a hang-​up about people not speaking my language, but I have to wonder about the phone order.
The menu looked like a standard copy of every other standard Americanized Mexican restaurant (the same «combo» section with various iterations of tacos, enchiladas, burritos, etc). The waiter was definitely American, though. I asked him to describe their version of Chili Colorado and got a confused look, then said, «It’s taco sauce, I think.» I got a #18 combo (beef enchilada, beef taco, rice, beans) to be safe. My wife got the 4-​enchilada combo (beef, chicken, cheese, beans).
Chips and salsa were good; the perfect amount of heat, but too much lime. The rest of the food… blah. The beef was flavorless, the sauce probably canned, the rice and beans the same pre-​packaged stuff you can get anywhere. My wife’s enchiladas weren’t any better. Very generous portions.
It wasn’t absolutely horrible (my criteria for a 1-​star), but I doubt I’ll ever go back.

Great Homestyle Mexican food. I love this place. Generous portions of extremely well prepared food. Great food and very reasonable prices.