El Paraiso

We stopped by here on a road trip and were really pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and how nice the staff were. We had beef and chicken tacos — the meat was really good, I was expecting ground beef but it was real marinated beef and the taco shells were outstanding! Tasted like they were freshly fried. We also had the beef quesadilla and that was really good — the tortilla was so good! If you can overlook the bad décor, this is definitely a great meal!

I had a list of places from which to choose upon my visit to Cozad this year and this place was not on it. Of the ones that were, one was closed, one was entirely absent and the other I couldn’t find.
Much like the town itself, this place is a bit of an oddity, from the menagerie of animal statues out front (none of which have anything to do with either Mexico or Mexican foods, unless elephants are suddenly gaining traction in population there) to the sort of old lodge logpole type of building that it is. The décor inside is strange, almost as if it was an old hunting lodge and the trophy game fish and deer heads and so on is on its way to being phased out as soon as someone collects enough Mexican type stuff to replace it with. Despite the owner being Mexican, it’s almost decorated as «Mexican by way of stereotype.» Pinatas in Mexico? Put one up near the ceiling. Check. Lots of Catholics, so have a painted scene of the Last Supper. Check. Beer ads with Spanish words and hot models? Sure, why not. Mexican flags under glass for table tops? Yep. Sleeves of garlic. What? Yep, that too. Maracas? What is a Mexican restaurant without those? Get them up there. I don’t think this is necessarily intentional, but the effect is definitely unmistakable.
Unusual wall and exterior decoration aside, this place is probably pretty good for the area, but going to any town of a larger size and this is going to be on the lower end of things. Sopapillas with cinnamon and powdered sugar coating a folded over tortilla with jelly in the bottom, like some sort of demented and perverse taco just won’t cut it. Likewise having a red enchilada sauce that tastes more or less like a liquified chili powder. Likewise serving chips and salsa sans salsa and then a shrimp quesadilla with a semi-​burnt tortilla, plain shrimp and plain cheese. The chile relleno burrito was slightly better. The combo plate my wife had was a non-​starter, with exceedingly bland rice and whatever they gave her in place of salsa. The margaritas are also served as a liquid and service here is exceedingly slow, agonizingly so, even if you’re the only people there.
While the food wasn’t inedible and this is basically the only choice we saw even remotely close to Mexican, this place has a long way to go to compete with even average Mexican places in larger cities, let alone hitting the marks for authenticity.

We stopped in Cozad on a cross country road trip and went to El Paraiso for lunch on suggestion from the only other Unilocal reviewer. We tried for vegetarian meals, choosing huevos rancheros and cheese enchiladas and margaritas. Not so sure the drinks actually had tequila in them. The food was good, definitely a solid choice over chain restaurants in town.