El Mariachi

My dad is 100% Mexican & I’m 50% Mexican, so you can imagine what we have for breakfast, lunch & dinner on most days (LOL). I don’t have a problem with so much Mexican food Bc who are we kidding? Mexican food is life! Lol! I recommend El Mariachi to everyone & anyone that asks about good places to eat around Kapolei. This place has great food with fantastic service! Love coming here!
(P.S: you have to try the horchata, it’s my fav)

We just had the worst Mexican food and service ever. First it took 15 minutes to get a waiter off to get drink orders. Then they forgot. I had to ask them to wipe down the seats snow there was food all over it. The waitress who took our order came back and asked us if we ordered. I asked for tapatio and that took almost as long as the original drink order. I had to send the whiskey-​chata back because it was only horchata. My wife had a carne asada torta and we sent it back. The bread was very hard. The carne asada filling was ok. My burrito was a tortilla with overcooked and mushy chicken with some cheese. Disappointed and won’t go back. Service was terrible.

The best Mexican restaurant in Hawaii. Been here 12 years & this place reminds me of eating in Ensenada & TJ. The taste is authentic. The salsa has a touch of lime, the shrimp cocktail is plenty full, and they have black beans

I’m gonna start off by saying rarely do we ever find our self on this side of the island, let alone eat Mexican food. Caught a movie at the new theatre in kapolei and decided to go for a bite nearby. My bf had a weird urge to eat Mexican so we decided to give this place a try.
I might’ve been HANGRY, but I was super annoyed by the fact that we were looked at so weird when we walked in. I was waiting to be told if we could sit anywhere orrrrr??? Lol.
Besides that, everything was OK. Waitress was in training. Place was pretty empty when we came in. Looking at the menu, I really didn’t know what I wanted to get. I played it safe and did a combo of chicken/​steak burrito & taco. My bf ordered carne asada. Both of which came with Spanish rice and deep fried beans. Food was nothing special. I felt like it needed veggies because I had more than enough meat. My boyfriends steak was huuuuge.
Aside from the food, I most definitely did not forget to order the horchata. So good! I might just be eating at Mexican restaurants more often just for the horchata.
We were pretty full at the end, possibly because we starved ourself all day and basically devoured the free chips and salsa before our food even came out.

This is my third or fourth time visiting this particular El Mariachi. The Corona beer was ice cold, but no lime. That was a first for me at a Mexican restaurant. Nevertheless, it went down smoothly as you can see in the photo. You can always tell a good Mexican restaurant by the salsa. The salsa here is definitely decent, but not the best I’ve had. My kids had nachos with shredded beef. They were mehh! I think I can make better nachos than that. I had the tres combinacion with a chicken burrito, beef enchilada and a chili relleno. They didn’t have any chili rellenos so I substituted with a pork tamale. The burrito sucked. It was dry. No sauce on it, no cheese on it, no salsa or sour cream. The burrito at Taco Bell is better. The enchilada was decent. It had sauce. The tamale was ok. Kind of dry. Nothing to write home about. All in all the food was just ok. Good Mexican in Hawaii is hard to come by.

This is a nice Mexican hole in the wall place.
I came here for my little brother’s birthday. We were seated quickly and our orders were also taken quickly. However there was a really long, about 20 min wait for the food.
My parents got fajitas and they said it was too salty and the meat was a bit hard.
I got the combo meal of carne asadas with shrimp. I asked for medium and for the most part it was medium. One little part of it however was medium rare. Which didn’t really matter, I thought the steak tasted great. I also added shrimp for $ 3 more… and it came with 3 shrimps… lol.
One thing that bothered me was that when we told them it was my little brother’s birthday she said «oh okay I see»… No happy birthday? Then during our meal we see another table getting a little mariachi happy birthday song. So after I meal we had to ask them to do the same for my brother. However when they did they were all out of sync singing in a «alright let’s get this over with» attitude. Professionalism. My dad even noticed and asked them to redo the song lol.
Lastly, my little brother asked for deep fried ice cream. They gave it to us on the house which was very nice. However, there really was no crunch in the deep fried ice cream, as if it was stale or something… as if it was pre made and left in the freezer for awhile. Ehhh

My hubby devoured the carne asada! Kept talking about it! I ate the chicken sope… que bueno! We topped it off with a deep fried ice cream! Did I mention he literally used his tortilla to wipe that plate CLEAN! The long-​stemmed rose for Mother’s Day was unexpected and a nice touch!

Some friends & I decided to come here after a day at the water park. We arrived around 4pm and it was completely empty! My boyfriend ordered the campeon burrito, my friend ordered the shrimp quesadilla, & I needed more time. I don’t know why my boyfriend forces me to eat Mexican all the time when I clearly don’t care for it much. I settled for the garlic shrimp w/​Spanish rice & retried beans which was the best choice ever.
Complimentary chips=Food quality ⁸⁄₁₀
Campeon burrito must’ve been good because my boyfriend are all of it. Wish I had a picture but that burrito was HUGE!
My garlic shrimp plate was so good. When I get something garlic, I expect there to be a lot of garlic & man, there WAS a lot of garlic! I usually eat garlic shrimp at the shrimp shack, but I actually enjoyed eating it w/​the Spanish rice & refried beans. Something different.
While eating, I noticed how fast the restaurant got filled. Thankfully we came at a good time. Our service was exceptional which of course, tops our meal off.

My wife loves Mexican food, and having lived in California and Arizona, we would like to think we’ve developed a taste for some authentic Mexican flavors. We tried El Mariachi after a recommendation by a friend and we’ve eaten at this place three times now and I am just now getting around to reviewing it. We’ve tried this place for both dinner and lunch, and the lunch crowd can pack the place which negatively impacted the service since they had just one server when we stopped by for lunch earlier today.
We thought the food was flavorful (I tend to order the Carne Asada burrito plate while my wife prefers the 2 quesadillas — one with shredded beef and the other a shredded pork). The complimentary chips and salsa were good… although we found out on a previous visit that extra salsa is not free and there are no free refills for drinks either. My wife informs me that the menu states this… but who really checks the fine print?
For our lunch of carne asada burrito and quesadillas, we paid just over $ 25 with tip. This might just be our go-​to Mexican place from now on… at least when we are «jonesing» for Mexican food on the west side.

I’m going to keep this short because if I go descriptive it’ll be a novel. Below is the order of events that happened when we decided to eat here on Friday, 4/​29, at about 7:45pm. Mind you, this is the third time that I’ve been here since it opened and each time we keep hoping it’ll get better. And, as much as I love the food and it’s location, it’ll be a while until I can talk my boyfriend into coming here again. I tend to easily forget those who burn me. :(
1. The wait time when we arrived was quoted 15 minutes and they were pretty close to keeping that quote. We were third on the list and the restaurant was full.
2. We sat and the hostess immediately took our drink orders. We knew we wanted the CHICKEN TAQUITOS since we had time to look at the menu so we ordered that with our drinks. Drinks came fast, chips and salsa (which I LOVE) came soon after. Awesome so far. But why did everyone around us who were already seated look angry?
3. Server showed up about 10 minutes after to take our order. She told us that they were out of Mexican Rice (WHAT!!!) and was serving salad instead. She said the rice won’t be done for about 20 minutes. Okay… since we saw people who were seated about the same time as we put our name on the list still without their food, I thought we had time. So I asked if we could forego the salad and just get the rice when it was ready… even if it was after our meal came out. Besides, we still had yet to receive our appetizer, right? She gave me this look like that was the most ridiculous question ever and said, «Yeeeaaahhh?» I didn’t know if it didn’t make sense so I explained that way we’d be fine getting the rice at some point during our meal. «Yeeeeaaaahhhhh???» She made me feel stupid but I think she was trying to be funny. She went in the back to double check how long the rice was and said, «Yeah… it’s gonna be a while… like about 20 minutes.» Almost as if she was discouraging me from expecting rice during our meal. So we took the salad and said to forget about it. Whatever.
4. So we waited and watched as people got their meals. The same server delivered food to the couple next to us. «Carne Burrito,» she said and placed it in front of the guy. His date said that it was hers and the server said loud enough for US to hear, «Oh, sorry. The guy usually orders the burrito.» Really? Rude, much?
5. 15 minutes after ordering our MEALS (so about 20 – 25 minutes after ordering our appetizer) had passed (closer to the rice being done, yeeeaaahhh??), we asked for our taquito appetizer. If there’s any kind of high standard I have, it’s getting drinks quickly and our appetizer BEFORE our meal… especially if it was ordered well before. They brought it out 2 minutes later and it was steak… not chicken. *sigh* I didn’t even mention it because we had already figured out why everyone had looked mad in there.
6. 5 minutes later (while we were still eating the taquitos) our meals came out. My carne asada was cooked perfectly (my boyfriend thought it was too salty but I loved it) and the salad wasn’t too bad. His carne burrito was good, too (the guy normally orders the burrito… haha). She even brought out the rice so we scored with both salad and rice… but the rice was a little undercooked. I’ll take the blame for that one. So everything was pretty good and looking up. It could be that I was PMSing but I was still picking at my food but my boyfriend was done. The same server came up to us and said, «Are we full yet?» as I had steak in my mouth. I felt like a fatty so I stopped because I felt like I should’ve been full??? So rude. I don’t know… maybe I was just being sensitive.
7. We asked for takeout containers from another dude there and he said he’d have to check because they may have run out. *sigh*
So the low rating is from the rude service and the messed up, long-​taking appetizer. Not to mention running out of mexican rice more than an hour before closing (which should have been mentioned as soon as we sat down). Not worth the rest of the food being pretty decent. Phew… and this was the SHORT version!

El Mariachi Kapolei. (2 stars)
The 2 stars are for the service! This food was horrible!
Any Mexican restaurant will first and foremost be rated by the chips and salsa (and whether they are complimentary as well)!!
Trying their chips and salsa was already the start of my stomach and heart dropping to the floor!
Truth be told… I have never been to Mexico but I have been to San Diego numerous times and LOVE the Mexican food in America! (Sadly no restaurant in Hawaii is very good)… But El Mariachi in Kapolei was below average even for Hawaii’s standards!
Chips and Salsa. (1 star)
Yes it’s free… But the chips seemed «half baked» and were not crispy or fresh! They tasted stale! No real salt seasoning… The salsa just tasted like they blended tomatoes and some pepper. Very very bland!
Mariachi Tacos. (1 star)
The tacos come with your choice of meat. I chose carnitas (pork). The carnitas had a decent seasoning and marinade but the taco shell (corn tortilla) was quickly fried in oil but again had the half cooked consistency… Which I dislike. I wish they would give the option of a CRISPY shell or plain flour tortilla. For 2 small
Tacos and some retried beans with Mexican rice (which was honestly mushy and flavorless)… I had had enough! I didn’t even finish my Tacos and I love GOOD Mexican food!
Grilled jalapeños and lettuce. (2 stars)
The grilled jalapeños were decent but it doesn’t take much to just grill the jalapeños. No seasoning etc was added to the jalapeños so I wouldn’t rate this any higher. Lettuce was shredded. That’s all. It costs $ 4 for a little bowl. Definitely not worth it.
The BF and I also ordered 2 beers. Total for 2 beers, 2 orders of Mariachi Tacos, and Side of Grilled jalapeños and lettuce… $ 40??? So not worth it!
It’s places like this that make me realize why I don’t eat out as much in Hawaii since what people say is «really good Mexican food» or «really good» in general is really not!
I have been to this establishment 3 times (because I wanted to give this place a fair chance).
The service here is awesome I have to say! Very friendly staff who always come around and ask how we are doing and if we need anything! This is why I feel bad that I won’t be frequenting this establishment in the future unless something really changes.
El Mariachi Kapolei is located in the Kapolei Shopping Center (right next to HIC). It looks like they expanded their restaurant size!

Dinner last night with the family. Ate half the campeon burrito. Cost $ 15. Decent price. The mango margarita was sweet but a little weak. Could have used more tequila. Corona hit the spot.

Best, if not the only, Mexican food on the Leeward side.
They’ve recently expanded which is wonderful!

After begin stationed in San Antonio, TX TexMex has been so hard to find in these parts of the paradise isle.
Until a player found EL MARIACHI — freaking luff this place!!!

BLACKLISTED in my book.
First time i came it was fairly decent, 2^nd time my wifes steak was raw to the point that there was blood on the plate and we ordered a carne asada plate… Last time i checked thats diced up thin sliced steak. 3^rd time i came ordered the burrito and all it was was chicken and tortilla and my wife ordered the chimi and it was just a wet burrito, the steak inside the chimi was raw. And was suppose to be shredded beef. Im usually not so picky about places as I’m a soldier and can eat anything, but I’m also from California and wow this place is just awful. Don’t order the horchata unless you want diabeetus.

I always enjoy eating at El Mariachi in Kapolei. Since they opened here in Kapolei we have been very regular customers.
Fresh, delicious salsa with warm chips delicious food, decent service. They have opened up a 2^nd dining room with lots more room. Good Mexican food is so hard to find here in Hawaii– so glad to have El Mariachi near by.
Yesterday our service was a little less enthusiastic than usual. May have been the shift change so I don’t want to slam the service totally. Usually it’s good.
It’s great to see them growing and expanding the bar menu. We will certainly be back!

Second time here from when they first opened & I’m still loving it! Great & friendly staff, always a plus in my book! & I love the new extension.
The only place I would eat all of my re-​fried beans at! Hahah. Enchilada, burrito, taco, & tamales are what my husband & I shared. Demolished by the end of our dinner, even though we were so stuffed, we couldn’t let it go to waste. That’s when you know, the restaurant succeeds!

I would’ve gave NO STAR if it was an option.
The workers were just helping other customers and did not even acknowledge us. As a worker walked by, I asked «what would you recommend to eat here?!», she replied «I don’t know, you need to ask your server».
We waited 7−10mins and not even 1 server approached us. We WALKED OUT. BAD SERVICE!!!

Food is okay… just okay. Chips that seem to come out of a bag (but really aren’t that bad) with a flavorless salsa start the meal. Not a good sign. They finally have a liquor license now, but only sell bottled beer… so no Margarita for you. Entrees are decent sized for the price and will definitely fill you up, unfortunately it appears that they use that shredded Mexican cheese mix that you can get in any grocery store. Where is the creamy, melty, delicious white cheese goodness on this island? That’s a staple of Mexican restaurants (yes I know its not authentic but who cares?) back in Georgia at least.
Service is lacking. At least 10 minutes before we got our order taken and there was one other table (which had a different server). Food came out quick, but not all at the same time which is a huge pet peeve of mine. I was a line cook for several years and took pride in timing everything out so that all dishes for one table came out at the same time.
I gave it a low rating and complained a bit, but honestly, I’ll probably be back because there just isn’t good Mexican food on this side of the island, and sadly this is one of the better choices.

Unilocal 365 Challenge x 3 #298/​365
Unilocal 100 Review Challenge #43/​100
Updated review: From my last visit, their customer service and food took my experience to the next level. Definitely a place to bookmark if you’ve never been here to El Mariachi. Offering a casual take on the Mexican cuisine may just be part of the transformation for Kapolei to become Oahu’s next ideal dining oases for the west side community. Located within Kapolei Shopping Center, the El Mariachi’s casual, warm vibe belies some seriously authentic Mexican food on an island in the middle of the Pacific. The plump shrimp is juicy and buttery, while the enchiladas with shredded beef with Spanish rice and black beans on the side is the perfect Mexican comfort food making El Mariachi essential to the west side.

I’m really happy they brought a restaurant to Kapolei. This is by far my favorite spot to eat Mexican food on the island. They also have plenty of choices for vegetarians.