El Indio

Great mexican food, specializing in simple, po’ folks meals. Papa tacos, nopalitos con huevo, cocido; stuff those of us who grew up in humble times remember fondly. Not your typical mex restaurant food catering to tourists. Great menudo. Loved the service.

After you seat yourself the waitress places the best chips and beans in front of you and you will ask for more. The salsa is addicting & kept in a plastic ketchup bottle. The chili rellenos are amazingggggggg lots of cheese and red sauce and so are the beef tamales which are very moist and sprinkled with yellow cheese. My son had flautas cause he loves how soft they are and usually made from flour tortillas but we got taquitos my son didn’t like them. My husband had the carne asada torta was okay. I’ll be back ASAP and always stop going from Cali to NM and back!

Get the El Indio Special, you will get a taste of their red chile sauce, choice of fresh green chiles in the relleno and tasty shredded beef in the taco. What a treat!

Nice place to eat and the service is great. The food is plenty off to eat. The service is good and friendly

waited a little over 20 minutes for someone to take our order than i waited an 1 hour and 5 minutes and the food never came i left! poor service!!!

I am very disappointed with the food and service! Only two servers for busy dinner time service. Not only are they waiting on tables but they are cashiers too! There was a line to pay your final bill. The food doesn’t taste the way it used to taste back in the day. Service and quality has definitely gone down hill. Lastly, they now charge for refills of Dr Pepper! Refills were always free!

Had the Spicy Red Beef Totopos … Delicious! My daughter had the beef tamales, again, very good. Birria was ok. Salsa super tasty.

At El Indio in Tucson can’t never go wrong with this place authentic Sonoran Mexican food very affordable the staff is great the food is awesome stop in you won’t be disappointed

There are at least four reasons to love El Indio. First, their cocida de res is delicious, flavorful, and packed with meaty-​veggie goodies. It is perfect I remember liking the caldo de mariscos when I was younger, but I can’t remember what it tastes like because I can’t go to El Indio without ordering the cocida. Second, the complimentary, lardy, creamy bean dip. I like to mix salsa into it to spice it up a bit. Third, $.99 margaritas during happy hour, no explanation necessary. Finally, the prices are reasonable.

I ate my first Mexican meal in Tucson here, so this place brings back memories. From the outside, the place looks pretty cliché, but inside it is has type of cafeteria/​diner feel to it. Even the ladies with the carts that bring you your drinks and water contribute to it.
Have the cocido de carne, it is amazing! i think of it as maybe a cure for broken hearts and hangovers. (the second one is proven! Trust me ;)
The enchiladas are also good, get them with salsa verde, always! Waaaay better than the roja.
Also have a pitcher of their agua de horchata, tastes like the fake stuff, but very refreshing non the less.

OK, El Indio isn’t upscale and Bill Clinton never ate there, but if you want to taste good Mexican-​Indio food in a AZ-​Mex setting, this is about as good as it gets. Personally, I like the bean salsa, at least with the chips, and I don’t have any trouble squirting the alternative salsa from a ketchup bottle. I also think the food is pretty good, including the enchiladas, the chimis and the Indio special tacos. My friend, who is very particular about her food (raised on mom’s home cooking) likes El Indio, which pretty much establishes its bona fides for me. But that wouldn’t matter if I didn’t like the food. (:
Service is what it is, friendly and all over the place. Sometimes efficient and sometimes not, but really, who cares if the food is good and the place is comfortable.
One of these days, I will go there for breakfast.
One last thing. The name says it all. «El Indio» isn’t Sonoran, isn’t exactly «Mexican». It’s Indio-​Mexican. Or Mexican-​Indio. But a little bit different.
Just FYI if needed: «Indio» is American or Meso-​American Indian, not East Asian Indian. I know. I know. You don’t need that info, but there are people here for the Gem Show or who are winter visitors who do. And if those folks want good food and a slightly different culinary experience, they can’t do better than El Indio.

My sope was ok, but the corn quesadilla was dry. The greens are chopped iceburg, the cheese orange shredded. Our waitress was nice but we waited too long for our food and she brought us 2^nd rounds of drinks we didn’t order or want. No reason to go back.

I ate here a couple of years ago and it was awesome. Last week, not as much. Maybe breakfast just isn’t their thing. I asked for cheese with my breakfast tortilla, beans and eggs. There were a few little sprinkles. I will be back to give it a go for dinner or lunch because I was so disappointed in breakfast and I don’t want it tainting my tasty memory.

tasted great, but definitely uses lard or transfat. Clean bathrooms, generally quick service. Never thought i would see a buddha statue in a mexican food place. Unlike a previous reviewer i think the table salsa could have used more heat and chunkiness

I go here when I’m hungry and when I want to leave dinner with money left over for a movie. The place has a working man’s take-​the-​family-​out-​for-​dinner kind of Mexican restaurant feel, with good hearty meals at very reasonable prices. The décor includes great (some might say cheesy) Aztec paintings. I usually get the El Indio special which has a great selection of their best items. I also like the complimentary bean salsa. This place does not have a lot of frills, but with good food, I always leave feeling satisfied.

Now this review is really only for two dishes at this place because they are so good that I never get anything else. First I’ll start and say the service is good considering how busy the place always is. The chips and salsa are excellent and its fun to have to squirt out the salsa you want from a ketchup bottle.
Now to the main dishes. Hands down you must order the huevos rancheros with red chili beef or green chili beef. Both are incredible and will change your entire perspective on such a simple meal. The richness of the red chili beef mixed with the yolks of the eggs is one of the best flavors I have ever had.
Go to El Indio, Get the red chili beef or green chili huevos rancheros.

Today was my first time here in about a year or so. I Came in this morning for some Caldo de Queso (Cheese soup). It was fantastic.
I have no idea why it took me so long to come back. The place is clean and all of the food is good, especially their soups. They also have a daily lunch and dinner specials that include, soup, entrée and dessert.
I see myself here at least once a week for lunch.

I had some family passing through and we met them here. It’s a good location for that, because it’s right off the freeway. That’s probably the last time I will use the word «good» in this review unless there is a «not» in front of it.
The salsa was served in a red plastic bottle and was HOT. Don’t get me wrong, I can eat spicy stuff, but not everyone likes it that hot. When asked, they could not provide a mild option. This is an annoyance to me for a Mexican restaurant. Kids or people that don’t like it too spicy should be able to enjoy salsa with their Mexican meal.
Green Chile Pork Burrito — I found at least two HUGE chunks of fat in my burrito. These were no small chunks and should never have made it to my plate. The flavor was OK. With all that fat, how could it not have at least some flavor.
Speaking of flavor… my wife said her food had none. She ordered flautas and they looked like the things you buy in the frozen section at the grocery store. Rice. no flavor. Beans… no flavor. It’s Mexican food. It should be full of flavor! She could not even add the salsa for flavor. It was too hot for her.
My cousin that we met there is from El Paso. They said they liked their food. El Paso must have pretty bad Mexican food. They had their 16 month old with them. They got her a cheese crisp and offered us a piece. The cheese crisp was not bad. If the best thing you eat in a Mexican food place is a cheese crisp, you need to look elsewhere.

I have mixed feelings about El Indio. First off, the food was very good and served just right. The chile rellenos and cheese enchiladas combos were delicious.
It seemed to be a very popular place and was quite full the whole time we were there.
I have one major complaint that in fact, will prevent me from going back.
Our server came to us pushing a cart. On the top of the cart at that time were plastic (chipped and well-​used) glasses and our salsa/​chips. On the second shelf was a gray tub of dirty dishes. Yuck. In fact, it deserves a Double Yuck. That was bad enough but later on, I saw her take a dishrag and wipe down a nearby table and then put that dirty rag on the top shelf, along with dirty plastic glasses. The same shelf from which she was delivering everyone’s food orders. Now we’re up to a Triple Yuck.
My other complaint is mainly a presentation one: If your salsa is wonderful to eat, why not show it off in attractive bowls? El Indio puts theirs in a plastic ketchup bottle with the tip snipped off. How long has it sat out? Who else has been using it? You get my drift. It’s more of the same ilk as the ucleanliness of the serving cart.
Our unattentive server never returned to check on us, never refilled our drinks, and never refilled our chip bowl and never bothered to ask if everything was OK.
My two-​star rating mostly reflects these sanitary concerns and service and not the food. And I DO wonder what kind of conditions exist in their kitchen if they’re so careless in front of their customers.
If these serving conditions improve, I would be glad to return and revise my review.

After a couple distinct misses in previous years, El Indio recently scored a hit, and a big one at that.
I ordered up the El Indio special (chile relleno, cheese enchilada, beef taco, rice, and beans) and each individual item brought a separate taste sensation.
The chile relleno came detached from the stem and was cooked quite nicely. The sauce had a salty kick and vanished from my plate before I even realized it.
The cheese enchilada was… a cheese enchilada. Good cheese, soft tortilla, end of story.
The beef taco was loaded with a delicious mix of beef and onions, closed up, and then fried on both sides. Savory and healthy! Well… one of those two.
All that for $ 8? Consider me a fan, call me Al, do whatever you want, I’m in.