El Ranchero

In Vista, it’s surprisingly hard to find good Mexican food. This place is a little pricey but more authentic. They have a few dishes you can’t find at other mexican restaurants. I’m willing to pay a little extra for the quality. It’s a hole in the wall, family owned restaurant that is easy to miss on main street. I wish I had found it sooner. The albondigas soup was great!

Lost and hungry in Vista, my husband and I stumbled on this place on Main St. and decided to give it a shot.
It was during the week and a little past lunch time, 3:00pm. No one else was dining here but they were open. We sat outside.
The menu is decent with lots of choices but still missing a few of some of my favorite Mexican fare. You can certainly find something to enjoy here, even if you are picky.
The service was okay but for a long established Mexican restaurant since 1991, I expected a little more. Overall it was an okay experience but it’s not a place I’m going to drive from Carlsbad to Vista to dine at when there are so many other choices in between.

It was a cute little place, although a little hot inside. The lady that served us was really sweet and nice. The food was just okay, nothing out of the ordinary. My husband had a burrito (I don’t quite remember the name) but it was the first option under the burritos and chimichangas section.
I ordered the beef chimichanga… they were both basically the same except his was 2 times bigger and had a bit of beans inside, other than that all the same.
The best part of my dish was the beans.

Don’t know what all the neg reviews are about. The chips and salsa are great — the salsa especially! If y’all think that’s what jarred salsa tastes like, then I guess I love the taste of jarred salsa.
I had cheese enchiladas. They were good. Prices were normal Mexican restaurant prices. Service was good.

It’s going to be hard to compete with URBN when I’m in the area but I am pretty stoked on this little mexican food spot.
Tasty salsa, very good beans and rice. I had a little trouble getting my order across. My standard go-​to burrito is the beans, rice, and guacamole. I eventually got a bean and rice burrito and then got them to bring a small side of guac over. I was charged $ 6 for a bean and cheese which I found fair.
I think this place is lacking a liquor license but they have agave wine margaritas. I didn’t get around to trying them but it sounds interesting.

Sometimes you have to try and find the middle ground. I have a girlfriend who will be grouchy with me for not giving this place just a solitary star and a mother and brother who will question why I don’t think it’s 4+ like they do. We’re not always going to get along, guys. Regardless, I did find some fair points, so a review of 2-​stars for El Ranchero isn’t too far off, in my opinion.
So, we came once to try it out and a second time for my brother’s birthday a week or so later. Both were subpar experiences. Anytime you go into a smaller Mexican restaurant and they have a tub of chips stored on the shelves in the back, you know things won’t be the freshest or best. Then you get salsa with a consistency that looks like it came out of a jar and you wonder why you even bothered leaving home. And when you order your entrees, it only gets worse.
The Fiesta Plate, El Ranchero’s version a sampler appetizer platter, had Rolled Taquitos which could have easily come out of a frozen bag, Nachos with those remade and stored chips, and an alright Chicken Quesadilla that my 2 year old enjoyed two slices of. The whole of it together is very indicative of the quality of the rest of the night. It’s not food I would have had when I went over to my grandmother’s house back in the day, it’s food you would expect if you went over to your white friend’s house when his parents have taco night.
Mi amor had the Combination Plate with a Chile Relleno and an Enchilada. She found the chili to be very small and badly overcooked. This made it mushy and difficult to eat as each bite quickly melted into the sauce instead of standing out with a firm, steamed texture. She liked that light red sauce atop it, but hated the darker red sauce accompanying the cheese Enchilada.
This I found wild, two different red sauces on the same plate. There was also a green sauce on her Chicken Enchilada, but the fact that there were two separate, cooked red sauces made me wonder if either one was out of a can as it didn’t make sense to cook up more than just a single red and a single green. Maybe I’m reading too much into it; anyway…
I had had a large lunch and wasn’t too hungry, so I kept it simple with a Bean Burrito. It was served wet, with red sauce atop it as well. It was alright, the beans were cooked properly and the rice was pretty close to what my aunt still makes whenever we have a family dinner. Yes, it was playing it safe getting this dish, but it’s nice to know that El Ranchero can at least kinda do the basics. Well, cooking up fresh chips and making their own salsa notwithstanding.
All in all, I am NOT looking forward to being forced to come back again. Twistedly enough, there is another El Ranchero further inland that gets much better reviews and has an identical theme and menu. They say they aren’t related (which I can’t blame them for denying), but visiting both also gleaned business cards with identical artwork and style. I tried to steer the birthday dinner to the latter, but was outvoted. One day, El Ranchero Dos, one day…

We have been here numerous times, and the quality of the food is always consistent. If you like a light colored enchilada sauce (which we do), you will love this place. It’s very difficult to find that around San Diego, in fact, after 10 years, this is the first place we’ve found. The food is good– portions aren’t HUGE, but they don’t need to be. It’s good & good food is filling.
The other reviews referring to the other Vista location– well, all I can say is they must prefer more «authentic» tasting Mexican food. One time the Main St. location was closed, so we decided to check out the other one… way bigger portions, but food was COMPLETELY different– NOT OUR TASTE. If you like one, you may not like the other, I guess it depends on what you order.
Summary– this place has GOOD Mexican food.

My boss gave me the recommendation for this place. I am totally glad he did.
This place has so much charm. The inside has tons of color and the service is really great. It’s family run and they definitely care how things are presented.
The food was great. The margaritas were great.
I would definitely be back!