Cafe Eagle

So my review below was for the Mexican restaurant, Café Eagle. But apparently they sold the place and now it’s Ethiopian. So, there goes that.
DISREGARD — Love this place! I’m happy to have a place in DC that serves REAL Mexican food, and isn’t overpriced or pretentious. While the service might leave something to be desired, they are getting up and running, and I’m sure that will improve with time. The food makes this place worthy of supporting.

I came here immediately after I read in PoP that an authentic Mexican taqueria had opened in the heart of Shaw. Perhaps it was because it had just opened (around October) but the service and food were off. No one was downstairs to greet me, walked upstairs to the bar and asked if the restaurant was open. Was told yes, and went back down with a waitress who I conversed with in Spanish to order some tacos, carne asada and al pastor. The tacos took forever to make and given that I was the only person there to order food, I was little annoyed. The meat was good, but the cebolla asada (grilled onions) that came with the tacos were actually grilled whole scallions, instead of slices of white or yellow onion. I hope to give it a try soon to see if it’s had time to work out it’s issues… especially as I totally want more authentic taquerias to survive in central Washington!

Kitchen under renovation. Bar is open.

Yes you should probably go with someone who speaks Spanish since the menu is very simple with no explanations, however the food will be good regardless of what they put in front of you. This newly-​opened café serves some mean & authentic Mexican, and I say this as a born and raised Southern Californian. Just close your eyes and point at the menu. (But if you’d like a real recommendation, try the carne asada tacos)

This place is a bit odd, but the food is really good. Simple stuff, good flavors. I liked the tacos. They are way more authentic mexican style tacos than you can get at most places in DC. Its also really inexpensive — which I totally appreciate. Beers are like 3 bucks. Nice.
The atomsphere and décor are pretty strange though. I recommend sitting upstairs, not down, and maybe going with a group of 4 – 6 good humored, adventerous eaters. Cause its a little weird. Have fun. The food is great.

4 pork tacos. Excellent. Great sauces (green and orange) — both variations on spicy.
Service is a mess so don’t go if you need to be anywhere fast. Just kick it and don’t worry.
Sad face: they were out of horchata…
And while helpful to speak spanish, don’t let a lack of language skills stop you from going here. You’ll get your point across just fine.

This place is awesome and cheap. The tacos are great and I have no complaints. It looks like that it can be a club in the evening and that they just happen to sell tacos. I’m totally fine with that and will definitely be eating there. So glad to have this place in the area.

Each key stroke of this review is painful for me. It really hurts.
The pain does not strike the same as when I typically am driven to write a negative review, those are much easier. But this one is different. I so badly wanted to like Café Eagle, soooo badly. Let’s face it, we all know there is a shortage of authentic Mexican food in this city, and even better, Café Eagle is a couple of blocks from my house. It should have been an automatic win, and I wanted it to be.
But it wasn’t.
And, given my desire for authenticity, I am willing to let a lot of things slide here, and I attempted optimism, and hey, might still try to put some forward and return, but I definitely have learned the error of my ways.
Where to start… We were first served some chips and salsa which was nice. The salsa was good, had some good flavor. I was a bit unimpressed by the chips though, that were just quickly cooked flour tortillas. I’m not a huge fan of flour chips to begin with, so that stung a bit, but the presentation and preparation of them was a bit inconsistent, and didn’t do much for me.
I’ll offer a pass here.
Then after ordering up a Modelo and looking at the menu, I was really thrown back a bit. I like choice. Every morning it can take me 5 minutes of starting at my closet, and trying on 3 different shirts before I have my final answer. And hell, I like it that way. I like choice.
Café Eagle’s menu is infuriating if you are as choice driven as I am.
It looks something like this:
Tacos
Burritos
Fish
Shrimp
Enchilladas …
But what type of tacos, you say? Is that pork or beef? Is any of this vegetarian? Shrimp can be prepared many ways, is it sauteed? grilled? served in tacos?
Desiring not to ask a thousand questions and get flustered and make a bad decision, I went with the special of the day that the server raved about. It was fresh red snapper with rice and beans and the whole shebang.
What could be wrong? Sounds like a perfect meal for me.
Of course, as soon as I ordered it and started thinking, I realized that it would be a bone-​in fish, wish is always more of a struggle than I want, especially as hungry as I was feeling. But again, no biggie.
It arrived, and I was impressed. It was a huge portion and only cost $ 18 or so. The flavor on the fish was good, flaky, and generally good.
Then it happened. I flipped the fish over to get to all of the back side meat that I was yet to get to, and I saw it. It started as small drops that could very well have been salsa. Then I stuck my fork in, digging out a nice big meaty bite… and I realized that in fact, it was not salsa, it was blood.
In fact, there was now a small puddle of it coating the remaining meat on the bones. And, that ladies and gentleman concluded my meal. I was still hungry, sure. But don’t even dare me to dabble in that.
I finished my beer and called it a night. I understand that from time to time all restaurants have preparation issues, so I am willing to forgive that, but I am not sure it will do the trick. I went on a Friday night, a night that seemingly would be busy. There were a maximum of 10 people in the entire place.
If I return, I will not be getting the fish again. And heck, I don’t get why they even offer something like that. For a place that could easily focus on a nice variety of the staples (tacos, burritos, etc.) risking it on expensive dishes like a whole red snapper is not worth it.
They also really need to work on their menu issues. I get that you sell tacos, but how about you tell me exactly what kind of tacos? It will encourage me to try new things and to order more.

I’ve been looking for a good Mexican (not Salvadorian) restaurant in DC. I found out about Café Eagle through word of mouth. The tacos are to die for. We went on Saturday night and took advantage of their 4 tacos special for $ 7.00 and $ 2.00 modelos. Can’t beat it! I’m all about supporting good small businesses in DC that are not off to rob you of your hard earned cash.
Only feedback. I understand Spanish, but I had to play translator to my American friends. It’s as authentic as it gets.
Viva Café Eagle.

If you are looking for good cheap authentic Mexican this is the place. The $ 2.50 tacos while small by normal US standards are tasty. The chips were great, the salsa seemed homemade and there were a variety of sauces. We had some sort of fried «taco» too which was good and the plate was loaded with the sour cream, guacamole, and cheese extras. Only down side is if you can’t speak Spanish, our server wasn’t fluent in English, but it really wasn’t a handicap in ordering.

When I was a kid I lived in Mexico for several years so I am ridiculously picky about «authentic» Mexican food. This is it.
My favorite dished are the Tacos, the Tamales, and Mole. The Mole is the best I’ve had outside of Mexico. Each flavor comes through and is not overpowered by the other as it should be. Jason N was right on about the Torta — pass on it. The salsa verde and rojo you get with the chips are so good. I hope they start selling them!
The staff is super friendly, excited to be there, and authentically enjoys sharing the food and hospitality from their home.
Also, they have takeout. The tamales are easy and huge hit for a party I recently had.

I’m so excited to have this place in our neighborhood and in DC generally. We went for lunch today around 1:00 (Saturday) and had a really nice experience for an incredible price. Café Eagle is the definition of a hole in the wall, and we were the only non-​Spanish speakers in there. But no matter, the service couldn’t have been friendlier and more helpful. Upon being seated and taking our drink orders, our extremely nice and gracious server brought us some amazing homemade salsa, freshly fried tortilla chips, two other kinds of homemade sauces/​salsas, and guacamole, all on the house. What struck me was how fresh and flavorful each one was. That was some of the best salsa and guac I’ve had anywhere. For our meal we had 3 tacos – beef tongue, carne asade, and chorizo, a tamale, and pozole, a soup/​stew with pork in it. Everything was delicious and tasted like it could have come out of a Mexican grandmother’s kitchen. Plus, each taco was only $ 2.50! The soup was pure comfort food and so huge it could feed four people ($ 8). I ended up taking ²⁄₃ of it home because I got so full.
For fresh, authentic-​tasting Mexican food at crazy cheap prices, I don’t see how you could do better than this in DC. I don’t know what happened when Jason N. ate there but I’m glad we disregarded his review because this place is a very welcome addition to the block.

After reading the Unilocal reviews I was pleasantly surprised when I went in for take out and was handed really tasty chips & salsa! The man who took my order was really nice and helpful, and the food came FAST. 1. Best horchata ever, delicious ice cold and not grainy! Perfect. 2. Carne Asada burrito was really tasty and the salsa verde was great! I’d skip the tamale next time and definitely would have had enough food.
Next time more horchata and I can try the tacos people are commenting on! Glad it’s in the neighborhood.

We had a great meal at Café Eagle, and we are very happy to have another good restaurant in the area. We ordered beef tacos, a chorizo burrito, and carne asada — which all were great and very authentic. The restaurant was big (2 floors, with bar on 2^nd floor) and had a nice atmosphere. A nice touch might also be offering chips & salsa.

We moved to DC 7 years ago from the Southwest and have struggled to find anything close to comparable Mexican to that on offer in AZ. The Eagle was awesome. The server looked after us well.
The tamales were awesome (my wife wanted to take a bunch home) and the tacos and burrito were excellent.
We live in the neighborhood and are delighted to be so close!

Still giving this place 5 stars due to the value and the tacos are definitely legit BUT the tortas are overpriced. 8 bucks! And they’re really small compared to other tortas I’ve had. The bread isn’t so hot either. Forget it. Stick with the tacos!