Dulcinea Bar & Grill

Terrible service. Took way too long and the people who came in after ate their WHOLE meal before we got ours. No apologies from the server either

amazing food but they double charge for tip! Check your receipt. they always charge a service charge (18 percent) and then ask for tip as well. Many have been duped and end up paying almost 40 percent extra!

Some of the best mexican food I have had since I moved away from the west coast (L.A). And that’s saying something since I left in ’05 and lived in fl before moving to the dc area. I went there sat night for dinner. Ordered the carne asada, shrimp tacos and guacamole between the two of us. Canrne asada entrée was excellent. It came with two fried plantains, yellow rice, pico de gallo and beans. If I lived closer I’d be here every week. Hell since I get my haircuts next door I might be here more often now. I wish I tried the food sooner because I had only been here for drinks be If you’re in the mood for mexican. This is it. I even bought some flautas to take home for the next day and was blown away

I really love this place. The carnitas burrito is fabulous as is the steak. I also love that they deliver. The staff is incredibly attentive too!

When you find the greatest hole-​in-​the-​wall and vow to never let anyone else know about it… yeah, that was me with Dulcinea. The prices are pretty good compared to other mexican food restaurants in the area. Note: I’m from CA which means I have been spoiled with cheap Mexican eats.
I’ve tried their burritos, nachos, and nachos with fries, and margaritas. The burrito is so filling. I always ask for no guac and they always oblige. The nachos are awesome! You can request the nachos with fries instead of tortilla chips, which is also a yummy calorie filler. If you want lettuce on your nachos make sure to ask just in case.
The margaritas are just dandy… so much tequila. But not too much.
Overall would I recommend it? Sure! Would I come back? Duh!

Prices, food, drinks, and service were all good. Highly recommend shrimp and carne asada tacos. The guacamole was also impressive – simple, fresh, delicious.

This is the hole-​in-​the-​wall you never want anyone else to find, but that you can stop talking about. It’s good every time, and has some of the best guac around. I love the smoky salsa and consider this my go-​to place for a chorizo fix.
Now shhhhh … don’t tell.

We just left Dulcinea. The food and the service were amazing! Ramon waited on us, Misuel made our drinks, and Joel was the manager. The tacos were excellent — the chicken was delicious and carne asada tacos were superb. This is a little gem that you should not miss. Dulcinea serves authentic cuisine with caring people who want you to have a wonderful experience!

YUM! Came here with a big group for dinner one night. Our friend called ahead and reserved a space for us. For as good as the food was it seemed weird that we were pretty much the only ones in the restaurant on a Friday night.
The chips are delicious and free-​flowing. The fajitas were everything you want in Fajitas — good meat, a solid side plate, and good tortillas.
The Margaritas were pretty great too.
Best Mexican I’ve had in a city since living in Albany Park in Chicago. Wish we lived closer so I could go back more often!

Family came to eat. I had the Chorizo Tortas. It was a great sandwich. It was very filling. The staff is quickly and polite. My family said that there food was delicious and filling. My mother took half of her burrito home with her.

Came here after searching on Unilocal for a Mexican restaurant in DC and this happened to be the closest one with decent reviews. I have to admit when I got there I was a little skeptical and lowered my expectations based on appearance (not necessarily the best area, place was small and nearly empty). However, I was wrong! We got pitchers of margaritas which were good and strong, the guacamole which tasted fresh and creamy, and I had the steak fajitas which was a very generous portion size and was delicious. Great food, good prices. Subtracting one star for our waiter sweating profusely the whole time.

as a Mexican food connoisseur from California I didnt know what to expect to for this restaurant. I ordered had the chicken burrito which was overall pretty gross. The tortilla and the chicken were the only good things in the burrito, everything else loaded in the burrito was gross I couldn’t even finish more than three bites.

Amazing food! So affordable and the servers are so extremely polite. I am in love with their tacos & yuco. I love that its corn tacos not flour. A must try in DC

Three stars for Dulcinea is generous.
After a horrible «Mexican» experience at breakfast (
) and reading the review of a good friend for Dulcinea, Justin and I decided to come here for dinner to make amends with the Mexican food gods. Apparently this was just not our day.
As an appetizer we narrowed the choices down to the guacamole ($ 6) or the chorizo con queso ($ 7.50). We went with the latter since I knew my entrée would come with a side of guac. Most good establishments serve a white queso with hearty chunks of chorizo but this was not the case here. This looked and tasted exactly like a can (not even a jar) of Frito’s cheese dip — a substance that, the one time it was in our house, I wouldn’t even eat when I was drunk and hungray. The little bits of chorizo in it were lost amongst the goo and any meaty flavor there might have been was overpowered by the fire hose blast of orange fakeness. We should have gone with the guacamole.
I ordered the enchiladas potosinas (
) off the special menu as my main. The description of it sounded great with chiles blended into the masa for the enchilada shells (if you can call them that… they are much more similar to empanadas) and I’ve got a weak spot for anything and everything street food. The deep color of the half-​dozen crescents that peered at me from the plate hinted that the chile flavor, too, would accompany the dish. Instead, it mostly just tasted fried. The innards of the enchiladas are queso fresco but it really needed something else to give it depth. The side of guac and sour cream helped cut the fried texture but bits of meat or fresh peppers mixed in with the cheese would have gone a long way.
Justin ordered a torta ($ 11) but they were out of his preferred choice of meat so he went with the carne asada. The meat and veggies had good flavor and the sandwich was a pretty good size.
I think burritos or tortas might be the way to go at Dulcinea. Though to pay $ 9 for a burrito, I’d like to think it would be super fresh and, given the dearth of people here at dinner on a weekend, I’m not sure it’d even meet the mark of a Chipotle burrito.

Never mind that downstairs looks like an utter shithole. The food here is ridiculously good and sometimes offers dishes that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the District. But we’ll get to that in a minute because the classic dishes are great and worthy of a visit on their own.
While Dulcinea offers a virtual cornucopia of fruit flavored margaritas, I waved my masculine hand in abeyance and stuck to the classic version. The version here is tasty; the tequila bites into your tongue as you are hit with the sweet and sour flavors of sugar and lime. Nothing feels heavy handed about the drink, yet after two of them, I was properly swirling in a beautiful mental haze and slurring my words like the local town idiot. It was clear the alcohol had serves its ultimate purpose.
The guacamole won’t be made table-​side for you here, but it’s ¹⁄₃ the cost of Oyamel’s version. I would be hard pressed to choose between the two preparations purely on flavor, but go ahead and do that math in your head. Dulcinea is a proper reminder that you are being hosed whenever you pay $ 10+ for guacamole unless you are the exact kind of imbecile that thinks the preparation of guacamole in front of you is worth an additional ten dollars. If you are that person, kindly step away from the rest of this review and go back to preparing your slave ship.
Delicious shrimp tacos can be had here as well. While I didn’t think the shrimp was of the highest quality, they were cooked in a spicy marinade and served with the traditional mix of cilantro, onion, and lime. Overall, they were quite delicious.
The crowning achievement of Dulcinea, however, was the brilliant execution of Potosi enchiladas (often called «enchiladas potosinas») which is only available when it’s on special. The name refers to San Luis Potosi where this lovely dish originated. More empanada than enchilada, enchiladas potosinas are essentially deep red ancho chili flavored masa corn pockets filled with queso fresco and topped with lard-​fried beans. The version at Dulcinea comes with their outstanding guacamole as well as a generous dollop of sour cream. I’ll add that this is the only restaurant where I’ve found this Central Mexican street food in DC, and I was pleasantly stunned at the accuracy of this replication.
Whether Dulcinea is right for you largely depends on how much you tend to judge a place by its inward and outward appearance and potentially questionable health ratings. If you can get over all that, you are in for a better meal than you will find at its more ritzy competitors.

This place was ok. We had a Groupon for fajitas for two and a pitcher of margaritas. The margaritas were pretty good. The fajitas were fine, but I’ve definitely had better. The rice that came with them looked like the portion they would serve to one person, and it was kind of greasy. The salsa was pretty good, but the chips were definitely from a bag. On the plus side, the server was friendly. But I don’t think I’d bother coming back.

The food was just OK in my experience. My $ 9 dulcinea cilantro burger was alright and the fries were that weird frozen type that is hard to describe… it seems like mashed potatoes on the inside and some crunchy crust on the outside.
The chicken burrito was good but just came with a side of chips for $ 9. You can get a burrito for $ 8 with sides of sour cream, tomatoes, rice and beans at top Spanish up Georgia ave for $ 8.
Nice service and nice atmosphere inside. Maybe I’ll come back for happy hour beers.

I went there for lunch yesterday and it was pretty disappointing an experience. First off, automatic 18% gratuity for parties of TWO or more. As two people we were instantly hit. We are very careful tippers, preferring to actually tip what was earned. Would it have been 18%? Not after seeing the bill.
There seemed to be all of one guy in the store and only one or two other guests in the whole place, so it wasn’t particularly busy. After some awkward greeting when we were walked in, we were told to sit wherever we liked and immediately given chips & salsa and waters. That was really nice. Too bad we were charged for the «appetizer» we never asked for and never would have had in the first place. We usually don’t because we’re accustomed to ridiculously large portion sizes at Mexican places, but if it’s free, why not? Apparently, it wasn’t. It’s not that I mind paying $ 2 – 3 for chips & salsa, it’s paying for something I didn’t order and otherwise wouldn’t have.
The food we ordered took a bit of time and did seem very fresh, we were fine with that. My husband was happy with his burrito, which is just too little to call two meals unfortunately. That’s fine, that’s just our expectations reminding us that not every Mexican restaurant does mega portions. So, even after chips and salsa, and then more chips and salsa as the side that comes with the burrito, he still ate ¾ of it and only stopped because that was enough for him. If he wanted, it could have been devoured. What we didn’t like about this is that the price for this didn’t seem different from the many others we have visited. So, at best I’d say it was a «fair» price for the food.
I ordered a chimichanga. It came with rice and beans on the side, which were delicious. It had just the right amount of salt (and for many i think that that means it would be too salty). The chimichanga was wonderful, too. I ordered it with the carne asada and don’t regret choosing it! Super yum! In comparison, it was about $ 3 more than the burrito for about the same amount of tortilla + stuffing except that mine was deep fried and smothered in sour cream, shaved lettuce, salsa and two different types of cheese. I could have eaten everything myself if I wanted to. But I“m not into over-​eating to clear the plate, so between what remained from hubby & mine’s plate could form one lunch for tomorrow.
I also ordered an Orchata (horchata) for $ 3. I really do love horchata, but for that amount of watered down it shouldn’t have been more than $ 1.50 for novelty. It tasted like he made one great glass, poured it into 3 others and then added plenty of water and ice. It wasn’t strong on neither cinnamon, nor sugar, nor rice flavor. But you did get grainy pieces of powder to sip from the bottom of the glass.
Throughout our experience, the seemingly only guy working there was constantly checking on us and filling up water. That part he did perfectly. Although, we could have used more than 2 napkins. What was strange was when he’d only step back two steps from our table to stand there and watch TV. We weren’t going for any personal or intimate atmosphere over lunch, nor talking about anything serious, but we didn’t feel comfortable continuing the conversation either if it means that it’ll interrupt the guy watching TV /​he can hear everything. To be fair, that dining area is pretty small, but because it was an empty restaurant we would hope for a few more feet of privacy.
So, come bill time, he is helpful to get us a box and bag for us to package our own food. For the bill, he brings an iPad. We brought cash. That awkward moment of «what to do» seemed to hit him for a second, and then even though the total already includes an 18% gratuity, still asks if we want our change back. Really? We weren’t happy to have watered down horchata, weren’t happy to pay for chips & salsa, weren’t happy that as-​is 18% is added on for a cheap Mexican lunch. Again, it’s a difference of maybe a dollar or three. But, going in for a quick, cheap Mexican lunch still put us at $ 30 and just a bit extra for a small lunch for tomorrow for ONE. The finally blow was not getting a receipt. He takes the cash and just walks away. My husband had to ask for one and did he get it? No, he got some strange awkward silence and look for a bit. Then the guy says «one moment» and returns with a right then and there scribbled order on a waiters notepad. Well, that’s great for our records. Good luck using that for your records!
Reading the reviews, it must have been a really bad Monday lunch at noon. Others wrote about large portions, great horchata, bringing home leftovers… what happened here? At least the food was cooked perfectly for us, but at those prices we’d go elsewhere (indian buffet lunches for $ 10). It’s not the best Mexican food in town either, it’s just pretty good, like 3.5 of 5 stars, the horchata getting a ¹⁄₅.
Final verdict? We won’t go back unless the prices go down or we have a big coupon.

Two thumbs up from this Arizona native. I got the veggie chimichanga, which was crispy on the outside, nicely oily (because hey, it’s a fried burrito), and stuffed to the gills with cheese and perfectly cooked veggies. Even the rice and beans were good – lots of Mexican places have crappy rice, so I was pleasantly surprised.
LOVED the guacamole and salsa. The salsa remind me of the stuff at Cactus Cantina, but with more flavor and body. The guac was pretty simple, with onions and cilantro.
Terrible cheating pescatarian that I am, I tried a bite of the chorizo queso dip – holy moly. And speaking of moly, the mole sauce on my friend’s chicken dish was delicious. It’s not my favorite sauce in the world in general, but this stuff was spicy, flavorful and sweet.
I was sick, so I opted out of margaritas – but next time, for sure.

BURRITO HEAVEN!!!
Chips & salsa were ok. Guac was very fresh, although it could have used more seasoning. But the burrito … the burrito! That was love at first bite!
I got the chorizo (pork) burrito, and it was absolutely delicious. I will be back for some more of that, AND the margarita pitchers!
Just a heads up though: the beef on a skewer, as well-​seasoned as it is, is cooked very well done. If you prefer it closer to medium, don’t forget to let them know.