El Original TX MX
“This native Texan (Fort Worth) loved it and I much prefer it to Javelina.”
“I ordered the cheese enchiladas and a Mexican martini; my mom had the guacamole and black bean tostada salad and we split the queso.”
“Replacing the former Meemo space, El Original seeks to bring the first taste of *authentic* TexMex to NYC.”
El Original TX MX
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Outdoor Seating: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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3.5 actually. Best part was excellent service from bartender. Disappointing Guac (not the freshest) and everything was really wanting in spice level. Fajita meat was very good for NY but small portion for price. Migas bfast tacos were yummy but needed some sort of house made spicy sauce on top! If anyone important is reading this might I recommend making your own version of something like tacodeli's doña. Still I was thankful for migas.
Super spacious interior is nice if you're feeling claustrophobic. Since its popular to note your familiarity with tex mex here I'll go ahead and say that I'm not Texan at all (CA born to TN to FL to NY personally) but I'm married to one. He was most excited about the beer selection. I just realized we didn't have any salsa. Not sure how that happened or what that situation is?!?! We were in a hurry. B said "I'd definitely come back here."
me and a friend came here for drinks post a show at terminal 5. overall the space is huge with festive decor and fun music playing in the background. we grabbed seats at the bar and ordered drinks. my friend had a beer and i had a tasty tequila cocktail. so far off to a good start.
we glanced at the food menu looking for an app. considering this is tex mex food, the prices seemed steep! we went with an order of the $9 queso. honestly, i think i would've been happier if i was at home heating up some tostitos queso. this stuff looked legit like a melted stick of velveeta in a bowl. my friend and i ended up dumping the side of salsa into it to try and add some flavor.
so drinks and friendly bartenders, yes! do not want to judge the food just on the queso, but man was it lame.
I would recommend this as a good place for drinks and appetizers/chips and guac; not so much for a full meal of dinner/dessert. The beer list was good (more than just Corona and Dos Equis, as is too common in Mexican restaurants), and the drinks were interesting; in particular the Poblanita (a margarita made with poblano peppers). It was unique and inventive, a great mix of booze, ingredients and spices… I can only describe it as like drinking a nice, cool glass of salsa, which a couple of my friends thought sounded disgusting, but come on… who hasn't wanted to just skip the chips and pour some good salsa right down their gullet?
Speaking of chips… the chips and guac were great, and they were quite generous with the extra chips (they did charge us for 1 $4 "extra chips" but, well… we must have plowed through about 4 of them, so that seemed plenty reasonable to me). The meal was a bit disappointing, however – I had the sour cream enchiladas, which seemed dry (what did you do with that sour cream, anyway?) and uninspired – it lacked any spice, and the spanish rice was badly overcooked. Everyone in my group seemed to find their meal acceptable at best.
I was also quite disappointed with the Sopapillas. I absolutely fell in love with these when I spent a couple of weeks in New Mexico many moons ago… think carnival fried dough, but drizzled with honey along with powdered sugar. They were omnipresent as a desert option in Santa Fe, and I loved them so hard, it was painful to never find them back home, so it was a no-brainer that I was trying these. But they were fancied up… like a poor effort to turn a simple, comfort dessert into a fancy Iron Chef output. They were small, with some weird spiced honey on them. I mean, just fry some dough and put a plastic squeeze bottle of honey on the table like God – er, I mean Kokopelli – intended.
I partially enjoyed the food but Its a bit pricey. I guess its more a tourist trap, because there are definitely better tex mex food. Its also empty in the joint. However, the waitress was very disrespectful and accused my friend of not tipping. I consider my friend a generous tipper and he felt personally attacked due to his race. He asked for the manager and i felt like the manager was not comforting and emphathetic to the situation at all and almost brushed him up off.
Tired of Christina Izzo of Time Out and others bashing this joint. The place lives up to its name- "the Original." I've been here several times and firstly, the place is gorgeous- a Tex-Mex NY dream. Spacious , banquettes, wood, American flags flying. Design and location in the Skyline Hotel along very wide 10 Ave is unique.
I ordered three breakfast tacos the other day to go for $13
I reheated them for lunch, Flour tortillas, eggs, pico, retried beans & queso fresco
Fresh, warm tortillas around all those Flavors, a slight kick from the jalapeño in the pico
Delicious! Everything I've eaten here with the exception of the mediocre chips is exceptional flavor wise. I haven't tried the guac., but their dishes rock!
I honestly thought this place was pretty good! I don't know too much about authentic Tex Mex so I don't have a ton to compare it to, but in it's own right, El Original was tasty! My friend and I came here before seeing an off broadway show. The trains were terrible this weekend and we ended up being a bit late for our reservation. The hostess was so nice and accommodating even though this was our mistake. My friend and I ordered the queso (Yum!), the black bean enchiladas and the steak enchiladas. Everything was super tasty! Great flavors and cooked very well! I know some people on this board have said the enchiladas were dry; this was not the case with us at all. I would recommend this place for a pre-theater choice for sure! They take reservations and credit cards.
Atmosphere: 4stars. spacious seating area, nice bar, separate area for groups/party, stage to the side for live music, outdoor tables as well
Food: 3.5stars. They bring you lots of chips and salsa to snack on which is always nice. The chips were warm and the salsa was decent. The order of Guac we got however was depressingly small. I can with three friends and we each ordered something from the appetizers section of the menu and were all pleasantly surprised by the large portion sizes.
Drinks: 4stars. happy hour goes until 7-$5 margs and other good deals. The margaritas came in a good size glass and were strong.
Where should I begin? Let's just start with the fact that I will NEVER be back to this place.
We arrived around 7:30pm and were promptly seated–as there were hardly any people in the restaurant.
After we were seated, no one came to greet us or get an order for over 15 minutes before we finally flagged someone down. Mind you–there was NO ONE in the restaurant so they were basically ignoring us.
After ordering, we waited another 30 minutes before they finally brought out some food to our table–the only problem was that it wasn't even our food!!! There were literally two other tables seated at the restaurant and they still managed to mix up the tables!
Needless to say, we had hit our limit for foolishness and had another meeting to attend to so we just asked for our food to go. So about an hour later we finally were able to walk out the door with our food (IN BOXES), since we had only given ourselves an hour to eat.
The food itself wasn't that bad, but the experience we had in the restaurant was not acceptable. The wait staff did not even apologize for the slow/poor service, which probably means that this is a common occurrence at this venue.
Also, one final rant–this place does not let you order two types of tacos (like one chicken and one beef), they all have to be the same–WHY??? And the fact that they charge you for extra baskets of chips is really unforgivable.
So do yourself a favor and never come here–you won't know what you're missing, but if you did you would thank me.