A Look at the New El Sitio
By: Mr. Wilson on
December 16, 2011
As you can see, there isn't too much to see on the inside. That shouldn't surprise those of you who are familiar with the building. It's pretty small. Note, however, that they did manage to add a few booths along the edges. Here's a look at what they've done with the front counter.
The entire experience says "simple". Which is fine, really. El Sitio is very much a neighborhood-style restaurant.
As with the general appearance, service was simple as well. There was only a single waitress while we were there. She kept up with the pace just fine. Once we sat she invited us to help ourselves to some chips and salsa.
The chips were your standard corn chips. The salsas weren't my favorite. They weren't bad, but for my tastes they ventured too close to Pace territory. My father had no complaints.
The lunch menu consists of about a dozen combination plates, each priced at $6.99. It's a smart strategy for such a small restaurant: limit selection and keep pricing reasonable. The strategy paid off on our visit. Mere minutes after ordering our food arrived. My father ordered an enchilada and tamale:
He had been hoping for a chile relleno -- his Mexican restaurant default -- but there wasn't one offered on the lunch menu. Nevertheless he enjoyed his meal just fine. For my meal I went with a chicken chimichanga.
I use chimichangas as a barometer of sorts for assessing Mexican restaurants. If it's fried to death, for example, it suggests that there isn't much TLC going on in the kitchen. As you can see from the photo, my chimichanga was fried to a light brown. Perfect. It was presented nicely as well. The biggest surprise was the cheese sauce on top. The menu said something about cheese on top, but nacho cheese sauce wasn't what I was expecting. It felt like a very American touch. Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing, it just really caught me off guard.
I had never been to El Sitio's old 17th and Van Dorn location, primarily because nobody ever talked about the place. Its new location is significantly more visible, so that should help them quite a bit. The overall experience isn't going to knock anybody's socks off, but that's ok. It seems to be a nice, unpretentious, neighborhood-style restaurant that I'm happy to have just up the road from my house. I look forward to going back at dinner to see how that menu differs.
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Good luck to El Sitio at their new location. The place looks great. Hopefully we can get something useful and awesome in the 17th and Van Dorn building asap.
Went there tonight and got pics also…I will link to your review also. 😊
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