I have been eating here for years and tonight will be the last. The food is still good but the…read moreservice is terrible! Two weeks ago we came and ate and never got waited on the same thing tonight you get your food. You're never ask if you want to refill a box or even if you need your check, we stood up at the front several minutes before someone finally come to ask us what we needed. We then paid the bill after letting another couple go in front of us that have received their check the waitresses sit at a back table on the computer or on their phone.. I hope the manager will see this and the service will get better. I let the woman that checked us out know of our concerns.

No trip to Smith Mountain Lake is complete without a dinner at El Toreno Mexican restaurant. SO…read moreGOOD! The food was amazing as usual! And I think I had the best margarita of my life. Thank you staff at El Toreno! See you next year.

I found myself in Roanoke, VA for Cinco de Mayo, and found this joint somewhat close to my hotel…read more(Springhill Suites which was awesome). I pulled up and I'm 99 percent sure this used to be a Pizza Hut. The 1% skeptic in me didn't see a table top Pac Man machine, so I could have been wrong. Back to the Mexican cuisine, I kept it simple with tacos, and loved that I could order 3 different tacos. I went with the Al Pastor (good), Chicken (great), and Steak (dry and meh) tacos and was in and out pretty quickly. It was already later in the evening so it wasn't too crowded. I'd probably hit something else in Roanoke if I was here, but it wasn't bad for what I was looking for on May 5th!

I can't believe this place isn't more popular…read more Went here for my birthday and everything was SO fresh and delicious. It was a Friday night at 5:30 and no one was eating in the restaurant! This is a SHAME as this place should be hopping! We will definitely be back! Yum yum!!!

Love the fun colorful decor! Super sweet staff! Really like there light crispy chips. Amazing…read moreCheese dip. My husband had the BTO galaso it was big and he said it was really good! I ordered the salsa mango salmon, which I should've known better to order salmon at a Mexican restaurant. The server had told me it was delicious, but it was not..so overdone , dry and it wasn't salsa it was an overly sweet thin sauce. Wine was pretty good. Loved the babies breath flowers attached. If u don't mind paying 80$ for 2 meals One being good and fun experience . Then this is the place for you.

service is so good, food comes out of kitchen quickly. THE QUESO IS MAD GOOD!!…read morethe lighting creates a great atmosphere for the whole restaurant. overall pretty great experience!

The other day when I happened to be in downtown Roanoke, I decided to dine at the Inka Grill as a…read morefollow-up to my first visit. I love the decor of this restaurant. It's more modern and elegant than that of their first restaurant on Brambleton Ave. Although the service there is superb. When I arrived a young lady greeted me, took me to my table, gave me the menu and asked what I wanted to drink. After consulting with her on what they had, I asked for a mango drink. It was mighty good, like a mango juice served in a tall glass. For appetizer I order an Avocado Salad with Sea Salt. It was just slices of an avocado with salt on the side. It would have been better with some oil and vinegar as well. For ma main entrée I order.one of my favorites on their menu the Bistec a lo Pobre. This is basically a steak with a special rice, a fried egg, and fried ripe plantain. Inside of the special rice I asked for white rice and black beans. My server goes to the kitchen to see if this was possible, but comes back saying it would be a $2.95 extra to include the black beans. I told her to go ahead. When the food comes out she puts it on the table and leaves. I thought she went to get the black beans but they never arrive. The food looks great but when I cut the steak it was well done and I asked for medium rare. When she goes to bring something to another table I called her and tell her about the steak and the black beans that was missing. She offers to make me another steak but the piece of meat tooked so well and I was so hungry that I decided to eat it like that. She repeated that the black beans would be an extra charge. I told her I didn't mind. She finally brings me the black beans. The beans themselves were a bit hard and not as tasty. The ones I had at Panera Bread the other day were 100% better, but I pour them on top of the rice and eat them like this. For dessert I ordered a Passion Fruit Mousse. It was good but a bit dry and lacked sugar. I still enjoyed my meal but can't understand why they always overcook the steak when medium rare taste so much better. When I order it for delivery via Door Dash, most of the time it arrives well done as well. I still love the Peruvian cuisine of this restaurant, they should just train the new servers better so they can better communicate with the customers and chef. And I think the manager should have come out to at least apologize for the confusion. For this reason this time I'm only given them 4 stars.

While in downtown Roanoke, we decided to try this. The seating was immediate and we quickly…read morereceived our drinks and a small dish of cancha (fried corn) and Peruvian green sauce. We ordered the whole chicken with yucca and plantains and a side of black beans. The food was good and price was reasonable. With all of the choices in downtown, not sure I would make a special trip to eat there again. But if downtown and want to try a Peruvian meal, it is worth a visit. As I was reading the other reviews it reminded me that we, also, had to ask for the black beans after the rest of our food was brought to the table. They were good, nothing special.

I discovered this relatively new restaurant while driving with a friend a few months ago, and…read morequickly went and added the business to Yelp. At that time they were so new that they only took cash as payment, and since neither one of us had enough cash we weren't able to eat there that day, nor was I able to be the first one to review it for Yelp. But it so happened that while searching for new restaurants in Yelp, I found the review of the first person who did, and this motivated me to drive back the hidden path where we first had discovered it, to go try it out. After being awarded the Triad Yelper of the Year 2024 Award at the Yelpies Award Ceremony last year, an event that honored the highest-performing Yelp Elites, I decided that this year, as an All-Star Yelp Elite, I not only wanted to be the first to discover new restaurants and bring them to the attention of the public, but also to uncover those found in hidden paths that for one reason or another have not reached the public in its totality. And El Mexa Breakfast & Lunch in Roanoke, Virginia, is the perfect example. This relatively new family-owned restaurant is located in a small outdoor strip mall named Starkey Station on Merriman Road, in Roanoke, Virginia. It is so much out of the way that you had to have known about it to find it or just happen to take that hidden paths on your way to somewhere else to discover it, the way we did. And today I found out while talking in Spanish with the owner that another way people have been finding out about this place is when they have been coming next door to pick up their Domino's Pizza. They have seen it, entered and taken a menu, then ordering take outs from home over the phone, and coming to pick their orders up. What's interesting is that even though they focus on breakfast and lunch, since they close at 7:00pm daily, they have an opportunity of reaching the early dinner crowd and by offering their breakfast menu to some day round, this is opening the doors for more people to come at anytime of the day from 7:30am to 7:00pm. Their menu consists mainly of fresh Mexican pastries which they have dropped off daily from bakeries in Vinton and North Carolina. They have a variety of handmade Mexican Tacos, Tortas (which are gigantic sandwiches), Sopes (which are a traditional Mexican dish consisting of a thick, fried corn tortilla with raised edges base, topped with various savory ingredients), Taco Salads, and a Deluxe Quesadilla (a tortilla filled with cheese and other ingredients cooked on a griddle or stove until the cheese melts). After meeting and talking with the owner for a short while before other customers started to come in, the owner took my order at the counter, after letting me know that they now accept Credit Cards. To drink I ordered a Boing Mango Pulp Beverage which I picked up at their beverage refrigerator. To eat I had a Torta Cubana, which was a sandwich made in their typical large oval fresh bread, that contained a breaded steak milanesa, ham, Mexican sausage, chorizo, and Oaxaca Cheese. Included was also mayo, tomato, onions, avocado, and Chipotle. Usually, the wife is here to take care of the customers and their orders, while he does the cooking and fulfills the orders. But at this time of the early evening, he did everything while the wife had to do an errand. What impressed me the most was that even though this was a small place, everything was so clean and organized, and the food was so fresh and delicious. I invite you to view my photographs and videos that accompany this review to get a better sense of what I mean. I highly recommend this place for when you're in the mood for some genuine Mexican food prepared by very friendly and warm people, in a clean and comfortable environment. You know, very often it is in these hidden places that we find the most delicious culinary treasures.

I finally stopped by here for lunch today and thought it was really good. I got two chicken and two…read morecarnitas tacos and thought they were delicious. They just had a really good homemade taste and they were not greasy. I overheard another customer say that the Mexican bread in the display case was very good. The inside was simple and clean. The gentleman preparing the food was even wearing a hairnet!

This Pancho Mexican Restaurant is located in Vinton, Virginia. It was the second of three to open,…read morethe other two being the first one in Daleville and the third one at Towers Shopping Center in Roanoke, Virginia. They are a family owned local business. Located in the East Vinton Plaza, this casual Mexican Restaurant serves menu items for lunch and dinner and a popular lunch buffet with all-you-can-eat option. A friend of mine invited me last Tuesday to go there for dinner. When we arrived the restaurant was clean with walls nicely painted and and with a few framed paintings on the wall and colorful painted booths with Mexican motifs. The host greeted us with a warm welcome and handed us our menus. The menus were pretty much the same as those of the other two restaurants. Very nicely designed with color pictures of.some of the items on the menu. You can tell that this was a very popular restaurant in the neighborhood because in the time we were there many other customers came in and were seated. Our server welcomed us with a smile and took our order. To drink we just had iced water. As our main course my friend had the Guadalajara Especial and I had the Flautas, from the Mixed Specialties area of the menu. As we waited we enjoyed some wonderful fresh tortilla Chips with an amazing salsa. When the main courses were ready our server brought them to us. They tasted as good as they looked. Our server came by our table at reasonable times to check on us and see if we needed anything such as a refill of our water. Considering the Cleanliness of the restaurant, the nice variety of items on the menu, the quality of the chips and salsa, the big portions of food cooked to perfection and very tasty, and of course the excitement customers service provided by all servers, I highly recommend this restaurant as one of the better Mexican restaurants in the area.

We ate lunch here yesterday and had the buffet. The food was so salty that it was uncomfortable to…read moreeat. It was almost like a disgruntled employee or some kid was messing with the food it was so awful. I told our server and he just acted like it was no big deal. I realize he had nothing to do with it but I asked him to pass along the message to the kitchen staff. With the number of good Mexican restaurants in town I will never eat here again and do not recommend it for you!

Stopped in here for lunch. If it had not been for the other yeah reviews, I would not have pulled…read moreinto the parking lot. The building does not draw you in aesthetically. However, I was greeted by the courteous daughter-in-law of Mama Sarah. Fried catfish was great, onion rings too. No complaints here.

I visited the restaurant last Saturday while touring the Factory Expo Center…read more I ordered the Catfish dinner with the two sides. To be honest, I thought I did not have enough food as I only received one filet versus the two filets I am used to. It turned out the portions were more than enough, and I had plenty left for leftovers. Notice the size of the filet. The food was very tasty and seasoned right. The sweet tea was so good I ordered 3 glasses. The carrot cake concluded a wonderful evening of eating. The service is great and wholesome, and the restaurant was very clean, and I enjoyed the oldie but goodies Soul and R&B music playing in the restaurant. It is highly recommended you go there and try the food.

A Hidden Gem at Smith Mountain Lake…read more As residents of Smith Mountain Lake, we're always on the lookout for great local dining spots, and El Sinaloense Mexican Restaurant never disappoints. The food here is absolutely fantastic. We enjoyed their tacos and fajita salad, and both were bursting with flavor. The chicken and shrimp were especially delicious, cooked to perfection and seasoned just right. Beyond the food, the service was exceptional. The staff is friendly and attentive. If you're looking for an authentic Mexican dining experience with incredible food and top-notch service, this is the place to go. We love supporting our local restaurants, and El Sinaloense is definitely a favorite. Highly recommend it to anyone in the area or passing through. You won't be disappointed.

First of all this is obviously a new ownership group. Please call the previous owners immediately…read more Let's start with Parmesan cheese on top of enchiladas verdes. No! Then a cheese stick in the bottom of the tacos. No! An absence of flavor on both dishes was such a let down. Taking brisket nachos off the menu was an epic fail. Not to mention circling tables and basically grabbing your plate from beneath you. I will say the white sauce and chips were good but that can't save the meal that followed.