There's a reason they have a banner for the Best Margarita. Returned for Mother's Day dinner, and again- extremely pleased with table side service & our meals. The ambiance is very neighborly, and welcoming. Enjoy the experience, the Enchiladas are amazing. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Specials on 9/11/2016 - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

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Margarita Review Only Came here to sample Poblano's Margarita's that have a reputation for being the best in the area. After trying the Margarita it was a bit of a hit or miss for me personally. On the positive side, The Margarita's are indeed quite tasty and I can see why people like them so much. On the negative side, the base tequila for the Margaritas is Montezuma which is a an inexpensive mixto tequila (not 100 percent blue Agave and has additives to give it a unique flavor). These additives effect the taste profile, in this case in a positive way for many people and are not the classic Agave forward notes you would get from a good 100% Blue Agave Blanco tequila which is my preferred style of Margarita and how to make an authentic Mexican style Margarita. Having said all that I still enjoyed my drink along with the quaint outdoor front porch that I had my drink on. Definately a place to try if you are in the area and see how it compares to other Margarita's you have had. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

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When you think of an authentic taco shop atmosphere I think of Taqueria Poblano. Great tacos at a very very reasonable place for the location. Plus you get taco chips and sauce. The staff here are super pleasant. This place offers their will known Margaritas - and having more than one is easy: perhaps too easy. But they are good and quickly you will be speaking in Gringo Spanish or maybe just muttering incoherently. Either works. read more

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Look....you don't know me and I don't know you...but I was in the restaurant 5 years ago and had a Chicken Quesadilla so I repeated the order (now an appetizer) and it is FABULOUS!!! Oh my goodness!!! I seriously want the recipe and I want the Chef to be awarded a Michelin Star because whatever the secret is to this recipe IT IS AMAZING!! read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Chicken Quesadillas and White Wine - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

This is an excellent neighborhood Mexican. I CRAVE the queso fundido with chorizo and flour tortillas. The tacos are always solid. Their weekly specials are great as well. Service is friendly and quick. A solid 4 star joint that is on my weekly repeat list. read more

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The crispy pork and chicken tacos are amazing! They are flavorful and lots of toppings. One the the best authentic ones I've ever had. Yum. Worth $4.50 each! I'd def order take out again. I chowed down and forgot to take pic. read more

Very cool place with straightforward Mexican food. I thought everything tasted great. I wanted to try a few things, so I got the Baja fish taco, a poblano quesadilla, and chile relleno. Yummy. The mango margarita could use something more natural than the mango juice or syrup they use, but it was still ok. The staff was nice without being overbearing. Great family place read more

A pretty typical mainstream Mexican restaurant located in Del Ray. What is, to me, most notable about Poblano is the very loud, very exuberant atmosphere, perhaps at least partially fueled by all the margaritas being swilled. Service stands out as very good and very attentive. Food is decent but not noteworthy. But perhaps what is noteworthy is that Poblano has the stretchiest cheese I've ever encountered! We ordered the queso dip (topped with optional chorizo) served with 3 flour tortillas. The queso dip was good with a little bit of refried beans at the base of the dish. The 3 tortillas were not enough, so we used the complimentary tortilla chips to finish the dip. JP had the mole verde chicken, served with refried beans and Mexican rice. The mole sauce was good and the chicken tender. I ordered the tres enchiladas (pork, chicken and beef) . They were decent, also served with rice and refried beans. There was also a dollop of guacamole on my plate. It was nice that there was no cilantro in the guacamole, but it did have an overabundance of lime juice. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Mole verde chicken - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

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One of the saddest Mexican meals I've had. Our food was pretty cool in temperature. It came out like 4 minutes after we ordered it which was.,, interesting. We order tostada which came with lots of shredded lettuce from A bag, old refried beans and kind of soggy tostada underneath. There was also some bland cold pulled chicken that would have been good if was seasoned. The guac was pretty good. We also had a LA taco which my son didn't like and it was tiny for $4.50 and a quesadilla that I probably could have made better at home. The tortilla was def store bought in flavor. We ordered the tamales as well which were ok, but not especially flavorful. Overall the food was cold and bland but the tamale and tostada had a big portion and the waiters were nice. read more

Food, Service, and Ambiance was exceptional - authentic! Best kept secret in Del Rey.

I'm visiting taco el poblano This night at my comment is if you looking for a real Mexican tacos don't go there I'm trying the shrimp taco is taste very bad Chicken quesadilla Super bad No sauce for and tacos No real tacos ! read more

Came here to celebrate an early birthday. We tested out their brunch menu. It did not disappoint. Both mains and the appetizer were delicious! I would highly recommend either of the three items that we indulged in! The service was slow in the being (they just opened) but picked up towards the end and was great! The decor of the place is super cool! It's definitely a small joint but has enough tables for a good amount of customers! We will return! Food was delicious! read more

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Best tacos and margs around. Love the food and staff. Order the Crispy beef taco. You won't be disappointed. I love this place and they're fast too! read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Inside with Derek and Fitz - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

The staff here are very nice and pretty attentive. I've been here in the past but it has been awhile. The food is not your typical Tex Mex because it's not a straight Mexican restaurant. I got the enchiladas and my boyfriend got a taco and the stuffed pepper. They were good however there was wayyyy too much cheese. We sat outside since it was a nice evening. I would like it even more if they upgraded it a little bit for the outside seating. Still a great option in DelRay. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Tres Enchiladas - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Stop what you're doing and order the tres enchiladas. They are so authentic, cheesy, delicious and consistent. I really can't recommend this place enough. The only downside is that the space is small, so we typically order for take out. Just went to pick up on a Sunday at 6, and the place has no empty seats. The food is 11/10 but so are their margaritas. Don't forget to give them a try and see why they have won awards for the past several years. You won't regret coming here. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Tres enchiladas. I had to take a bite before taking a picture. - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Love this place! My friends and I have been coming for years. Great food, friendly service and a cozy vibe. I highly recommend the duck tacos and margaritas. read more

The food was really good and filling. The staff were nice and helpful. The interior was clean and cozy. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

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LA Style Tacos and the BEST margaritas! This was my Thursday night happy place. I am originally from SoCal and this is the only place that understands shredded beef crispy tacos! I'm now in Colorado and still can't find anything quite like them. read more

2.5 stars. Good service but the food is a little on the bland side. I liked the roasted scallions but everything else like the fish tacos, chips and salsa, etc where just bland. The customer service was very good and it's a very family friendly establishment. read more

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Best Tex Mex this side of the Brazos. Seafood tacos on special! Jalapeños juice in the margaritas!!

I really wanted to like this place, because the customer service was okay. However, I didn't like the food. I had the Queso Dip to start. I give it a 6 out of 10. It wasn't nasty but it wasn't exactly good either. I also ordered two Duck tacos and one Shrimp taco. Anyone who really knows me will tell you how much I love Duck. I always order menu items that are made with Duck wherever I go. But those Duck tacos were not hitting though...it was a miss. The Duck was super gamey and there was not much seasoning or other flavors in the taco to mask it. I give the Duck tacos a 3 out of 10. The Shrimp taco was just okay. Again, there wasn't much flavor to the taco as a whole. I give the Shrimp taco a 5 out of 10. Overall, I have to give them a Two Star rating and I don't think I'll be coming back. read more

Cute place in Del Rey - I went with two friends who were visiting from Philly for the first time. They really enjoyed the enchiladas and the Birria tacos! The margaritas were delicious, too! Mango, cherry, and traditional - all tasty and refreshing! My tostadas were huge and started out tasty but for some reason there was a lot of water on the plate under the shells. Not sure if it was from the pork or from the lettuce and tomatoes. I will definitely go back to try some other menu items since my friends loved their choices and my son and his wife love the food here, too. Our waitress was very nice, too. Check them out! read more

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Really wanted to love this place, as I'd heard great things about it. But the food was just not good and had no flavor at all. Nothing was seasoned and it was just...bland. The chips and salsa they bring out are not high quality and pretty basic. Again, flavorless without the salsa, which was decent but not that memorable. We ordered birria tacos and I was SO disappointed with them. The meat was so dry! I ordered the mole chicken and my husband ordered the burrito. My chicken was VERY dry and the mole sauce tasted like nothing. You never want to eat food and have it have no taste. And dry chicken is the worst. My husband liked his burrito well enough but said it was just okay. I don't really know that I'd come back. Giving two stars overall because the service was friendly. read more

I wish I could give this a better rating because I remember loving the taqueria poblano location on Columbia Pike. Initially, I was very excited - the restaurant is exactly what you expect a Mexican restaurant to look like. Small, crowded, and bright colors - and I mean all of that in a good way. Unfortunately the rest of the experience was subpar. The salsa was delicious but the chips were cold. Service was a little slow. The margaritas were fine, but nothing to write home about. We were excited for the queso, but it didn't even measure up to grocery store queso. It was incredibly oily and had no real flavor to it (though we did have it without chorizo as I'm vegetarian so maybe they rely on chorizo for all the flavor). It tasted more like mozzarella cheese than anything else - definitely unexpected at a Mexican restaurant. We got the crispy LA tacos - one chicken and one veggie. Apparently the chicken was practically a pate, so overcooked that it was mushy. The veggies weren't great either, overcooked and mushy as well. Overall not a great meal. read more

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I wouldn't come to this restaurant again. I have no idea how they won any awards- nothing was impressive from food to service to ambiance. Nothing. We had to keep waving down our server to come and help us, she seemed as though we were bothering her for simple requests like straws for our drinks or to simply order our entrees. I ordered a veggie tostada and wasn't impressed with the vegetarian mix that was included in it (cubed yucca seasoned with tomato juice?) I was expecting grilled veggies- maybe mushrooms and squash? My hubby got fish tacos and didn't like the batter. The only good thing was the queso dip. It was small but it was tasty and the meat can be ordered on the side. The tortilla chips didn't seem very fresh either. The server never checked on us or asked if we liked the food. The bus boy who dropped off our food was friendly but not our server. We must have interrupted her day too much. Not a good experience.Won't be going back. read more

Update// 10/19/2022 Hint : Eat in only- DO NOT ORDER TAKE OUT. Came in for late lunch, had a nice meal. Will never order take out from here again. Food is so much better when they know you can send it back for not being correct. 2021// I'm a neighborhood regular here. And I have to say, while I love the service here (2 stars) - the take out is often wrong, the staff have increasing difficulty with correcting errors, and the cooking has gone way down hill. I'm not sure what the issue is, because their arlington location is far, far superior. So they know the recipes that will work. And it's not as if they couldn't find good cooks or staff... I've know a couple of them by sight for the last decade. But tonight, I ordered shrimp tacos, they marked them as fish- but gave us CHICKEN. And I drove from Mount Vernon to bring this to family for Mother's day- [WHAT A MISTAKE!!!] I called up to say there was a mistake in the order, and the woman who answers starts acting like I'm ordering five more shrimp tacos and a chicken taco. No, no, give the the manager- please. It's busy, I wait on hold with the really bad country music playing, but the manager agrees to refund the tacos & my tip. Fair, but I'm without food - so, yeah. Go figure another place I need to get tacos from. I'm probably not ordering take out from the Alexandria location ever again. And sadly, as convenient as it is for me in the neighborhood of Del Ray, I'll probably drive over to the Arlington restaurant instead. I'd rather know my order will be taken correctly, filled correctly, and checked before it's given to me. Plus I'll still check it before trusting someone saying "Yes, I checked it- it's correct." -like tonight. Bottom line, I love the service staff. They earn it. The cooks need to all be retrained or just fired. And management needs to be onsite and solving problems- not "elsewhere" and only punching in occasionally. Haven't seen a manager on site in years. Unless he's in the back cooking, to which I'd say- there's your problem. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Was our favorite for years, but last month we brought out of town guests, and it was abysmal. Cold and flavorless. What happened? I don't know, but I'm not going back. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Interior - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Yelp. So cynical and so accurate. This place has 4.5 stars all over the place and only 3.5 on Yelp, and I gotta say Yelp's on the money here. Poblano is one of those faux-Mex places - not Tex-Mex, a hint of authenticity but unfortunately that's a veneer. Their cover photo is a burrito! They sell "real burritos" and describe them in Spanish - "a mano" or "al arriba". I gave up even trying to find real Mexican food on the menu and went for a burrito. Al arriba. It's one of those cheap and huge dishes, overflowing with fattening cheese and cream, made out of American ingredients with spices that are vaguely Mexican. I think I asked for mine with the spiciest possible salsa, and it barely rumbled on the Richter scale. That said, the food was delicious in that fattening, guilty way that I can't resist. If this place didn't keep trying to advertise "authentic" all over the place, I would likely have given it the benefit of the 4-star doubt. It's not authentic. I live down the block from authentic. I know what authentic looks and tastes like. My advice? If you're a student or recent grad who wants to stuff yourself at a restaurant for a reasonable price, this'll do the trick just fine. It works for a small crowd too. But if you want the real thing and you've got a little more money to burn, DC is a rich cornucopia of authenticity begging to be discovered, and I'm begging Poblano to aspire to that just a little harder. read more

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Tl; dr: Eat here if you have plenty of time to spare and nowhere else to go. Service was really, REALLY, really, really, really slow... and did I say it was slow? We ordered an appetizer and it got to our table 30 minutes later. We ordered our meals and we got those 20 minutes later. We asked for the bill and a box for my tacos, and it took them another 20 minutes. We seriously spent more time waiting than we did eating our food. And when we got there, the restaurant wasn't even packed. Now, about the food and drinks, they were tasty. But, I would have just gone to any of the other restaurants in Del Ray... and I'm sure they would have saved me plenty more time. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Delicious crispy crab tacos platter - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Definitely the most disappointing Mexican meal I've experienced. We sampled various tacos and the shrimp and duck ones were the worst. The shrimp had an unpleasant iodine taste, even the side rice and beans we got left much to be desired. The service was mediocre at best. Considering the basic quality of the food and pricy bill of $100, it was far from a satisfying experience. read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

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Enjoyed our first experience last night! Good food--comfortable--fast service. Really enjoyed our time and will be back. The service was great! read more

The tacos were amazing! I had the chicken, pork and beef ones. The meat was well seasoned and juicy, not dry like in other places.

WOW this restaurant is SO GOOD!! Such great service and AMAZING DRINKS!! Let me tell you, the margaritas were wonderful and the Mexican sangria was sooooo great!!! Holy cannoli did we love it! The chips and salsa was great, as well. I had the blackened shrimp tacos that were so yummy and FRESH!! The staff were conversational and polite. The overall restaurant is not very big but it made for an intimate and fun dinner. read more

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Drinks are good. Food is ok. I got the chicken burrito which was a wonderfully huge portion. Unfortunately the chicken didn't have a lot of flavor and since the filling of the burrito was mostly all chicken, it wasn't a joy to eat. My partner got the Tostada. It was better than the Chicken Burrito but still nothing special. We got some regular margaritas that were yummy. read more

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What can I say, Taqueria el Poblano is one of the very best restaurants in Del Ray. Going to "Po-blan" as we call it is almost a religious experience...my wife craves the "best in metro DC" margaritas. I crave the Tacos al Carbon, which is by far their best dish. Charcoal-grilled chicken with rajas poblano and pico de gallo, it is quite simply a Mexican indulgence. Tender, beautifully seasoned chicken topped with savory poblano peppers and melted cheese. I add it to a flour tortilla with a bit of pico de gallo and it's simply incredible! If you order this you will not be disappointed. I am also a big fan of their pork tacos, baramundi (when they have it on the menu), and queso. Po-blan also offers an awesome Sunday brunch. I am addicted to their breakfast tacos...egg, chorizo sausage, potatoes, and some peppers it's an absolute treat. Least I not forget the staff here is phenomenal. Super friendly, attentive, and just wonderful people. We've had many great memories and meals at Taqueria el Poblano, and many more to come! read more

The margaritas were really tasty and the food was excellent. Great service too. I had beef taquitos to start and the chicken mole verde. Both were super good and authentic. Definitely recommend! read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Chicken Mole Verde - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Terrific gem of a restaurant in Del Ray with excellent customer service, fish tacos and beverages! read more

Taqueria El Poblano - Excellent and friendly customer service! Enjoyed Baja Fish Tacos, chips & salsa with guacamole and delicious beverage. Highly recommend! - Mexican Near Me - Alexandria, Virginia

Sweet neighborhood restaurant. Good service, good food. They make their own salsa. Great margaritas. Small but mighty Taqueria is a must visit if you're in Del Ray. read more

Maybe I got the wrong thing? I came here out of strong recommendation. I had a chicken and pork taco. ($8.75) Neither of which tasted particularly great. The tacos had an overwhelming amount of lettuce. May sound like a strange complaint, but lettuce are watery tasting, so the heaping mount did nothing for the taste and created the illusion of "stuffed" tacos. There was very little main ingredients in my tacos. My service experience left much to be desired as well. Didn't feel especially welcomed. Hey, this is a fast casual type place so I don't expect bells and whistles. Guess, I don't see the hype. read more

Have been coming here and to their other two (now only one) locations since I was about 6 - so about 24 years. It is a reliably satisfying spot for some good tex mex, with great service, cozy decor and a reliable menu. I have essentially ordered the vegetable tostada for two decades. If i do stray its to the taquitos, tacos al carbon or quesadilla. Great margaritas and sangria, and the lime tamarind cooler is great if looking for something non alcoholic. read more