El Valle Mexican Cuisine

OMGeeeeee, they’ve closed!!! What am I to do now!!! No other BYOB options for Mexican food in this hood at reasonable prices… I’m devastated!!! Someone, please help!!!

Great food! I had the Carne Asada Zamora, great! Rice was a little bland! Others at dinner had the steak tacos and shrimp fajitas, both were great! Great outdoor seating. Place was empty, which was a little unnerving, but we were pleasantly surprised! Oh, and it’s BYOB to boot!

Great value! Langoustines are a generous portion, very tasty and only $ 13. Burritos are huge and good. BYOB.

What happened to this place?! They used to have good, quality meat. I used to order from here all the time. I ordered twice within the last two months and the steak used for tacos, gorditas etc tasted like rotten cow. The most horrible food experience of my life. Not to mention their delivery service takes way too long.

One snowy and extremely cold Monday night my boyfriend and I ended up at El Valle because I was really craving Mexican. I was pretty apprehensive because we were the only dine-​in customers that night and something smelled kind of funny when we walked in. We ordered some chips and guac to start, and it was alright, nothing too special. For my entrée, I had a veggie burrito meal. Once again nothing special. Maybe they are ok for takeout, but I wasn’t too thrilled overall with my dine-​in experience.

After unpacking my moving truck this was the first place I ate when I moved to Chicago. My roommate and I love El Valle! She loves the burritos and salad. I really enjoy the tamales wrapped in banana leaves. We have never had bad service and always bring new friends here anytime they visit us. I recommend dining in and giving it a try!

I really wanted to like this place. BYOB and cheap Mexican food… what’s not to like? Turns out just about everything. Service was slow, food was dry and overcooked, and house-​made margaritas were underwhelming. I’d recommend spending the extra cash to go to a higher end restaurant and skipping this place altogether. Harsh review but like I said, really wanted to like this place.

Will definitely not go back. Don’t order the seafood here. Not fresh. Tasted old and flavorless. Prices are lower comparable to other places that serve seafood for a reason. You pay for what you get. If you’re looking for Mexican seafood, go to El Barco. Friend had the mixed fajitas and ‘t said it wasn’t horrible, but nothing special. Queso fundida was good, but not great. Also, service was pretty slow on Saturday night with one other table besides us. Saw lots of take out orders while we were there, so maybe they have some good things on the menu, but I guarantee it wasn’t the seafood.

I would love to rate the quality of their food but unfortunately we never had a chance to taste it. The delivery guy messed up the order. We called to have the restaurant send the proper order and the delivery guy came with the same order. The food was no where near appealing and delivery person kept touching the food the food with his bare hands. I feel bad for the customer who ended up receiving our order.

Outdoor seating.
No wait.
BYOB.
Just solid Mexican food. El Pastor, fish tacos with the «right» toppings (cilantro and onion), whole avocados when you order them on the side.
What’s not to like?

I’ve never been inside the restaurant, but I order delivery all the time. The tacos are so good and I love the chorizo. Not all Mexican restaurants have chorizo, but this one does. If you want delicious, unhealthy, Mexican food order from here! I’m currently waiting for them to deliver to me now, and I can’t wait for the tacos to get here!

I like this place — it’s hardly ever busy when we go and service is excellent. Tacos and burritos are great, prices here are average for what you pay at other Mexican restaurants nearby. One of the better Mexican places to dine in the area for a quick little date night, instead of the usual carryout. Plus it’s BYOB

With all the changes we’ve seen, this place has remained good.
I love the chile relleno… LOVE IT.
The service can be slow, but usually only when it’s busy, otherwise they are great :)

Went for dinner last night-​delicious! To start, wee had the shrimp cocktail-​around ten dollars, and crazy good; next time we’re getting the octopus in it! It is definitely BYOB, the server was very nice, and she brought us a bucket to chill our drinks when the salsa came out. I don’t think we were charged for BYOB, so I’m not sure what the other comments are speaking to. I can vouch that their horchata is fantastic.
For dinner, I got the tilapia tacos, which had an entire filet on each taco!!! So good. My boyfriend had the pastor tacos, and he liked those as well. The patio was great; we sat for about two hours (make sure you tip well if you do this!) and it was nice to be able to stare at all the douchebags out on the patio over at roots for some entertainment.
Overall, a fantastic restaurant with a really positive mom-​and-​pop feel. Will definitely be going back!

The food is great and thats it. This restaurant is a RIP OFF!!! No matter what I order I pay close to $ 20.
1 regular burrito $ 5 and 1 veggie taco dinner $ 7 =$ 13 not $ 18.
6 tacos $ 2 each plus rice/​beans $ 1.50 = $ 13.50 WHY AM I CHARGED OVER $ 18?!
I hate to do this because I love the food and live around the corner but the math does not add up. I have been here multiple times but no more, sorry el valle you ripped off this customer one too many times.

I’ve always avoided Mexican delivery because it seems like tacos are things that don’t travel well. But I decided to give El Valle a go after reading some good reviews, hoping that they could prove me wrong.
Yeah, I still don’t think Mexican should be delivered. And that’s not necessarily a knock on El Valle’s food, just more a comment that I think the food would have tasted much better if consumed immediately in restaurant.
We ordered a smattering of tacos with two three taco dinners. To their credit, the meat was well-​seasoned, cook welled, and quite tasty. But everything was pretty cold when it arrived, and its hard to reheat tacos with lettuce and tomato piled on top (unless you like that sort of thing…) I do find it rather annoying that, for each taco on a three taco dinner, they charge you for sour cream, cheese, avocado, etc. So add at least 80 cents to a dollar per taco, and it adds up pretty quickly. The refried beans and rice were pretty standard, and the portion size was a bit smaller than I expected. But in a world littered with gads of upscale Mexican restaurants, its nice to have some old-​school, traditional grub.
Delivery via Grubhub was estimated at an hour and half (WTF? for some tacos?!), so I called the restaurant and said they could get it to me within the hour. And to their credit, they did – in fact, they got it to me within 40 minutes. But I live about a mile and a half away, and like I said above, the food was pretty tepid when it arrived despite the quick delivery time.
Price point is pretty cheap for what you get, and I’d consider dining in to experience the food in freshly-​cooked full glory along with the BYOB. I just reiterate – Mexican shouldn’t be delivered.

I am definitely a fan of this BYOB (or BYOT — tequila)
I came here on a Friday night for the first time. My girlfriend and I were looking for something quick and casual for dinner, and that’s exactly what we found at El Valle.
The food was tasty. I had a ground beef gordita and a skirt steak burrito. I personally enjoyed the ground beef over the skirt steak, but both were good. Our server was very friendly and attentive.
I knocked them down a star mostly because of the ambiance. It was very quiet, and almost awkward. Maybe some quiet background music would do the trick? You could tell the delivery is a big part of their business, because all of the carry-​out orders were by the table waiting to be delivered. And the restaurant was a little shabby… clean it up a little bit and I would give it another star.
I am not sure why Unilocal gave this place a $$ on price though. After ordering a burrito, a gordita. a sopes, and a combination platter, the bill came to a total of $ 23.57. VALUE
I will definitely be going back to El Valle in the near future. When my gf gets in a bad mood, a Mexican place like this always cheers her up. :)

Good
Value.
Food coma
Sized burritos,
Mix and match milkshakes (oatmeal!), and nice staff.

Overall I’d say this place was good.
A previous review said the service level had gone down, and I could see that. There was nobody to seat us when we got there. I even walked in to the kitchen and said hello. The guy basically ignored me. It turned out the lady was in the bathroom… OK… awkward, but not a deal breaker.
The chips and salsa came out first and were decent.
The tostadas looked amazingly delicious, but unfortunately the shells were really oily. Literally full of oil. It was frankly quite gross. I tipped the tostada sideways and oil came streaming out and formed a nice little pool in my plate.
The cheese and onion enchiladas were better than the tostadas. I liked the red sauce. I thought they were not hot enough, though.
The prices were fine and the service was fine, once we got past the nobody to seat us thing. Overall OK experience. Not sure if I’d go back, especially since it’s a bit out of the way.

I ordered delivery from El Valle the first night I noticed them on GrubHub. Extremely fast delivery (25 mins.), fantastic food: freshly grilled tilapia tacos (onions, cilantro, tomatoes, and avocado), to-​die-​for enchiladas suizas de queso (mmm, chihuahua cheese), both with rice and beans.
One small complaint: they only included two small salsas (one standard, one verde) for two entrees; it would’ve been nice to have four. I’ll definitely order again.
Their facebook states the dining room is BYOB — «Bring your own Tequila and we’ll make you a KILLER MARGARITA» …Will do!