El Torito Grill

15301 Ventura Blvd
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
(818) 907-7172

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We went to this chain restaurant on Christmas night because we were going to go see a movie at the new Arclight at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, and honestly this was the only place open, and thus even had a 45 minute wait to get a seat (actually it was longer because they lost a whole list of people they had put down, and started taking people who came after us, so the service was fairly mediocre). And this was a chain Mexican restaurant, so the food was of course only mediocre at best. It sounded interesting, but was not all that impressive. In fact it was a little strange, and I would only eat here again if it was the only place open.

First off instead of chips they gave flour tortillas with butter and 2 different mild hot sauces. We were so hungry that we dug in, but it was pretty damn weird. I would rather have chips for sure.

My mom ordered guacamole for an appetizer, and this came with chips, and was made at the table with a single Hass avocado, serrano chiles, tomatoes, onions cilantro and a little lime. For $8.79 it wasn't very much, and wasn't so tasty actually. And it is made in a fake rock bowl, actually made out of plastic. Not the most impressive guacamole I have had for sure. At least it had fresh warm chips.

For dinner I went the hard to screw up route which were the mesquite grilled steak fajitas with onions, pasilla chiles and red bell peppers with black beans, avocado relish pico de gallo and of course the fresh tortillas we already had at the table. Kind of hard to screw up, though the steak was only mediocre.

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I didn't try anyone else's food, but I was really not very impressed and hopefully will never return.