Poncho’s Mexico Nuevo Restaurant

1 Reviews on “Poncho’s Mexico Nuevo Restaurant”

• Jetpilot

  Attractive Mexican restaurant. This place is in a totally redesigned building from the way it was with the previous two restaurants. As of today they still have not completed the remodeling but it looks pretty nice already. As you drive up you see a totally different entrance with stone arches, columns and water falls. As you walk up to the front door you see a laser light show on the floor, walls and doors. When you get inside, the lobby is quite dark and the first thing you notice is another laser light show on the floor with lots of colored dots swimming everywhere. The dining room is lit well but not too bright. In one corner there is an elevated stage. The front and rear dining areas are separated by large stone arches and water falls. I didn’t go exploring in back this time. The tables and padded wooden chairs are covered with a reddish brown simulated ostrich skin complete with raised dimples. The booths have a dark brown criss-cross leather-like woven texture. Overall the place has an appealing atmosphere.You get a small bowl of red and green chips with three different kinds of salsa; a very mild green tomatillo type, a dark reddish smoky salsa and a more typical red chunky salsa with large bits of serrano pepper that have some bite to them but not too much.Iced tea at $2.25 was good.Nachos without any meat on them was $7, (normally they’re $10 with beef/chicken fajitas on them).The Don Poncho Plate was $10, (1 crispy beef taco, 2 cheese enchiladas, rice & beans). The waiter offered for the same price 1 taco, 1 enchilada and 1 chicken chalupa.The taco had no lettuce or tomato in it, it was just filled to the top with ground meat which is different from everywhere else around here and was better that way. The enchilada was full of cheese and the sauce was good with plenty of cheese on top. The chalupa was piled high with lettuce but there was plenty of shredded chicken underneath. Rice and beans were good.Service started slow but picked up to the way it should have been.I thought some of the prices were a bit on the high side, ribeye steak was $23 (no mention of type of meat Choice or Prime, Angus? – or how many ounces). Overall, prices could be $1-$3 less on most items but they’re still reasonable.On Saturday nights they’re open until 1:00 AM. I didn’t check for the other nights. Next time I’ll ask…Based on this first experience; I’ll go back sometime and I would recommend it.At 9:30 on a Saturday night there was no waiting compared to Costa Messa’s 20+ minute wait and it’s a much quieter restaurant, except when the horn blowers show up…

  December 30, 2012, 5:36 am

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