415 S. Main Street
Orange, CA 92868
714-771-2333
www.anepalcoscafe.com
I read some good things about Anepalco's Cafe in Orange, so I decided to go down there for lunch one day to check it out. Anepalco's cafe is supposed to be a simple place that specializes in French and Mexican food. The restaurant is near CHOC and St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, so most of the people in the restaurant were wearing scrubs. The parking lot is tiny, so be prepared to park off-site somewhere if there are no spots up front.
I walked into Anepalco's with R. The restaurant is very small and only has about 6-8 tables. There is a large menu board on the back wall behind the cash register. We looked over the menu and saw a wide selection of crepes, sandwiches and Mexican food. I looked around the restaurant and saw that some of the sandwiches were gigantic. I wasn't that hungry so I decided to order the Enchilada Trio ($7.49). I ordered my trio with one chicken and two cochinita pibil enchiladas (marinated pork). R decided to get a Dejeuner crepe ($6.99).
We placed our order and found an empty table. It was about a 10-15 minute wait before out food arrived. The food arrived at our table and it looked wonderful. The presentation was better than expected for an inexpensive meal.
My enchilada trio wasn't very good. I was surprised that I actually liked the chicken enchilada better than the pork. Neither was very good though. The dish lacked any kind of flavor.
I also thought that the enchiladas came with plenty of red enchilada sauce. When I looked closer though, I realized that the enchiladas were just swimming in a pool of bright orange grease. I ended up leaving this place with a pretty bad stomach ache.
(The bright orange pool of grease)
R's crepe contained ham, bacon, egg and swiss cheese. It was then covered with Béarnaise sauce. R said his crepe was pretty bad. He described it as flavorless and really, really dry. He seemed to be struggling to eat it.
We were both really disappointed with our food. We were surprised since others had written good things about this place. I'm not sure if I would ever return to Anepalco's again. If I do, I will probably try one of their big sandwiches. They looked pretty good. I just hope they taste as good as they look, because the food we tried didn't.
7 comments:
I just recently was checking this place out as I drove by. So glad to have found your review... now i won't be in such a hurry to try it out.
xoxo, K
You can't guide yourself for the things that one person said, if you check yelp.com, there's about 15 reviews telling that this place is awesome. So I decided to visit this place today. The food and the service is excellent, you can find anything like this around. You have to try it, and then tell me if I'm right. Anyway Math is always right 15 is more than 1, or not???? jejeje
Anonymous- I agree. I can only relate my experience and my opinion of the restaurant. I do recognize that many people love this place. I have also seen other posts on this restaurant that are on par with what I thought. With any restaurant, there are going to be people that like or dislike it. I didn't really like my experience at this particular restaurant, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to giving it another shot. Since I've seen so many positive reviews of this place, I may try it again in the future.
Ew ew ew ew! The grease looks disgusting.
I visited Anapalco's Cafe this past Saturday.
To me, the taste of the Chilaquiles I has was just as my Mexican mother made, but the presentation was that of a three star restaurant.
Service was FANTASTIC!
This is my new regular place.
Paulina
Technical Dining Hint: You aren't required to eat/drink or otherwise ingest in any way the grease that comes with a dish, be it dripping off the edge of a big piece of prime rib or on part of your plate at Anepalco's. ;-)
I cant even believe some of the lies here about this place and i am dreaming about it 5 hours north. Genius all the way, the chilaquiles were amazing i would give this place 5 mich stars, sorry negative people you need to get a palette. I was lucky to eat there on a trip to Disney with the kids and the saying goes, thank you yelp for me finding the place, in face i only found this place because i was trying to find if anyone copied the recipe anywhere- i have to stop thinking about the food and its yumminess. I pretty sure a competitor wrote up the bad reviews. Get a life! Anepalcos is all the way the best!
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