We ate here at lunch about a year ago, and for Brawley, it wasn't awful. Â But things must have slid downhill since.
Our waitress was very nice. Â But it took 20 minutes for our first round of drinks to all finally dribble in from the bar. Â And then the margaritas were syrupy sweet and seemingly without any hint of tequila-like substance.
The food took LOTS longer, and was even less worth the wait. Â Aside from a bowl of decent guacamole ordered for the group as a starter, everything was pretty uniformly disappointing.
Really wanted to like this place since a friend of my neighbors was raving about the Chili's Guerritos. Chili's guerritos are just these little yellow chilis stuffed with jack cheese, shrimp and wrapped in bacon... Well, that's what I had, except I asked for the ones without bacon (thank God!)... those and a bean and cheese... I've never in my life (that I can recall anyways) have had food poisoning until after eating here. The following night I couldn't sleep at all, tossing and turning with an upset stomach, knowing I had to be up for school at 6am didn't make it any better... The next morning, well let's just say that whatever was causing my stomach to hurt began blasting out of me an an exponential rate, with a vengeance... In fact I almost didn't make it to school. Coming home from school, stomach feeling a little better but still unsettled, more of the same (cha cha cha!!)... Until later that evening I developed a mild grade fever, horrible chills, body aches and a dull headache, in the span of about two hours... very fast. Finally after toughing it out as good as I could I took a shot of nyquil and slept like a log... Next morning, feeling much more rested, I awoke and was greeted with one final farewell blast of what was "Chilis guerritos", and instantly felt completely better. Never have I felt something come on that hard and fast, Â as far as when the fever and flu symptoms, and for a second I started to actually get a little freaked out... Not to mention the fact that I haven't logged that much bathroom time since puberty. I don't like giving bad reviews, but I'm never eating at this place again. Check your seafood supplier please, before someone winds up in the hospital.
Review Source:It's not great, for The Valley, but it will do... for Brawley.
Seeing as how Brawley is its own little establishment in the middle of The Valley's no where, Chabelas offers average Mexican food. The prices are reasonable, and hell sometimes the food is delicious, but there's a reason why I've waited a while to post my comments on the restaurant.
Eating here, is a hit or miss. Both in regards to the service, and in regards to the food. I have had both awesome service/good food, and absolutely despicable service and messed up orders. Today, I not only received my meal correctly and to my liking, I was greeted with friendly service.
On my numerous attendances to Chabelas, I have experienced more negative than positive experiences. I work in Brawley, and selection for food (especially consumable) is slim to none. I won't be too hard on the place, as it has been struck with the responsibility of moving it's location and losing some of it's employees after last years big Easter Earthquake (which damaged their previous establishment), however, I also will not give it anything higher than 3 stars, even if I was pleased on today's trip out there.
I suggest their Carne Asada (as they have one of the best marinades I have tried), Enchilada's, Chabela's Nachos (delicious appetizer), Chile's Guerrito's (they are by far the best!), and Special Quesadilla.
This was my first experience eating at Chabelas since they moved from main street at the end of last year. The food was good every time I ate on main street, but unfortunately, the food wasn't very good this time and the service was horrible. We went this past Friday night, and it was busy, but we didn't have to wait for a table, there were 2 open.
I was really looking forward to a nice cold chabela and a special quesadilla, but was only able to get one fulfilled.
So we're enjoying our drinks, waiting for the food to come out quite a while and the waiter finally comes out to tell us that they don't have any more special quesadillas. I will forego the extended rant, but in short, it's masa with cheese inside, and fried. You can't whip up another one? You don't keep a supply of masa day to day? I know this is typical of many restaurants in the valley, but c'mon, it's not that difficult to have extra masa and make them to order if you run out of the pre-folded quesadillas in stock. This was half the reason we came to Chabellas. I ended up ordering a carne asada burrito with the chile relleno I originally ordered, but the carne asada was very dry. The relleno was ok, the sauce was good, but it was a little cold inside, which could have been because our food sat while they found out what I wanted instead of a special quesadilla.
Just a little special quesadilla rant for both those who live in the valley, and those coming from the outside who have never had one: No one outside the Imperial Valley has any clue what a special quesadilla is, and it is a crying shame. If you have never eaten one, and are in town to hunt, ride the dunes, enjoy the mild winters, get it while you can! If you try to find one anywhere else, they will look at you like you're crazy! I don't mean to belittle it in saying that it's just masa with cheese that's fried, because the best places tweek their masa just a little; not sure if more or less baking powder, lard, what it is, but the restaurants that make it good have it going on! I miss El Jarrito just for the special quesadillas. I remember the owner of El Jarrito saying that they made masa special for that, and it was different from their usual tortilla masa, and it was perfect! Crispy and flaky and airy every time, with melty cheese! Heaven in a pillow! Out of all the Mexican restaurants I have been too throughout the LA area, Inland Empire, San Diego area, I have never seen anything like this on a menu. There are a lot of reasons to get out of the valley, but this isn't one! I used to eat special quesadillas from El Jarrito every time we went, that's the only thing I ever ordered, but unfortunately, no one has come close lately to that same flaky crispiness.
We now return to your regularly scheduled review: My wife's campechana was good, and my dad said his chile verde burrito was ok, but my mom wasn't as happy with her fish tacos, she said that they were pretty soggy, not crispy fried fish.
I will come back to Chabelas, but if it's as dissapointing the next time as it was that night, I'll probably just go to Imperial or El Centro from the get go when I want Mexican food.
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