Review: El Mararchi, La Mariscal, Quito, Ecuador

After a great first day in Quito walking around the historical centre, exploring the streets, churches and sights we returned to La Mariscal area and decided to go for dinner locally.  After reading a few reviews on Viva Travel’s pages we decided to check out three different restaurants closeby.  We only managed to find one of the three and it was only serving drinks that night.  So in the end we just went into a random place as we were hungry!

MISTAKE!  We were really hungry and so thought Mexican would be a good choice.  After ordering fajitas and a burrito to share we were excited about the prospect of some good meat, good flavours and of course, good guac!  The food came out and made the right sounds – the sizzling of the fajita meat on the hot plate.  However, it soon became apparent that the food was just not good!  The burrito was bland, no pico de gallo, or at least tomato alone, no guacamole with a kick and the tortilla was not fresh and soft, but slightly too crispy.  The fajitas had an unusual ingredient added – pineapple.  When reading this on the menu we thought…hmmm ok interesting give it a go….NO!  There is a reason pineapple is not usually in fajitas!  In addition the meat just wasn’t up to South American standards that we have been experiencing in Columbia.

There was also too much emphasis on the refried beans and not enough on flavour.  We decided to make a swift exit and so called for the bill.  It came with mints which looked like the amazing ones we had been given earlier in the day so we thought at least there is some kind of consolation…however, no once again we were wrong!  They were awful…how can you get such a simple thing as mints wrong?!

So, in conclusion, if you are in La Mariscal area of Quito, don’t eat at El Mararchi!