Do Over Sd At El Camino - S San Diego

Fun, kitschy restaurant! Great decor and vibe. Friends visiting from Maine and they wanted Mexican food. I had been to El Camino for happy hour once and knew the vibe was on point for the evening. Reviews of the food were fair. Best part of our evening? Lance, our waiter. Very engaging, lots of solid recommendations. I wanted a margarita but one that wasn 't too sweet-he suggested the Cadillac and took it a step further and asked the bartender to make it with less agave. Perfect! Liked it so much I had two of 'em! We all had something different, but everything was great. I had the chicken burrito. Again, Lance suggested I sub shredded chicken for the chopped chicken. Again-perfect! The burrito was actually a reasonable size-not so big you needed a second stomach! And the corn salad! We all had a bit and loved it! Best side dish. Now about the planes--there are a lot that fly over, but we loved it. We made a game of it-each of us guessing which airline it was. Again--Lance suggested it!

Great atmosphere, very nice staff, and the food is good too. I would not sit outside as it's right under the flight path for the airport and a lot of conversation gets interrupted by airplanes landing.

Definitely come here for the ambiance. The food is acceptable but nothing to get excited over. The inside is dark and extravagantly decorated. A definite vibe. The outside patio is where we sat for brunch and I loved how open and airy it is. You will consistently be hearing planes fly low overhead but it didn't really bother us. They had a deep house DJ which we loved. He was even better than some of the DJs we had seen the day before at the CRSSD music festival! There's a bar outside as well. If I were having a private event I would love to host it here. We were started out with light and crisp chips with a cilantro sauce and a chipotle sauce. I call them sauce not salsa because both were creamy. I was a fan of the cilantro. We ordered a couple rounds of Micheladas which they call Cheladas here if you get them with Clamato. As far as I know, that's a Michelada, but at the end of the day it's the same thing. The Tajin rim was perfect and they were very refreshing. I went with the Enchiladas Locas. These come with 2 corn tortillas in red enchilada sauce, filled with cheese and the option to add either carne asada or chicken. I selected carne asada and there was hardly any inside. I might as well have just had the cheese and saved myself the extra $3. The flavor was pretty good but they needed more sauce. The black beans and Spanish rice on the side were also dried out which was the case across all of our dishes. I was still hungry at the end so we requested a refill on the chips. Although the food was just ok I would come back for appetizers, drinks and the fun brunch vibe.

Hmm a little on the fence so I will give El Camino 3 Stars. Came here on a Friday Night. We had dinner reservations which was perfect since we had a large party. We were a little disappointed because our table was seated before another party and they split us with 2 separate tables. When we asked to put the tables together like the other party did we were told we couldn't because it's a fire hazard. I get it but why didn't they seat us at the other table that was already together. Again, they were seated after us. Service was ok as our server was very busy so it was hard to find her. I don't blame her. It's crazy in there. Food: Carne Asada fries Complimentary Chips Shrimp Ceviche Gosh, the chips were served in a small and I mean extra small bowl. We asked for refills multiple times. The carne asada fries was blah. Small servings. Lastly, the shrimp ceviche was also meh... i took a few bites and was disappointed. I offered it to others because it was not good. They need to cut the shrimp smaller too. So, this restaurant turns into a club like atmosphere with a lot of young adults. I seriously think they maxed- out the capacity and some and that to me is a fire hazard. There's a very long line outside so be patient if you wanna get in. While having dinner on the patio, you will hear airplanes flying over. It gets loud so we all stopped talking for that 3 seconds. I need to return when it's not a club night. I really want to enjoy the food as I've heard good things.

Date night...continued... Drinks at La Puerta Movie at Horton Plaza 2 hours to kill until show at the Casbah... we headed that way and parked...right across the street from El Camino, so we decided to head on in and grab a drink or two. we sat at the bar. decor ...nice! bathroom...pretty cool (and clean bartender...super friendly and social and helpful. chips and salsa ...yum (In fact they were very similar to our favorite bar in TJ ...corriente ...also added some (expensive guacamole. we also ordered (overpriced street corn...which i did not love too much but hubby liked it... drinks were fabulous! will absolutely return...for drinks with chips and salsa...would be curious to try some tacos ...preferably on taco tuesday