El Pinto Restaurant

I took my family to eat at El Pinto after piquing their interest with the mention of their green chile fritters. I won praises at the first bite of those sweet, spicy and lightly breaded nuggets of deep fried perfection. I decided to get the red chile rubbed ribs and they were better than I remembered. Everyone wanted a bite of the tender meat so we had to order more. We sat outside where they have a huge patio. The weather was perfect! It's always nice to enjoy the chips with homemade salsa along with the sopapillas and honey always included with every meal at no extra charge. I can't wait to go back for more of El Pinto's unique take on New Mexican Cuisine!

We just left El Pinto and we were very disappointed :(. We had been to this restaurant about 15 years ago and before that as well (when we had been driving through). We were very excited to eat here as we had remembered it being excellent in the past! We were driving through and had planned to stop in Albuquerque JUST to eat at El Pinto. Upon arriving it was a 30 minute wait (no biggie, but the place was very empty). Once we got to our table it was evident our server was fairly new (Still, no biggie, we used to be servers, we can look past that). Our son's drink had ants in it (not one or two, but at least 4) The server apologized and offered us a free dessert (that's very nice), but also explained that his manager said, "Well, they are on the patio" (I don't think that means we should have ants in a drink). We got our appetizer and it was pretty good (the appetizer platter with the ribs, queso, and guacamole). We got our food and not one of us thought our food was that good. I had the

Stopped by with a client to have some dinner. Staff was friendly. The atmosphere was relaxing. The food was great. Had their salsa and chips. I ordered the green hatch chili with chicken and potato. The client ordered the chicken enchiladas with potatoes. Definitely a place to go back to next time.