Rancho Viejo - Luray, VA

So last week the wifey and me were vacationing in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia. We were doing some hiking in the mountains taking in the fall foliage or what there was left of it. Who knew that the 3rd week of October would be a week too late for foliage color. We were staying in Luray, VA, not a very big town. When we are on the road, I get reviews from urbanspoon.com, yelp.com and traveladvisor.com. So about the 3rd night on the road, we had used up the best options. And of course by the 3rd day, my system was saying it needed Mexican Food NOW!!! So I check out the reviews and Rancho Viejo had magnificent reviews. What I didn't pay attention to was the reviewers were from New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. None of those places have TEX-MEX. So we did a Pinata beating to the Rancho Viejo.

The chips were ok, almost as good as normal here at home. The salsa was mediocre but edible. My best signal about chips is Chipper. On this occasion, we only had one basket of chips. Chipper is good for two by herself. So not excited at this point.

I ordered a combo meal with a meat taco, cheese enchilada, beef enchilada and rice. Turns out the rice was the best part of the meal. Need any more info??? So I tear into the beef taco. I am still not sure exactly what that was that they called beef. So needless to say, the taco was not good at all. The cheese enchilada was a very poor quality of cheese and not very tasteful. After my taco experience, I passed on the beef enchilada which was loaded with the same beef type stuff. As I said the rice was rice, which turns out to be the best thing here. Chipper only ate part of her meal also.

Footnote here, the owners and employees of this restaurant were Mexicans. Have they been here since the Civil War? because they certainly don't know Mexican food anymore.

Overall I am giving Rancho Viejo a rousing 5. This is of course is giving them credit for trying to be Mexican in Virginia.

My lesson here is in the future, when I leave the Great State of Texas, I am also leaving Mexican Food behind and should not deal with that issue until I cross the Big Red coming home(Red River). So outside of Texas, I have had some decent Mexican food in New Mexico and that is it. I have tried it in a number of states including Oklahoma, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Virginia, and many others. What they call Mexican food is NOT Mexican food.

Mitcho
©2014