Habanero Grill

Last night J and I ventured out to try Habanaro Grill located at located at 207th and Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge. I drive past it every single day to and from work and it’s been calling my name. I absolutely love Mexican food. I know a lot people can leave it but for me it has to be in my top 5. Its messy, flavourful, jam packed with gooey goodness. YUM!

 Habanero grill used to be an old tire shop so it has 2 large garage doors in front which I am sure is great in the summer so sipping drinks out in the fresh air. Tonight it was a completely empty inside except for 2 kids sitting and watching cartoons on a huge TV. There was one lady working and said that we could take our choice of table, turned the volume off on the cartoons and turned up the Mexican music. She mentioned that there was a wall of hot sauce as well which was pretty impressive. We ordered 2 lime margaritas and the mom/server/owner came back super fast with our drinks along with chips and salsa. The chips were just your usual store bought taco chips but I am pretty sure the salsa is home made. It had huge chunks of garlic in, onions, cilantro, and lime and also something I just couldn’t put my finger on. Perhaps a tad of chipotle, but I am not entirely sure. It wasn’t really authentic, and the massive amount of garlic could be significantly reduced but I still enjoyed it. I do love restaurants that offer complimentary appies!

The “eat in” menu wasn’t really that big and was missing one very important item that I had been craving all day. The Taco!!! I am not sure what happened to that menu but it wasn’t really all that appealing. The kids menu was almost as big as the regular menu. 

I ended up ordering taquito grande, which was 4 taquitos filled with your choice of chicken or beef, topped with sour cream, guac, and salsa. It also came with beans and rice. I tried the taquito first and wasn’t really all that impressed. The meat was ground up into mulch that resembled course sand and was extremely dry. The toppings were also very bland and didn’t really help the dry chicken sand taste much better. I then tried my refried beans and again, very bland and unseasoned. The rice….you guessed it…bland and cold. I made a run to the hot sauce shelf and was then troubled by which type to chose. It would have been nice if they were in some kind of order of hotness but since it was a mix of random sauces I just grabbed one that I have had in the past. I made my way back, past the kids watching a muted TV, and back to my table. I popped the top off the sauce and literally covered my entire meal to add some sort of flavour to my meal.  

J ordered the Chimichange, which was filled with Chicken, caramelized onions and cheese in a deep fried tortilla topped with more melted cheese and salsa. He also got the cold rice but opted for black beans instead of refried. His was much better than mine. The chicken in his meal was actual shredded chicken, resembled chicken and tasted like chicken. The cheese and onion also gave it some flavour. Compared to mine it was fantastic but J also said his bland and boring. Unfortunately he isn’t much of a hot sauce guy so he sucked it up and ate it as is. His beans and rice were cold and bland as well. I guess since they didn’t have many customers it was probably just sitting the back in a warmer.

Now, I have been going to the states a lot lately and have had my fair share of Mexican food so perhaps I’ve been spoiled and have the bar set too high but I really wasn’t impressed with either of our meals. The other thing that really confused me was the take out menu because it had way more options in. Online they have even more options including burgers, soup and even breakfast (before 4). I probably would have ordered something different if I had known about it, but I still may have stuck with bland food. It’s really too bad because the location is pretty neat and the wall of hot sauce adds something different then other Mexican restaurants.