El Portal Restaurant

u.g. Lodwig

Honestly this is the best Mexican food I’ve ever had! I’ve tried quite a lot of Mexican restaurants all over the country. I like the fact that their dishes taste freshly made and are not overly salty. Everything tastes perfectly balanced and refined. The ingredients are of high quality. I can’t rave enough about the salsa that comes with the complimentary chips. They have two different flavors of salsa: one is the more traditional red salsa, very common at Mexican restaurants but I love their version the best; the slightly yellowish salsa is even more sublime: it has a smoky wok-tossed flavor to the mashed veggies, with minced fresh red chilies (as spicy as Thai fresh red chilies, absolutely delicious!!!). If you love spicy salsa and freshly made high-quality Mexican food, this is the place to go! This place seems to be very popular with locals on weekends, and they have fantastic live music on Saturday evenings (possibly other nights too, I’m not sure)

Keera Bhandari

We were excited to eat here and I ordered the Bistecitos on special as pictured here. When the plate arrived it was not at all what was described on the menu. The steak was not sliced, there was no soup, no tortillas, no nopales. The dish came out with whole steak and broccoli. That’s it. In itself, really not a big deal, but the manager refused to acknowledge that we didn’t get what we had ordered and were excited about! Our server was very apologetic but the whole thing was just odd and handled very poorly by the manager. The food was just OK. Bottom line: in a city where authentic delicious mexican food is blessedly easy to find, this place is not worth it. You’ll get better food and better service from a food truck (no shade to food trucks, they rule).

Cheryl Rocca

This is my go-to place in the Pasadena Playhouse District. Abel, the owner and his staff are always friendly & attentive. The Yucatan Mexican cuisine is diverse with excellent traditional dishes and specials. Large selection of tequilas. My favorite margaritas are the pomegranate and the watermelon. Musicians often stroll indoors & around the patio on weekend evenings. Separate room available for private parties.

Lejla

I’m very surprised that this restaurant only has a 4.3 rating. I went there on Saturday (11/1/25) and had an absolutely awesome experience. Rodolfo was our server and he was excellent—SO personable, and also funny. All the other staff who interacted with us were great, too. When we walked up, I believe it was the chef who showed us the daily specials (actually dishes on display!) and seemed sooo excited to tell us about them. :) We all had delicious food. My family has enchiladas and I had some of their seasonal pumpkin soup since I wasn’t too hungry. I highly recommend El Portal and will definitely be going there next time I’m in Pasadena!

RisaD

We really wanted to like this place. We were drawn in by the Yucatán specials. Margarita tasted like it was from a mix 😞. I could not taste fresh limes at all. Mole was very sweet. Perhaps the restaurant caters to its clientele and leans towards sweet tastes but it wasn’t for us. Two plates, two drinks plus tip = $90. 🤔 It was nice to sit outside. The service was good and waiter was charming.