Cinco de Mayo! YAY! This doesn’t mean much to me other than the fact that chips and queso are on sale and I usually stock up on junk. Tonight, however, the girls and I decided to go out for Mexican in lieu of our usual Bible study. Good times are guaranteed! Carrie and I arrived early to secure seats and decided we’d maybe hit up the Azteca (no seats open) before heading of to Taco del Mar where their delicious fish tacos awaited us. We pulled up to TdM and noticed that there’s a new restaurant in town: El Eclipse…sounds Mexican. For those of you familiar with the area, it’s at NE 24th and 148th in the building that once held the black bear diner. We decided to give El Eclipse a whirl.

Upon walking in and noticing it wasn’t very busy, I was slightly concerned, but I don’t go to restaurants in that part of Bellevue often, so we were probably ahead of the dinner crowd. We were seated at a corner table that was pretty nice and they did bring out warm tortilla chips and some salsa to start. Things were looking favorable! After contacting the rest of the group and letting them know we were meeting there instead of TdM, we ordered some nachos to get things started. Nachos are not hard. If it is not busy and you are serving me nachos I expect one thing and one thing only:nachos must be warm (as in fresh from the oven, not spicy). These nachos were not exactly warm but not terribly cold either. They were okay, but not spicy and certainly not what I’d expect from a new restaurant with hardly any customers.

We ended up moving tables to accommodate another group and to thank us we were offered jello shots. Um, no thank you. I like jello. I do not like jello and alcohol together. The other members of our party arrived and we decided to order margaritas. It’s a fake holiday after all. Mine arrived after everyone else’s and it was lighter in color and chunkier than the others. I have very little tolerance for alcohol and thought at first they brought me a virgin margarita, which would have been fine. Except I did receive a bill for….$8.50 for my beverage. With no prices on the beverage menu, one would think they’d be comparable to the $3.50 they were charging at Azteca!

The real clincher of the night was the complete idiotic handling of our bills. We requested that our bill be split. There were four of us in our party and we ordered and consumed one an item. I should have sensed trouble ahead when Juan asked if we wanted the bill split two ways or four ways. We each received a receipt. I paid cash, the others paid with their cards. When our server came back with our receipts, I received the proper amount of change for my original tab, but the information on the receipt indicated my total was $4.87 not $8.50 and I should have received $5.13 in change, not $1.50. Of the four of us, only one had been charged correctly and Juan said there was no way that they could change the charges. Um, I’m sorry, you just overcharged us and now we have to figure it out? NO! This is when I had to bust out my “customer service voice” which generally includes phrases such as “I wouldn’t expect this type of situation from an establishment such as yours” and “surely you can find a reason to make this up to us” or “sorting out a sitiation of this nature shouldn’t be this difficult”. It requires a certain sterness I learned from my Dad and Grandpa, which seems gruff, but gets the job done. They were eventually able to sort out our bills and we went home, where I cooled down long enough to write this lengthy post.

Basic rundown for those of you who have busy lives that prevent you from reading my paragraphs of ranting:

Food: you can get better food at Taco del Mar (and it happens to be in the building very close by)
Beverages: kind of gross, not worth the money
Wait staff: helpful, but awkward and unable to solve problems. Did not get to speak to the manager despite requesting to do so. Message I received-management is disinterested in the operation of the restaurant.
Atmosphere: not great, strangely laid out restaurant

If I am looking for American-Mexican again, I’ll head to Azteca. At least I know they’ve got those tissue paper flowers to give the place some flair!