El Habanero Mexican Grill Pittsfield MA 685 Merrill Road, Pittsfield, MA 01201

"The best Mexican food since moving to Massachusetts! Pittsfield needed this restaurant! Fresh made, great ingredients and worth the cost! Lunch menu is excellently priced with quick service!"

"Note that these photos as described in the menu. On a later visit, things that were supposed to come with the meal were missing and charged extra. Was supposed to come with chips and salsa and rice & beans. Hot sauce is very hot and costs extra. The flavors are somewhat muted but probably safe for spice newbies. Atmosphere is simple, usually empty because the bulk of their business is take-out. During fair weather there are a couple of shaded tables outdoors. The facility seems very clean. More than ample parking. In the center of the Pittsfield shopping district."

"Really good. I ordered ground beef tacos with spicy salsa for lunch. Flavors were excellent and the spicy salsa is exceptional. Beans and rice were great, which if you like Mexican food is always a bellwether. They have a good lunch special menu and a good selection of beer. Service was really good as well."

"The food is authentic Mexican. They nickel and dime you to death with the sides. The guy took the Chipotle hot sauce of the tables and charges for his own "homemade" hot sauce. Lunch specials are reasonably priced. Just make sure they know you are ordering off the lunch special menu or else they will charge you the full meal rate."

"Disappointed again... I'm a transplant from the Southwest and I've been trying Mexican food around the Berkshires. This misses the mark just like most of the places around here. The restaurant was very nice inside; they did a great job renovating the place and it had a nice atmosphere. There's a small bar to sit at and enjoy a drink and a bite. The food was bland at best. I got the El Habañero plate so that I could sample a few things and give a fair review. Some of the items were only so-so, some were just not very good or were prepared poorly. The good: The plate looked pretty good when it arrived, see photo. The beans needed salt but were pretty good afterwards. The empanada was the best part of the meal, but it's hard to mess up fried dough filled with meat and cheese. That's about where the goodness ends. The not-so-good: The enchilada: It was super dry. They were very stingy with the sauce, and it had very little flavor. Enchiladas should be swimming in thick, flavorful goodness - this had the top barely coated in a weak, thin sauce that didn't even cover the whole top of the tortilla... sad. The tamale: it was so-so, lacking flavor but mostly had good consistency. The worst part was that it was microwaved to be reheated... I know this because its ends were dried and burned and i had to discard them (I've heated up many a tamale in my time, so I know when they get screwed up). That was a red flag - the cooks haven't really been trained well, it seems. The rice: Lastly the rice. Oh man... this was rubbery, bland, instant Uncle Ben's style rice. Not good at all. You could tell by the chemically, preservative taste that lingers with that kind of pre-prepared rice. I didn't finish my meal. Overall, I really wanted this place to be better. Some of the items were almost there, but they really missed the mark on some others. The prices really didn't reflect the quality or flavor that they should have been - just too high of prices for some items on the menu. I really wavered between 2 and 3 stars for this place. I just didn't like the food, but I've definitely had worse in the Berkshires and Pittsfield. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that they improve for future customers, but I won't be coming back."