Mas Chingon - Shadowlake

"Our family has stopped 1 to 3 times a month at this location. It's kind of a mixed bag of service and if heating/cooling system is working or not. During a recent visit we found that the margaritas glass sizes have been cut in half, maybe more. I was told the ice percentage is much lower so it's about the same amount of margarita per glass. This is not accurate. I felt like we had the drink finished almost before the waitress left the table. That being said, we will probably not come back until we feel the main attraction ($3 margaritas) to Mas Chingon is fixed."

"We were greeted and seated right away and drinks were brought. It was still happy hour and we got some queso fondito. We ordered the carnitas sopesitos (small sopes) also on happy hour for my meal and my boyfriend had a el pastor burrito. Meat was super tender and delicious on both. I loved the pickled onions on the sopesitos. Rihanna was our server, taking care of us well. My boyfriend drinks quite a few sodas when eating out and she kept them full. She was the only server working yet was still attentive and kind."

"We came here for the Taco Tuesday. The tacos were amazing and they even have a shrimp & avocado tacos included (which no one ever does, they usually charge more). We got our kids the quesidilla and the tortilla they made it with was top notch. I would recommend everyone to come check this place out (especially on Tuesdays). The staff is very nice and on the ball."

"We came on a Wednesday afternoon when they weren't too busy, and since it was quite cold inside, our waitress was beyond friendly and seated us outside on a pleasant day! It was a tad windy but staff made accommodations to ensure we would eat in comfort! The napkins are white cloth which made for some interesting stains, but our waitress was more than happy to bring us paper napkins. We ordered the HALF plate of nachos as an appetizer and it was HUGE--a tad soggy--but pretty good! We didn't even make it all the way through them, so we packed all of our main courses to go. You definitely won't leave hungry!"

"4 stars for potential. Delicious food and incredibly kind employees, but a lot of little issues that in our opinion are very fixable. 1. They seemed overwhelmed and short staffed. It was Friday at 5:45 PM, but we only saw four people working the entire front room and patio, including the hostess and bartender. A lot of dirty tables. There was a “wait” with a lot of open tables. I couldn’t get a happy hour drink until after 6 because they had no glasses clean. They were so kind to acknowledge the issue and still offer happy hour pricing which was appreciated. 2. No kid menus or sheets to color with crayons. No kids cups with lids. Not a huge deal, but struck us as odd considering the location. Right in the middle of family land—aka the suburbs and shopping center of Shadow Lake. Next door to Old Navy. You’re going to get families, and we did see 2 other tables with kids while we were there. Next time we will just come for date night. 3. It took 20 minutes to get a chips & queso appetizer. People usually want to enjoy the appetizer with their drinks while waiting for the meals. Our meals came out not even a minute after the queso which took some of the pleasure out of the experience. But the queso was delicious. My husband usually doesn’t care for chorizo but said this was the best he’s had! 4. The quesadilla was very hard to eat. Imagine a giant soft tortilla straight out of the package. Barely cooked. It would be impossible to hold all of the goodness inside, everything would just fall out. And that’s exactly what happened. I had to eat it with a fork because if I dared pick up a slice, it fell apart. The flavor though..SO good. It was odd that it didn’t come with the traditional sides of pico, sour cream and lettuce. The presentation was definitely lacking on this one, see pic. 5. The steak fajitas. This is where we just sat there and asked WHY over and over again. Please see my pics. The pieces of steak were not already cut to eat. My husband had to literally cut it into strips to put into his taco. Not ideal. Also, the tortillas were street taco size, NOT fajita size. The fajita meat/veggies couldn’t even fit inside the tortilla. They served no purpose. Also, there were no toppings. No traditional side of pico, lettuce, sour cream, guac..Again, flavor was delicious, but little issues made it hard to enjoy. 6. Last thing I’ll comment on is the price. Everything was probably $2-$4 more than we’d expect for the quantity of food received and for the type of atmosphere that it is. Again, shadow lake family area in the Midwest suburbs. Happy hour helps. What also helps is their generous military discount they provided us with. Hopefully they read this and take some of it into consideration because they all seem like pretty easy fixes. We will definitely be back to try them again because the employees were friendly and the food was good. We will go back because the place has potential. Oh and those nachos looked heavenly, have to come back to get some of those. :)"