El Zocalo

El Zocalo is a new Mexican restaurant in Sanford, opened in the space formerly occupied by Tony's Deli. I am not sure what happened to Tony's, but I never saw more than a person or two in it, any time of day, and was surprised it hung on as long as it did. Nonetheless, the space had gotten a fresh coat of paint and is now a Mexican restaurant. I'd heard some good things about it on Facebook and so we recently decided to give it a try for lunch.

We were quickly greeted and offered to sit wherever we wanted, and in no time at all some fresh salsa with chips appeared. This was pretty good salsa, too. It tasted very fresh, was a bit chunky as a good salsa should be, and had a nice fresh flavor. The cilantro was evident, the onions nice and crispy, and the tomatoes lent a nice, fresh flavor. This was a good start to our meal.

Tommy had a chicken quesadilla and it was very good. The chicken was nice and tender and there was a lot of cheese. There was some lettuce, sour cream, pico de gallo, and guacamole in the center. I had some of the quesadilla and it was very good. The guacamole also had a nice, fresh flavor. It's hard to ruin a quesadilla, and this one was as good as any I've had or made.

I had the three enchilada meal for my lunch. One was ground beef, one shredded beef, and one chicken. It was served with yellow rice and refried beans on the side and topped with the chosen red sauce (green is also available) and some sour cream, and had a small lettuce salad on the side. My least favorite was the ground beef, it was nothing special and i could taste a lot of green pepper in it--not my personal favorite taste. But the other two were very good, the chicken and beef were both tasty and tender. Overall, i really liked my enchilada dinner, and it filled me up. 

It's always a bit dicey to visit a new place while they are still working out the kinks, but I have heard a lot of good about El Zocalo and if my first experience holds true, they may have a good long life in downtown Sanford. My only complaint is the lack of an online presence, I could not find them on the Internet nor on Facebook, and these days, social media is the way to go. But aside from that, we had a nice experience and will return again to try something else. I can't wait!