El Vez Restaurant Review, Philadelphia, PA

Philly Friends – I’m so pumped for Night Market: Fairmount tonight –  Check out my blog from our last Night Market in Mt. Airy to see how much fun we had & how much we ate! #cantwait

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For all the Runners Out There – Don’t forget to check out my #coolimpossible review & giveaway to win a signed copy of Eric Orton’s new book! Giveaway ends tomorrow!

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This past weekend Charles & I finally got to check out a new {to us} restaurant. If you can believe it, we’ve lived in Philadelphia for a while now and have never been to El Vez. Apparently its pretty popular because it’s almost impossible to make reservations there on a Saturday night unless you want to eat at 5pm or 9pm. We didn’t want to eat at either of those times, so I made a reservation 4 weeks ago for a 7pm dinner reservation.

Yes, 4 weeks ago! Crazy, right?! But honestly, I couldn’t wait to see what all the fuss was about!

El Vez is a Steven Starr restaurant here in Philadelphia. We’ve been to almost all of the Starr restaurants over the years, a few of which made it on the blog: Continental {for my first martini}, The Dandelion, SquareBurger and {my favorite} Talula’s Garden.

I was pumped to add El Vez to this list, since I love Mexican food – and what made me even more excited to try it out was the website description of the restaurant: Mexican-American meets East L.A. in a Tijuana taxi – seriously, what’s not to love about that entire statement?!

So needless to say, I had been waiting for this reservation for a while & was pumped when the day finally arrived. I was even more excited when I called that morning and asked if we could squeeze an extra person at our table, since my sister-in-law, Kate decided to come up for the weekend and the hostess said it would be no problem. Win!

Once we were seated, which was right on time, the 3 of us decided to start out with the El Vez guacamole “The Original” which was included tomato, onion, jalapeño, cilantro and lime. I looked so good at all the other tables and got great reviews online, so I believe it was necessary to try – and it was. So tasty & delicious & fresh.

Guacamole is one of my favorite food groups.

Ok, I know it isn’t an actual food group, but maybe it should be! Who’s with me?

Along with our guacamole we got a pitcher of the El Vez Margaritas for the table. All Margaritas at El Vez are made with hand-squeezed lime juice and fresh lime puree – the El Vez margarita was made with Cuervo Gold, triple sec and fresh lime juice. It was tasty & seriously hit the spot.

I have been on a SERIOUS fish taco kick. Literally this week I had them on Saturday & Sunday {back to back!} and I’m planning on having them again on Friday. Obsessed.

So it wasn’t a surprise when I ordered the Crispy Mahi-Mahi tacos for dinner. In fact, I had been talking about them for about a week! These tacos were made with red cabbage, avocado and chipotle pepper remoulade and they were SO GOOD! I enjoyed the presentation too, they were easy to hold & eat. I would go back for these any day.

Kate got the Pork Tacos & Charles got the Carne Asada – both of which were super yummy.

Photos from the dinner table:

Sisters

Hubs & Wife.

{and margaritas!}

Siblings.

Aside from the food being awesome and the margaritas being super tasty another highlight of our trip to El Vez was the photo booth! Kate & I had a blast taking some fun photos – check ’em out:

All in all it was a fantastic meal. I’m so happy we went {and has reservations!} – And now after writing this post, I am craving fish tacos again. Yum!

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What’s your favorite Mexican restaurant? 

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