El Habanero Market-Tienda Mexicana

This is a great little spot. I went here for drinks after work with a bunch of coworkers and was not disappointed. The food is delicious and the service is warm and friendly. It can get a a little pricey but the portions are ENORMOUS.

My co-​worker called me up because he left his wallet at home, so lunch was going to be on me. Driving by, the name caught our eyes, so we stopped in.
Walking in, we waited at the front for a good minute or two while the greeter was on the phone on a few calls. We finally interrupted her just to be told be could seat ourselves.
Our waitress was friendly and brought out the chips and salsa fast. Both my buddy and I were surprised that they only had Mexican sodas, tequila, or beer for their drinks. No fountain drinks or teas. We ordered, and asked for sour cream. Nope, didn’t have that either.
Twenty five minutes pass, we run out of chips and water, and no-​one comes back to our table. Our burritos show up. His was beef, mine was fish and shrimp. Mine wasn’t too bad. The fish tasted like it was a few days from turning to the dark side, and the shrimp were well prepared. The garnishes of lettuce, unripened cucumber, and other greens weren’t appealing.
Throughout eating, no-​one checked on us, or on any table for that matter. It’s not like it was packed, there were three tables, ours included. Maybe it was because we were fish out of water that we were ignored, but the atmosphere was just off as a whole.
We went back to the phone girl when we were done to see about a check, only to be told the waitress would bring it, which she did then promptly. Apparently you can’t tip with a credit card, but her lack of attention, well, I feel bad I couldn’t even leave a few bucks (only had a twenty, and she didn’t deserve that much).
Mediocre food doesn’t win, despite their big portion size. Especially when a two burrito lunch takes almost thirty minutes to be made and I could get better quality from Q’doba for pretty much the same price a lot faster.

Portions are huge.
Garlic shrimp was amazing.
Tostada de Cameron was enormous.
The coctel de Cameron with pulpo kinda lagged and the octopus was overlooked.
Definitely a mixed bag here, but it was good.
This was my third time here.

Good food. I especially love the oysters and bacon wrapped prawns. Good prices too. I like this place and will come back again. I have not gone during the karaōke times but during the day on week days its a nice family environment.

If I could give this place 0 I would.
You have no idea how gross this place is I’m still here starring at these NASTY tacos, really! how can you mess up tacos??? Total waste and it took forever to get my food

music too loud

I don’t know what everyone else is talking about… either they improved since the previous reviews but this place is AWESOME!!! service isn’t so great… heck I came for the food!!! Definitely a hole in the wall small gem. I wish for ppl to give this place a try cuz its sooooo darn good! Nothing wasted :)

I can highly recommend this place if you are after sad looking bland tasting rudely served food that will cause immediate and lasting food poisoning! Hungry yet?
Let me break it down. We were in Burien and had heard that there was a Mexican Sea Food place. Great combination right? Yeah not so much.
We walked in and grabbed a seat in a booth. There was only two other tables occupied at the time. My BF went to the restroom. The waitress shows up and asks me in Spanish what I wanted to drink. I told her I wanted to wait for him. Service: Strike 1
He returns, sits down and within less then one minute she is back. What do you want to drink… he ordered a Corona. I declined. She wanted to know what we wanted to eat… really lady? Let us look at the darn menu for a minute. Service: Strike 2
I settled on the Camarones a la Diabla and he ordered a Shrimp Cocktail. The waitress asked how spicy I wanted mine. I asked for Medium Hot. The dish by nature is spicy and I didn’t want to overdo it. While we were waiting for our food, I noticed a guy with no head cover or gloves make sausage in the bar on a fairly old machine with no guards. ah sanity… what a concept
Food arrives. Now I had eaten Camarones a la diabla at numerous establishments and have a certain expectation of look and color… what arrived was a bland looking blob of overcooked onions and mushrooms, shrimp in the shell, rice and a grey blob of what I believe to be beans. The cocktail looked decent.
I clean the shrimp and am anticipating this fantastic flavor and nothing. no spice, no flavor, nothing… but also nowhere to put my shells… argh…Service: Strike 3
BF’s dish does not seem satisfactory either. From what he said it tasted like a bunch of seafood in hot water… again no flavor. I eat some but just couldn’t bring myself to finish it.
My turn to go to the restroom as my hands are covered in food from peeling the shrimp… oh if only I had sanitary hand towels and could have spared that trip… the restroom was super dirty, no hand towels… I wonder what the kitchen looks like. On second thought… i really don’t want to know. The guy making sausage at the bar with no protective head gear or gloves is probably a good indication of why I am still sick today.
This place is a dive, with bad food and lousy service. but for two people this came to almost $ 60…in Burien on 1^st Avenue… NOT downtown Seattle in a nice comfy restaurant. The Corona which was warm. $ 5. Really? wow.
When we looked at the bill we noticed that the not so bright waitress had written down NO SPICE… really you *&%(#&*$)#_.I said MEDIUM Spice. Service: Strike 4
If you don’t want to wait on people don’t work in the industry. If you don’t want to cook visually appealing good tasting food that won’t poison somebody, don’t work in the industry… not rocket science
So needless to say, we were both sick all night long and I am still recovering as I write this. BF had to call in sick to work.
I survived 2 weeks in Mexico in the Jungle where I expected to get sick… I didn’t last one meal at this «establishment»…If you want to take your chances and are looking for visually unappealing food that has no flavor but will send you praying to the porcelain gods. this is the place for you, otherwise do yourself a favor… give it a miss.

Mariscos o restaurant mexicano ni al caso la comida sabe muy mala sin sabor Camarones a la diabla sin sabor campechanas con agua hervida y con dolor de estomago incluido no gracias nunca me pararia aqui para comer y que te de dolor de estomago toda la noche el baño bien sucio dicen que si el baño esta sucio en un restaurante como estara la cocina.
No recomiendo ni para ir a tomarse una cerveza $ 5.00 una corona y al tiempo? Meseras necesitan a alguien que le guste ser mesera y no poner cara de apurate a darme tu orden .Soy de Acapulco y se de Mariscos y se el sabor de ellos ademas de ser cocinero por mas de 15 años en restaurantes y que me gusta cocinar y probar comidas de distintos paises pero de este restaurante una vez pise ese lugar en la ave.1 de Burien pero me arrepiento de a ver gastado $ 60.00 en basura que dan por comida.

This is a good place to come and listen to people sing or sing yourself and drink. As for when it comes to eating, wait till you have drank A LOT! The menu here is made for drunk people. I have included pictures of what we had.
I ordered a Michilada and it was lacking. It tasted watered down. But I did like the shrimp on the rim. Thought it was a nice look.
Husband ordered the Fajitas Mixtas and it was chewy and very very bland. The chicken was so dry. I didn’t even think you could cook chicken that dry!
We order two other things that I can’t remember what they were called. But one came with pineapple and the other didn’t. I asked to make sure and the waitress said it didn’t come with it. I got my plate after everyone else already had theirs and under the pound of cheese was PINEAPPLE! The waitress was very surprised and she took the plate away. Brought me back some dried up fish tacos.
Our waitress was very nice and she made it hard to be in a bad mood about the food. But overall I was very disappointed. The best thing about this place was the chips and salsa. It was not worth the $ 50!

I’m absolutely shocked that I’m the first to review this place. I drove by this place not knowing it existed and from the outside I knew something was up with this place. I made a u-​turn and saw the parking lot full of cars and I knew it was on.
LOCATION: The restaurant is located on the east side of an arterial street.
PARKING: Lot parking.
DECOR: This is a seafood joint, so the décor is all about the ocean. The walls are painted to look like the ocean. The bar has bamboo and a shaken roof theme. This is the first Mexican seafood place I’ve seen since moving up to Seattle metro a few years ago, but I can tell you that the inside of this place is very typical of what you would see in the Mexican neighborhoods in LA.
AMBIENCE: This place is deep Mexican. I went on a Sunday and they had live ranchera music played by mariachi. This is the type of place where Mexicans would dress up and take their families out to dinner for that special occasion, but you can show up in your shorts and sandals (like I did) and will fit in. Apparently they have banda on Fridays and Saturdays and live mariachi on Sundays.
SERVICE: The service is good. It would definitely help to speak Spanish in here. The workers and patrons speak Spanish.
BAR: Yes. Beer and hard alcohol. They serve a wicked michelada.
FOOD: This is one place where I would take my family or the crew from my neighborhood where I grew up. They’ve got it all: aguachiles, 7 mares, cocteles, ostiones, mojarres, ceviche, caracoles, langosta… some of this stuff you can get a la plancha, al mojo de ajo, a la diabla. This place doesn’t even fuck around with their food. It’s legit as all hell.
PRICE: This is pricey. as each dish serves a lot of seafood. I would recommend trying this place the next time you feel up to the Boston, Crab, or Shack places. You get taster food for the price here.
All in all, this restaurant reminds me of the top notch marisquerias in LA and San Diego, and I will go as far as to say that this is just as good as any I’ve been to in Baja California.

i’m not sure what the mini-​mart part of other reviews is referring to, as there is no mini-​mart to be found inside when i visited. this place is a full-​blown restaurant with a bar/​dance floor in the back. there is an odd ‘computer repair’ business in the corner though, which seems to serve the local spanish-​speaking community. they also sell custom bedazzled baseball caps. ahem, anyway, on with the food review!
if you’re not sure what mariscos is, it’s literally ‘seafood’. the first clue is one wall is a mural of the ocean with a marlin jumping over finding nemo being chased by free willie. the second clue will be everything on the menu is seafood based, with shrimp being the predominant meat of choice. no chicken, beef, or pork here!
when i arrived around 9pm there were only two other customers, so i thought perhaps i made a mistake and had thoughts of leaving. a quick look at the menu which has glossy color photographs of the dishes, the general cleanliness of the place, and the hip latin pop music, convinced me to stay.
the waitress quickly delivered home-​made chips and green salsa which packs enough heat to produce a little sweat after the fifth chip. to give an idea of my spice tolerance, i usually order 4 stars (out of 5) spice levels at local thai restaurants. this salsa is really tasty too, with a hint of lime.
there are some seriously good looking dishes on the menu that i hadn’t seen in any local hispanic restaurant; fresh oysters in the half shell! clams! crab legs! whole fish! shrimp cocktail with shelled oysters and avocado! seafood soup! cheese stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon! say whaa?
tip: don’t be afraid of the camarones a la cucaracha, which literally translates to ‘cockroach shrimp’ as there are no cockroaches in it.
i decided to try the camarones a la diablo (devil’s shrimp).
while waiting for the food, i noticed a sign of things to come was that napkins are abundant at each table; you’ll be using your hands to eat here so you’d better wash them. there are two tv’s playing latin channels; one was an infomercial about a product that looked like a wrestling belt that i couldn’t understand and the other was a spanish soap opera which, to the uninitiated, has scenes that resembles softcore porn.
the food arrived quickly and it did not disappoint. the dish was a very generous portion with at least a dozen tender medium/​large sized shrimp. although each shrimp is properly de-​veined, they leave the shells and legs on. with little practice, it’s possible to hold one by the tail and bite into it so that the meat slides out of the shell, making it easy to eat. the spice level was about 3 stars out of 5, flavorful with a little kick.
at around 10pm, the lights in the back bar turn off and the bar converts into a disco, complete with a dj and multicolored lights in sync with the music. also at around this time, patrons started arriving dressed in their sunday’s best. what a sight, sound, taste, multi-​sensory cultural experience!
i’m adding this to my list of one of seattle’s best-​kept secrets and will definitely be returning!

This place just opened up as a restaurant, and thought I would go check it out. Upon walking in, there was a strange vibe: The «restaurant» was a fenced in section of a mini mart. After a while I was served chips and spicy salsa, so far, so good. My friends’ menu was missing pages, fairly strange considering this place just opened.
One friend had a shrimp tostada, and was so overdone with cucumbers it was inedible. The other had a enchiladas, and luckily they were fine. As for me, I ordered a shrimp and fish burrito, and it came with… wait for it… french fries? WTF? French fries? Really? Not only does the menu say rice and beans, but you sub in french fries without telling me? *facepalm*. It gets better — I get into the burrito and they had an overdose of some weird white rice with peas and carrots, and nearly no seafood to be seen. What little I did get of the fish was tasty, but if you’re going to advertise seafood in bold signs outside, you should back it up, and sadly that was not happening.
This barely gets two stars, only as I reserve one star ratings for food that gets me sick and luckily I did not.

Yes I loved it! Went there for lunch and got the menu which was quite extensive. A lot seem a bit more then I wanted to spend for lunch, dinner items. So I went with 1 shrimp ceviche tostada for 5 bucks! I order a fish taco as well for 2.50 since I didn’t think the tostada would be enough and man I was wrong. Huge portion on the shrimp ceviche! Loved it and the fish taco was a grilled tilapia fillet and was delicious as well. Will definitely go back to try more items from the menu. Plus the service was very welcoming and made me feel at home.

I use to eat Mariscos from various places down in L. A, so I’m quite experienced in this sector.
I was really happy to know Burien is the Home of this fabulous establishment! Hella authentic, calm atmosphere and good service! My favourite dish is Tostada Mixta, Jaiva, tostado de ceviche etc.
As for price, it’s fair, typical since the foods are Seafoods. Cleanliness is fair, the service is what makes this place stand out!
Basically, this place is now my Favorite Mexican Mariscos joint!

Half of this business is a Mexican-​style seafood restaurant! One star right there because there are not many of those in the Seattle area. I had a green aguachile shrimp ceviche tostada and it was delicious. The serving was very generous (the equivalent of two good size tostadas). I only ordered 1 because it was $ 7 so I wanted to see if I liked it. i actually didn’t have to get a second one because that was plenty of food. The «aguachile» marinade wasn’t the real thing (not spicy enough) but it was very limy and and tasty.
I also had a fish taco ($ 2.50). It came with a full tilapia filtet. That is a very a good value. The corn tortillas were nice and soft and sturdy enough to hold the fish and it’s juices.
The menu is very extensive, they have a variety of seafood soups, fish and seafood cold and hot plates. They had a whole section of aguachile ceviche molcajetes. It was a Monday so they were out of octupus and oysters. We had a shrimp cocktail and it was not very flavorful. I will give it another try on a weekend.

Habla Espanole? NO?! That’s ok i don’t either… check it out I can’t spell it either. I speak just enough spanish to get understood at work that I need blue plates not blue potatoes.
This is an awesome little latin market/​taquiera. They are really nice, asked me what I needed and showed me everything they had… including pointing me to the better deal. Their store is set up strangely… front is grocery where you will find jesus candles, tortillas, dried chilis, mexican candy and other such things, back left is a tiny little taquiera which i didn’t have time to check out but it certainly smelled pretty tasty, back right is some fresh produce across from a butchery area… the chorizo looked to die for but the latino friend warned me not to get it (methinks that hethinks poor stupida gringa can’t take the piquante. he’s probably right).
I’ll definitely stop back by here when I need peppers, candles, tortillas or just a torta fix. Yum!