Los Molcajetes Mexican Restaurant

A-​OK is a good description for this spot. Service is always friendly. The food is good but not exceptional by any means. The green enchiladas have a tasty green sauce and pair nicely the beans and rice.
Margaritas are made with tequila, not wine which is worth a star in itself!

Well I hadn’t been here in years so I thought it was time to give it another try. I remember years ago being underwhelmed by the food quality. I like traditional, authentic, and fresh Mexican food. We ordered the House favorite — molcajetes with beef and bacon as well as two of my personal favorites: fish tacos and enchiladas de New Mexico (fried egg on top of an enchilada — hell yeah). The menu is pretty deep and rings of true home cooking. The place was packed on a Saturday night which is a great sign, though this town lacks in good Mexican food options. Service was a little hurried, but that’s pretty much to be expected in a small shop that’s packed full. While we wait I decide I should probably have a fresh made margarita or cold cerveza with dinner.
But for what really matters, here’s my verdict on the food: I didn’t love the salsa. It was too heavy on tomato sauce and light on everything else. But I did appreciate that it seemed to be house made. I did ask for some pico de gallo and that was better than the regular salsa.
The fish taco was clean tasting, nicely proportioned and flavorful. I thought the house made corn tortillas were a tad thick and overly moist which detracted to the taco. The enchilada tortillas were the same. Good flavor but too thick. The enchilada sauce and egg were on point and made the dish. Now the molcajetes were huge, and the broth extremely flavorful. It was heavy on the hearty side with lots of meat.
I give it 3.5 stars. It is decent but has some room for improvement. I’ll be back and keep trying things on the menu. Next time — Camarones a la diabla

Great food great service. I eat here almost once every week and the food is always the same excellent. The staff are always friendly and never mind if I ask for something special. I’m a regular.

A new Saturday stop following a run at Trader Joe’s! A delightful taqueria in an equally fabulous Mexican grocery store. Very clean, good prices, and pretty darn marvelous food! Supper burritos and Flautas plates are my go too. All fresh and made before your eyes. Topping this off is a staff that is always friendly and accommodating. Today, I got both lunch and dinner plates!

The lady who works at the register is so sweet. But I have to day this place is really bland.

We waited an hour for appetizers none of which were even edible. Burnt, over cooked and bland! Waited 30 minutes for sodas! Only 3 tables occupied with 2 servers and no one ever checked on us. We will never eat here again!!!

TL;DR: Consistently attentive service with good food, especially considering their reasonable-​to-​cheap prices
Highlights: their house-​made corn tortillas (!), shredded beef chimichangas (!), creamy horchata, shrimp and scallop in garlic sauce, huge burritos
My boyfriend is a CV native and we probably come here ¼ times that we eat out. It’s never overwhelmingly crowded and sometimes we seem to get the place mostly to ourselves, but we’ve never had a less than great meal here. We’ve been here enough times to have had ordered a variety of stuff (their menu is expansive), and from what I can tell the food is made from scratch whenever possible and delivered steaming hot.
Objectively, the food is nothing special, and generally ranges from average to good (except the amazing highlights listed above). BUT combined with their attentive and friendly service + fair prices, I always leave here feeling happy and full.

Foul. Cafeteria food would not recommend. Mediocre at best. Thumbs down. Place has been around for years but I don’t know why. I would caution against it.

Nice, presentation of Mexican fresh cooked on the spot.
Our family came around 8:40 pm and it’s was empty. Not much customers at night on a Saturday. Environment very lively with typical Mexican music.
Waiters are bilingual. Very nice and attentive to your orders.
Has a side bar also with TV entertainment.
Similar to La Piñata. But there’s diffrences
Overall. It’s greatly good to eat with moderate fair prices.

I’ll still come because it’s close to my house, but you must know that the food is generally bland. The stars are for the service. Nice, welcoming staff. I don’t blame them. The recipes gotta go, though.
Menudo –you might be able to rescue it with a few dashes of salt, but the texture of the tripe just doesn’t convince me. Gave it three chances.
Camarones Empanizados –Meh.
Mole –No, just no. (Soy camotera, yo conosco muy bien mis moles, pues es mi mero mole!)
Frijoles –Meh.
Arroz –Meh.
Patron Margarita –You get a buzz. Meaning, not even this drink is flavorful. Just alcohol and mix.
(And no, this is NOT the best Mexican food in CV! Look across the street… :))
QUE ONDA CON LAS RECETAS, LE FALTA SAL A TODA TU COMIDA!!! CONTRATEN ALGUIEN QUE SABE SAZONAR BIEN LOS PLATILLOS Y UN CANTINERO QUE SEPA HACER BUENOS TRAGOS!!!

The best Mexican restaurant in the area! I have search for a place to call home and this is it! The beef and chicken soups are spot on. Love this place and highly recommend it!

This place is pretty good, passing through this little city & stop to try it, I like there chicken enchiladas, reasonable pricing as well. Would recommend if you locally in Castro Valley.

I feel like they try. And that’s all that matters at the end of the day. The waitresses are made-​up nicely and mannered, the place is very bold, very nice booth seats with a little wiping down and pretty presentation of food. I ordered fish tacos and a taco salad, both were Okay. It was good enough to eat. It’s an average small business around town.

Fresh, delicious, and reasonably-​priced Mexican food, in a small family restaurant. Moreover, they actually have a full bar and a decent wine and beer list. (So you can have good vino or a Drakes IPA instead of the usual bland Mexican beers.)
Add to that the warm & attentive service from the SEÑORITAS BELLISIMAS, and you have a winner. Highly recommended!!!

It’s nice that we can walk down to this restaurant to have a great meal. We always share a plate, because the portions are really big.
Everyone that works here is really nice, and they are prompt with service.
Be careful of their tequila shots– they poor heavily!

Best Mexican food in CV! Better yet for me, East Bay. Usually a lot of people love La Piñata, but honestly I prefer this place over it. It’s kind of in a really secluded area. If my bf and I weren’t craving Mexican food and this wasn’t the only place open on a Sunday night after 8PM, we would’ve never even known this place exists. We walked in and the first thing you see is a bar. I thought this was great because it was like a smaller more authentic Chevy’s.
We sat down and looked at the Menu and I was coming in set on a chicken burrito, but this place has chicken mole! I can never find chicken mole anywhere at any Mexican restaurant and I finally found it here. The only other place is La Piñata but their’s is so dry, I hated it. This one was was really good and cooked perfectly. It comes with rice and refried beans as well. I also really love their flour tortillas b/​c they grill it of some sorts and its crispy along the edges. It’s perfect. I’m craving it right now as I talk about it. And for all of that it was only $ 11. I couldn’t even finish it. I had to take my leftovers home. My bf ordered crunchy tacos and he didn’t really like it too much, but that’s cause we’ll only eat crunchy tacos from Los Pericos in Hayward. But either way, I still love this place and I’ll honestly probably be coming here bi-​weekly for their mole. Their chips are decent here. Nothing special. I prefer Chevy’s.
Overall, great place with authentic Mexican food and many options. The food here isn’t even that pricey.

Been eating at Los Molcajetes for over 10 years and although the food has been above average and inconsistent, the service always great. That being said my last three visits have been very good!
Great burritos if on the run… sip a cold beer or cocktail at the little bar in front in the 5 minutes it will take to prepare your food.
Last night had the Molcajetes de Pollo and it was delicious. Just heating last night’s leftovers for lunch now…
4 stars!!!

Guacamole is not fresh at all. It’s so gross. I don’t recommend it. Other then that the food is good and the lunch service is good.

Los Molcajetes puts the Meh in Mexican food. Even for a guy like me that isn’t all too picky about his Mexican food, I still didn’t like what Los Molcajetes had to offer.
Pretty much my whole table felt kind of disappointed in their food. Everything tasted like a shadow of what it should have tasted like. My quesadilla was pretty lame. Dry and without any sort of sauce or seasoning. Nachos weren’t really my thing either.
Service was pretty good though. Price seemed a little expensive for what I was getting, but oh wells can’t argue that much at all. Los Molcajetes seems like one of those places that doesn’t choose to offer the most authentic and tasty dishes, and only seems to want to do enough to appease the taste buds of the general Castro Valley population. Anyways, I won’t be back here most likely.

Last night I decided to go with convenience since this place is close to where I live instead of my favorite spot El Taquito in Hayward. NEVER AGAIN!
I picked up a chicken and cheese enchilada dinner with a side of chips and salsa and guacamole. While the salsa and guac were very tasty, The chips were stale and I found the enchiladas, beans and rice to be disgusting. :-(
The meal was incredibly bland and after one bite I felt compelled to add my own seasonings to give it some flavor because there was no way I could eat it otherwise.
Unfortunately my doctoring up the food did not satisfy my taste buds and I ended up throwing most of it away.
2 stars for the guacamole and salsa.