Tienda El Ranchito

So, Tienda El Ranchito… I’ve really been enjoying what I feel is more authentic Mexican food lately and I think this is another fine example if you should find yourself in Fairmont City, IL. I ordered 1 Taco Al Pastor (corn torilla, cilantro, and white onion), 1 Carnitas Gordita, and 1 Chicken Tamale. The Al Pastor and Carnitas were both excellent. Just the way pork should be. Flavorful and tender. The tamale was not my favorite but the other two items more than made up for that. They serve a salsa verde and a salsa rojo with some very substantial tortilla chips and both salsas are HOT. My lunch date ordered the chicken milanesa (excellent) and a Barbacoa (goat) taco. He was thrilled with the meal as well. We will be adding this to our lunch rotation and I highly recommend it! I am already looking forward to my next visit to try other things. The market is very nice too.

My first time here, and boy when I tell you it was awesome! Chips and salsa (super spicy) was great. Guacamole was great, and the Alambre meal I order was HUGE!!! So flavorful, and service was great. Not really much you can ask for. Aunthenic and delicious

Never going back to this place! My mum paid cash and didn’t look at the bill. The waitress brought back the change without a receipt and change didn’t add up! I asked for a receipt and she begrudging gave me one and sure enough she had charged us for an additional meal. It was real real strange after I pointed out that she owed us at least $ 10. I never got a corrected receipt but that’s OK because I got my change and I’ll never go back! Plus the chips are store bought and hard. It was also obvious that they use the worse part of the beef! It was very chewy and I couldn’t even eat it, cheap meat. Ugh.

How I have lived just across the river from this place and never been escapes me but I will definitely be back!
I agree with other reviewers about the authenticity of the food — it’s excellent. The flour tortillas shells were obviously fresh and handmade and the flavor of all the ingredients stood out. The chicken in my fajitas dish was perfectly seasoned and cooked and my hubby thoroughly enjoyed his four tacos — shrimp, steak, pork, and chorizo. Perhaps most significantly, our 12 year old daughter was genuinely enthusiastic about her chicken quesadilla; she quite literally raved about it.
Service could be a bit more prompt and the bathrooms could be cleaner but, overall, if you are coming for the food, you will not be disappointed.

THIS IS THE BEST PLACE IN THE AREA! The combo fajitas were amazing, great flavor! I wish there chips were a little better along with their red salsa but they were still good along with the cheese chip! I loved the margaritas too, I got a strawberry. Service was great! Walk through the grocery store, you won’t be disappointed! Amazing big screen in the back and small but quaint outdoor patio.

I’ve been coming here for over 20 years! The best tacos and Margarita’s I’ve ever had! I have yet to find another authentic Mexican restaurant that even comes close! Love, love, love!!!

Finally I found authentic Mexican food in the St Louis area. The refried beans are delicious, and great guacamole. On the weekend the tortillas are hand made. A far drive for me, but worth the commute.

We found this place after we had bailed out from waiting in line to get into see the Christmas lights at Our Lady of the Snows. We did a quick search to find a Mexican restaurant in the area and found this place to have high ratings. I don’t know if it was an off night based on what we saw in the other reviews. However, the food was pretty average and the service was below average. There were a number of tables around ours that had not been cleaned even though there were no diners at them for a long time. It had a strong cleaning product smell. The food wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t amazing either. The area /​parking lot where it’s located gives you the feeling to «be careful» getting in and out of the building. It is an interesting experience to go through the market on the way back to the restaurant. We bought a piñata to take home. I don’t know that I’d make a special trip from West County to go here, but would try it again if I was in the area.

Amazing and authentic food, great atmosphere and very friendly staff. I will definitely come back again.

Been coming here since they were just a little taco stand inside a bodega. They’ve turned into a real restaurant now, and they are still as amazing as ever. Best authentic Mex in the Metro East. Great service. Highly recommend.

What a surprise. Thiis place has some excellent food and the service was great. The prices are very reasonable, portions are generous. We had a good time. We will be going back for sure.

This place is FANTASTIC. Wonderful atmosphere, great food& a great spot to pick up ingredient for any Mexican dish. I recommend this place all the time!

For Mexican food in the St. Louis area, it seriously doesn’t get better than Tienda El Ranchito.
This is by far the most authentic Mexican food I’ve found here, and that’s coming from someone who used to live 2 miles north of Mexico. All of my favorites are on the menu, and they’re prepared extremely well. My personal favorites are the alambre, the flautas, and the sopes entrees.
It’s been hard to convince friends from the other side of the river to come to (essentially) East St. Louis for a taco. But fear not, the quiet location just off I-​55 has a very safe feeling both inside and out — that said, I’ve only been during the day, but I don’t imagine the night is very different.
Only negative: the time it takes to receive food is on the slow side. But given my favorite Mexican restaurants in Texas, I suppose that’s one thing they all have in common! Just don’t plan to get in and out of here in a hurry.

My favorite Mexican restaurant by far. The cantina tacos with barbacoa, cabeza and lengua are the best.

Looks like a grocery store. But you walk through and discover an awesome restaurant in the back. Awesome home made everything!!!

Where do I begin? This restaurant/​shop has so much authenticity, it’s crazy. The food was simply delicious. I’ve never been here and I can kick myself for not having been sooner. I had Camarones a la Diabla. They do warn you on the menu is it spicy. I always ignore that because whenever I order a dish that is spicy, it hardly ever is. To me anyway. Woo… I was blown away. Not only was it indeed hot, but flavourful as well. Portion is more than plenty.
Their horchata drink was sweet (which means it was superb.)
I highly recommend this place for anyone wanting great Mexican food.

Food: 5
Restaurant décor: 5
Service: 3.8
This place is the most authentic mexican I’ve had in St Louis. They bring you hot tamatillo, hot red sauce, homemade chips, and pico… none of this americanized blender salsa. The red and green sauce are HOT… as they should be. The pico is salty and cool, to cool you back down for more.
I had the Suiza shrimp burrito, a small one. holy cow, small is the last word I’d call this burrito, I can’t imagine what a large looks like. The shrimp was FANTASTIC. I hate the packaged shrimp other mexican restaurants use, where they just throw it in with some cheese and beans. This shrimp was flat topped for a nice crust (think fajita shrimp) before stuffing it into the burrito. Also, there was a LOT of shrimp. none of the little tiny salad shrimp, but big 14 – 18 size. There was more shrimp than beans and cheese in this thing.
Also, $ 14.99 for a pitcher of extremely good Cadillac Margarita. One of the best Margs I’ve ever had again. The juice you can tell is the sweeter variety from Mexico. none of the pre-​mix.
Extremely authentic, amazing prices, crap location, but soooo worth it. I didn’t feel safe at all in this neighborhood, so it made me feel just like I was in Mexico!

I love this place! authentic Mexican food at it’s finest :) super spicy, super good and lovely folks. I also go to the restaurant across the street (it’s not on here) much smaller grocery store and only about 7 booths in the back, but very yummy if you can find an open spot. El ranchito has the most bomb diggity tacos, I always get the barbacoa (steamed goat meat) Muy bien!
:-)

We had no idea what to expect. You walk through this adorable little market, and then a restaurant appears, where you seat yourself.
I had a margarita that was delicious. The chips and salsa were different, but still very good. I would recommend saving room. The food is worth the wait!
I do not recommend ordering off the TexMex menu. I ordered chicken fajitas. They were delicious, but I had serious food envy of my husband (luckily me loves me and shared). He ordered alambre. Holy shit! It was the most mouth watering Mexican dish I have ever had!
I highly recommend and we will definitely be going back!

We noticed Tienda el Ranchito in Sauce Mag in September and added it to the list to try. Today seemed like a good day to do that for Sunday lunch. We have been looking for a taqueria with some good organ meat taco offerings!
We made the nearly 30 mile drive, navigated the I64 eastbound shutdown and easily found it (thanks to Garmin) not far off I55−70 in Fairmont City. I was expecting a couple of tables in the corner of the grocery which would be fine, but they really have established a restaurant. It is clean and not all that small. The people were friendly and the service was good.
The totopos are good heavy corn, not the tasteless thin ones that most places are now serving. The pico was mostly onion, so we moved that aside and concentrated on the red and green that were served in squirt bottles. The green is thick, loaded with roasted green chile. It is not salty or tart, so you may want to add a little lime juice and salt, but we enjoyed it as-​is. It has mild heat and good flavor. The red is made with toasted red chile and looks like the taqueria style red sauce that is normally vinegar based. In this case, it also is not tart and they let the tasty red chile do the talking. Both are clearly homemade and unique to the house. Both are good and not what you will find everywhere else.
Based on some reading I opted for one each taco de barbacoa, al pastor and cabeza. They are served on doubled tortillas with limon, cilantro and onion. Since I do not like so much raw onion, even on tacos, I removed most of them. Next time I will order sin cebolla and use a little of the pico to get just what I need. All of the tacos were good, not knee-​buckling, but clearly worth driving for. All of the meat was fresh tasting and with a little salt. In reverse order of preference for the day I was there; the barbacoa was shredded and decent, just on the edge of dry. Add some green and a squeeze of lime and it was good. Next came the cabeza. This was more flavorful and was not the fatty unctuous head meat that one usually gets. So it was not dry, but not greasy either. Very good and worth a re-​order. My favorite was the al pastor. Even knowing that they don’t slice it from a trompo and grill it (you kind of need to go to Mexico City for that), it was still worth the name. I liked the way they grilled it a little crusty. These are real tacos folks, something that is hard to find in these parts. Next time… chorizo, lengua and more al pastor.
Ms T ordered a torta de pollo. This thing is huge. The chicken was shredded with red chile seasoning. Very flavorful. It was moist but not so juicy as to turn the telera into bread pudding. It is served with the typical shredded lettuce and sour cream, but you can get avocado slices added, which is a must. This was a bit of a breakout for Ms T and she enjoyed it very much. Half went home and was good left over.
To top this off, I ordered two small cartons of soup to take home; posole and carne en su jugo. Both appear to be a weekend specialty. The posole is based in a rich red chile broth with carne de cabra. As typical, it was served with chopped onion, lime, chopped radish and shredded cabbage. The posole was very good and we will certainly order it again.
I was introduced to carne en su jugo at Karne Garibaldi in Guadalajara. I worked out a version of my own that matches what I had there and really like to make it. It has become a family favorite. Since the KG version is the only one that I have had, I was really interested in trying another. The version from El Ranchito is pretty much the same, with plenty of beef, a few frijoles and some bacon as a garnish. It has a good flavor including the tartness I was expecting. I felt the beef needed to be cooked more to render it more tender, but it was very hearty. This is also a re-​order.