Name Of Establishment	El Grullense Jal
Address:	1024 Pacheco Blvd. Los Banos Ca.
Phone Number:	209-826-8575
Website:	Unknown
Prices:	Low / reasonable
Date Of Review:	July 3, 2006
Check out the Official Merced County Health Inspection of this Restaurant - If that link isn't working try this link (note: these links are slow to load)
Our Overall Numeric Rating
Summation Opinion: Good Mexican style food with unusual late night hours

On July 3, 2006 we went to El Grullense Jal in Los Banos, a very busy restaurant on Pacheco Blvd. There were quite a few patrons there and after we ate our meal, we can understand why. The prices are good as is the food.

You order your meal after reading the menu board. There are quite a few choices including six dollar combinations where you can choose your meat, type of tortillas and you also get rice, beans and other "fixings". The prices are pretty reasonable and suitable for families. Drinks are not soda fountain style, but rather out of the bottle (so no free refills). They offer sodas from Mexico (which taste a bit different due to a different type of sugar used in the recipe) as well as a variety of other beverages.

El Grullense Jal is an informal place with service occurring "from behind the counter". The gal who took our order was very friendly and helpful.

There are two areas for seating, one having half booths and the other having little tables with colored pieces of tile making a design over the top. We chose the latter. The only unfortunate thing about both sections is that there was a large and annoying amount of flies. During the entire meal we were constantly shooing them away from our food. This was, to say the least, a most unpleasant distraction.

There isn't much to say about the decor except that the place could have used a good scrubbing, although the bathrooms were in great condition. In fact, the bathrooms were much more spotless and clean than the main dining areas.

The food was very good. Tortillas came wrapped up in foil and were very hot with a little bit of crispiness to them (from being fried). The meat was quite tasty (we tried the beef and chicken). Each combination plate that we ordered came with beans, rice, lettuce, tomatoes, onions with cilantro, and two types of sauces. We ordered Monterey Jack cheese on the side for an additional 60 cents.

We left El Grullense Jal feeling very satisfied and happy with our experience (except for the flies). I was also surprised to find that they stay open quite late (their hours posted were from 8am to 12am). This is a nice addition to the few late night restaurants in town (and something much more "authentic" and "homemade" tasting).

Specific Opinions By Reviewer One
Overall Rating:
Food:
Service:
Decor:
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness:
Romance Factor
Family Fun

Specific Opinions By Reviewer Two
Overall Rating:
Food:
Service:
Decor:	Needs a better cleaning job.
Price/Value:
Bathroom Cleanliness
Romance Factor
Family Fun

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Reviews in this section are simply personal opinions. We are sharing these, our experiences and opinions as a means to further discussion in our Los Banos Forums section not to promote or discommend any particular business. In fact we absolutely encourage our readers to make a personal visit to each of the restaurants we review and form your own opinion which (if it is respectful and honest) you are encouraged to post on the Los Banos Bulletin Boards where you are also welcome to discus OUR reviews.

More About Our Los Banos Restaurant Reviews

In this section, the staff of Our Los Banos .com shares our personal opinions on the restaurants that we patronize in the City of Los Banos. We would like to stress that we are not professional reviewers, that we have had little or no training in the food arts, and that we are simply expressing our own personal views and opinions on particular visits that we made to the establishments under consideration.

Subjectivity. We make no pretense of the fact that we are not objective. As with art, food is a subjective experience subject to personal opinion and even whim. Some people love a particular artist's work while others can not stand what is put on canvas. Picasso comes to mind. Similarly people's appreciation for a particular chef's abilities are uniquely their own. While our tastes are very eclectic and we enjoy a tremendous variety of different types of food, we do not expect our readers will agree with all of our opinions and views. We DO encourage our readers to try each of the places that we have reviewed and then you can discuss (politely and in a positive fashion) your experiences and opinion of our review in the Los Banos Forum section.

Merced County Health Food Facility Inspections Site

Finally, we strongly encourage our readers to make use of a truly wonderful online resource we discovered last year. Merced County has put together a very cool Food Facility Inspection website which discloses the results of the County Health Department's last few inspections of each restaurant. The results are sometimes quite fascinating and are always interesting. Beware however you may not want to eat at certain places once you read some of the more dramatic entries. We at Our Los Banos .com very much appreciate and support the county of Merced putting these Department of Health food facility inspections online for the public to see.

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