El Portal Restaurant

“This is my go-to place in the Pasadena Playhouse District. Abel, the owner and his staff are always friendly & attentive. The Yucatan Mexican cuisine is diverse with excellent traditional dishes and specials. Large selection of tequilas. My favorite margaritas are the pomegranate and the watermelon. Musicians often stroll indoors & around the patio on weekend evenings. Separate room available for private parties.”

“Honestly this is the best Mexican food I’ve ever had! I’ve tried quite a lot of Mexican restaurants all over the country. I like the fact that their dishes taste freshly made and are not overly salty. Everything tastes perfectly balanced and refined. The ingredients are of high quality. I can’t rave enough about the salsa that comes with the complimentary chips. They have two different flavors of salsa: one is the more traditional red salsa, very common at Mexican restaurants but I love their version the best; the slightly yellowish salsa is even more sublime: it has a smoky wok-tossed flavor to the mashed veggies, with minced fresh red chilies (as spicy as Thai fresh red chilies, absolutely delicious!!!). If you love spicy salsa and freshly made high-quality Mexican food, this is the place to go! This place seems to be very popular with locals on weekends, and they have fantastic live music on Saturday evenings (possibly other nights too, I’m not sure)”

“I’m very surprised that this restaurant only has a 4.3 rating. I went there on Saturday (11/1/25) and had an absolutely awesome experience. Rodolfo was our server and he was excellent—SO personable, and also funny. All the other staff who interacted with us were great, too. When we walked up, I believe it was the chef who showed us the daily specials (actually dishes on display!) and seemed sooo excited to tell us about them. :) We all had delicious food. My family has enchiladas and I had some of their seasonal pumpkin soup since I wasn’t too hungry. I highly recommend El Portal and will definitely be going there next time I’m in Pasadena!”

“This place had a lot of potential. Great atmosphere, perfect location (right across from Pasadena Playhouse), and a diverse menu of foods from Mexico and the Yucatán. The food was just a little bland, and the margaritas tasted like juice. Nice staff tho, and it is a visually appealing location in a nice area.”

“Made a reservation beforehand and told the girl at the front my name and she said you were supposed to be here at 6? I said no I have the screenshot and my reservation. Completely ignored me and I felt like I was in the wrong. I said no again and she kept going on about how they held my table and I didn’t show. Another man came which I thought maybe it’s busy it’s the first day of the World Cup and he lets me show him my reservation and he’s like oh this is a different Catherine who didn’t come. The same girl leads us to our table ( a tiny table ) there’s only like 6 people and it’s empty. We are a party of 4. I thought how weird that I wasted like 15 minutes explaining my reservation. The food was gross and everyone was rude with the exception of one sweet lady that stands out. I’m gonna go throw up now. Thank you! Don’t order seafood unless you want to get sick”