From the Archives: This Could Be Interesting ...

(This is the one that started it all! The first review!)

Originally published February 13, 2012

Today we went to El Rodeo. It's a Mexican restaurant. I picked to go there because I love Mexican food. Me, my mom and my younger brother went. When we first got in, we waited at the counter. All of us except for my younger brother Bo. He ran away. Then the waitress took us to our table.

We relaxed there. Then our appetizers came. It was chips and salsa, like all Mexican restaurants have. I usually get cheese dip but today I didn't because my mom said I couldn't. We ate the chips and salsa -- the chips were corn chips. They were fine. And the salsa tasted like a jalapeno because salsa always has tomato sauce and they put in cilantro and onions and that's what makes it really spicy. I loved the salsa.

Then our drinks came. I got a Diet Coke, that's what I usually get at restaurants. I always get that because it sounds like the best pop in the world to me. It is always fun to get pop at a restaurant.

 Me (above)

Then we ordered our food. I ordered a cheese enchilada with Mexican rice and a burrito. And my brother ordered two tacos. And my mom ordered fajitas. The correct way to spell fajitas is f-a-j-i-t-a-s. You pronounce it like this "fah-he-tah." I know it's strange that the way they spell it has a "j" in it. Just like how you spell "night". Night sounds like "n-i-t" but that really spells "nit". But the correct way to spell it is n-i-g-h-t.

 Bo, my younger brother (above)

Now I will tell you about how it tasted. When I first tried the rice, I definitely knew that I had had it before. Because I mostly order rice at Mexican restaurants. So that wasn't new. But I still liked it. It tasted hot when I first ate it because it just came out of the stove or oven. And it tasted like normal rice, except they added vegetables and more taste to it. Next, I ate my cheese enchilada. It was very good because I tasted melted cheese inside it. The sauce on it also tasted like a jalapeno. Next I ate my burrito. It was very big. And I only ate half of it. It had meat and beans in it. It tasted like beef mixed up  with beans inside.

 Cheese enchilada (above on the left corner), burrito (above in the center) and Mexican rice (above on the right corner)

And I didn't eat all of it, but I was still hungry so I asked my mom if I could have a fajita. And it had onions, green peppers, tomatoes, beans, and chicken and steak inside. Those flavors were much more tasty than the flavors that were in my main meal. Because those foods were just white and brown. And the foods in the fajita were much more colorful and that's why I liked it so much.

By the time I got done with that, my brother Bo had only ate the meat out of his taco. And he didn't eat the shell. Or the lettuce. And we decided that we'd only give him one taco from now on at restaurants. And that's it.

At the Border

On Monday night, we went to On the Border restaurant at Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines. A lot of people in my family were there. We were there because people from Mississippi were in Iowa. We were at one big table. 


The first thing I saw on the table was chips and salsa. The chips were big! And when I ate a lot of chips with salsa then my tongue started burning. There was no drinks at my table so I had to eat a lot of chips to make it go away. 

I ordered a combo that was chicken tortilla soup, beef empanadas and a fish taco. I was starving!! And that was the only soup they had and I really like soup, so that's why I ordered it. The food came really slow. We ate a lot of chips while waiting. The restaurant was really noisy inside. It took a long time to get the food.

When the food came the soup had chips and a big avocado in it! It also had some chicken and cheese. It was really, really, really delicious because all the flavors of the avocado, and the chips were crispy. The meat was kind of spicy and the cheese was gooey. I ate all of it.

Next I tried my rice. It was really dry. Then I ate one of my beef empanadas. It had cheese sauce I could dip it in, and it had cheese inside already and taco meat. It was delicious because I liked the combination of cheese and meat. An empanada is like a crab rangoon but it doesn't have mushed up crab inside. It's crunchy and crispy. I didn't eat my fish taco, but I took it home. I just ate it for breakfast. It had fried fish inside, some cheese and vegetables. It tasted good. It was OK tasting as a leftover.

Everyone is eating and drinking in this picture. They forgot one of the persons at my tables food. So that person didn't get to eat when we did. I thought it was crazy because everyone else's food came. My brother didn't get his drink or his ice cream sundae either. So the service at the restaurant isn't very good because they forget a lot of things. 

 Then we went to watch geese and ducks and we fed them food. We could go right outside the restaurant to see the geese and ducks. When I was trying to feed a piece of meat to a duck, it jumped right up and tried to get it! I thought that was funny. We kept feeding the geese and ducks and then we went home.

Restaurant rating: Thumb sideways (just OK)
You should go to On the Border in West Des Moines, Iowa, and you should get a taco or something. It's kind of a good place for kids but maybe you should just go as an adult.