El Palacio Mexican Restaurant

El Palacio Mexican Restaurant is part of a small, family-run chain with deep roots in Mohave County. The only Valley-based outpost of the chain is situated in a suburban Chandler shopping center. The impressively sprawling menu – seven pages brimming with all manner of Mexican dishes – doesn’t make up for the lack of fresh, flavorful fare. Appetizers like “donkey bites” – deep-fried cheese-and-chorizo bites – are creative, but also very oily and mostly dull in flavor. Dinner specials like fajitas are fine, if unexceptional, and regional Mexican dishes like mole poblano are downright sacrilege: the mole arrives soupy and extra-sweet. Other specials, including the so-called “Mexican Flag” enchilada trio, offers better overall flavor.