Galerias

Galerias is a wonderful mexican restaurant on Broadway. Their menu is innovative while still offering traditional fare for those who aren't experimental. The mole is always excellent, and there are ample choices for vegetarians. They have a huge selection of top shelf tequilas as well as delicious margaritas and sangria. The decor is crazy and unique. Weekend evenings have a live harp player. Prepare to eat a lot, the servings are large, and the chips and salsa are endless. When the weather is good you can sit outside on the sidewalk and watch Broadway pass by. more

At Galerias, you're either going to love or hate the atmosphere. It can be pretty bizarre to the standard, white-bread American, but it also lends the place character. The menus are sort of annoying, but the rest is easy to get used to. The cuisine is definitely metro-Mexican, and it's pretty tasty. If you've eaten real Mexican (not fast food fare), especially Mexican that's been influenced by Maya cooking, you won't be surprised by what you see. The food is really, really good, but there's a lot of it. Both lunch and dinner are pretty tasty. I've also had good and not-so-friendly service. It's hard to say what the norm is. more

I generally can't stand Mexican - usually huge portions of rice and beans and very little innovation or difference between restaurants. Galerias is the one exception. My husband ordered a stuffed Pablano chiles dish, which was filled with pears, nuts, raisins, meat, and tons of other goodies. He raved for days about the sheer quantity of flavors and how well they blended together unexpectedly. I had "Flores de Dona Elba", a steak marinated in a hibiscus sauce (a wonderfully sweet, tangy sauce with a gorgeous red color) with a slice of sauteed fresh cactus underneath. The cactus had a strong flavor that was took some getting used to on its own, but which took the tangy edge off of the hibiscus sauce when eaten with the rest of the food. While rice and beans were present, they were not the majority of the food. Oh, and the orange flan was *amazing*! My advice is to try something different here. You can get your enchiladas, mole, and burritos at any Mexican restaurant - but not many of the other dishes here. more

On the recommendation of a friend we ate at Galerias (in advance of taking in a movie at Harvard Exit). We wouldn't recommend making a special trip. Everything is outrageously big and garish. The menus feel like oversided sheet metal bibles. Even the utensils are absurdly large. The appetizer portions were very large - really more of an main or for large groups. The soup could likewise feed an army. The mole is sweet (we're used to the Chile Pepper's unsweetened stuff) and the chicken in boiled chunks (not shredded) - so we were not impressed. If you're avoiding feta (like my pregnant wife), they sneak it in as a "secret ingredient" in various things. The waiters were brusque. more