Dos Perros

We had heard this was a very good Mexican place and tried it a few nights ago. We both ordered their sangria, guacamole and the special of the day which was a salmon on top of blakc bean purée with plantains and avocado. I have to say the meal was delcious. The guacamole was very good and the special fish was excellent. Very nicely balanced and just the right size portion. The whole combination of flavors wok red well together.
My only comment would be that there are no comfrotable seats to retire to enjoy the surroundings.
I wish them a lot of luck!

Great service. The chips were very good. Food is good, but overpriced, maybe due to the location. Probably won’t return.

The bland food and horrible service have me wondering if I will have stomach issues later. The food is not fresh and not tasty. They offer a spicy sauce to try and mask the frozen food taste. The servers do not seem to care about their tables and all the while the manager watches and does nothing.

On the decline?
This used to be my favorite Mexican restaurant but I am less enthusiastic. They had really great margaritas, but changed the recipe a few months ago, much for the worse. Lunch service is offered for a while, then is eliminated, then back, etc.
Servers are mostly quite good, especially Brian. Food is consistently good, but seems less special than a couple years ago. So I think it is still good, but find myself going elsewhere.

To think we almost didn’t go here because of the reviews makes me sad! We had a terrific Saturday night dinner after a matinée at DPAC. We were there early so we didn’t have any problem getting in, but they do take reservations. It was certainly getting busy by the time we left. Lots of seating is available, inside and out, as well as a good size bar. We were given a two-​top by the window and had an excellent Gal Server.
Husband had a beer while I stuck with a glass of wine. We were immediately brought fresh chips with a green salsa. The salsa, while tasty, had a bit of an unusual texture to it. Neither of us could guess what they used to thicken it.
Despite some terrific sounding specials, Husband decided on the Pork Carnitas which he loved. Generous portion of flavorful pork with three tortillas, excellent beans and some rice. I was drawn to the Chile Relleno with Asadero Cheese and Veggies on a bed of pureed black beans. YUM! I know I will crave this and have to go back for it again!
What’s nice about this kind of Mexican food is that it’s not overly heavy. So we had room to share the Churros with Chocolate Sauce. Mmmmm!
Other reviews have mentioned the high prices here, but we felt they were in line with the quality. This is indeed more upscale-​type Mexican than your usual burrito/​enchilada type place.
And if the food and service weren’t great enough, loved the sign on the unisex bathroom doors: «We do not discriminate. We oppose HB2. #WeAreNotThis»

We had Dos Perros cater rehearsal dinner and welcoming reception this past weekend. I could not have been more pleased with the wonderful food, and attention to detail provided by Mary Baird and Chef Michael for these events. They took care of every detail during the evening, allowing us to enjoy ourselves without a single concern.
The food served at the rehearsal dinner, starting with guacamole, gorditas, and ensalata verde, followed by a choice of Roasted chicken — topped with traditional mole poblano, Grilled Hanger Steak — with chimichurri or Chile Relleno — vegetable & cheese stuffed poblano pepper and Oaxacan crema was plated beautifully, and absolutely delicious.
The special menu created for the Welcome Reception included
guacamole and salsa verde, cucumber canapé with crab bacon salad,
cochinita pibil tostones with pickled red onions, and roasted oyster mushroom «ceviche» tostada. Our guests could not say enough about the variety and flavor of all the fredsh food served!
Thank you to Mary, chef Michael and the rest of the staff for helping us get our son’s wedding weekend off to such an incredible start!

The guacamole is great! The food is delicious! No queso however and the margaritas are very good except a little weak! Needs more tequilla! Overall it was great service and food!

Service: Great! Water topped off, explained the menu and specials well.
Food: Delicious. Chips were warm, salsa verde is fresh and yummy. Brought out a new spicy sweet salsa that cleared my sinuses. Awesome, but could only handle a little. Carne asada was cooked perfectly with great flavor. I would have perfered an option on the sides, but not to the point of docing a star. Husband had the chicken mole, also delicious.

Being new to the area it was hard to find a descent Mexican restaurant. After a long search on the Internet, I decided to try Dos Perros only for the menu that I saw online. I had my mouth watering for a few items only to find out that there is a new chef in town and a whole new menu. I feel duped into going because they were to lazy to change their online menu.
The entrees I picked were good, but didn’t leave me with a wow impression. I doubt that we will be going back. The menu apparently changes often and your choices are limited to maybe 10 items and the specials of the day.

A LOW Sanitation Rating 94! Wish I had seen this before dining there, but hard to see since it was placed on a bench, near the corner, placed between pamphlets. No women only bathroom.
So this was my first and will be last visit to…“Dos Perilous.” I regret ordering the trout special, as I had food poisoning symptoms in the restaurant… and got to know the toilet rather well, ouch!
After enduring the pain of food poisoning, I returned to my table and apologized to my friend for my long absence. I was feeling so sick I wasn’t sure I had the strength to wait to speak to the manager, but decided it was important to report it. I told manager Edwin was not surprises, concerned., or apologetic!
I would give a 0 for the food and sub-​par service but Unilocal minimum is 1.

My food was fine, Pollo Ahumado — a chicken based dish. My friend ordered a seafood based dish — trout, I think. After dinner she got ill and inquired about the fish; we believe it was the fish. She informed the manager and he apparently believed she was simply seeking a free meal; no real sense of concern or compassion. With some protest, the bill was paid in full.
I would not recommend this restaurant. It’s not worth taking the chance.

«Upscale Mexican-​style food in downtown Durham»
I feel there are three general kinds of Mexican restaurants in the area (not including «Chipotle», which is basically fast-​food in a tortilla). Some restaurants span a few of these categories, but it’s important to distinguish them in reviews.
1) the tex-​mex kind– places that have a «speedy gonzalez» special and make-​your-​own combos with enchiladas vs. tacos, etc. Ones where the cheaper «beef» option looks like something poured from a chili can. An example of this would be El Rodeo.
2) places that serves food like street food in smaller cities in Mexico I’ve visited– places that serve tacos with interesting meats like cabeza or tongue. Examples of this may be La Superior Carniceria or even Vaquita. I like these places a lot, and they’re very cheap.
3) the upscale «Mexican-​inspired» places (some say «California-​style») that have fancy fish on the menu and craft dishes both for appearance as well as complementarity of flavors. Dos Perros fits in here, along with Tonali. I review with that distinction in mind– clearly category 2 places will be cheaper than category 3:
Service. Excellent every time I’ve come here, unequivocally. They clearly go out of their way to look out for customers’ needs and wants, and offer good advice and insights on their dishes.
Selection. Many options here for any sorts of dietary restrictions– whether you’re gluten-​free or vegan or a total carnivore, you’ll find options here that appeal. Definitely high marks for that.
Quality. Overall high. Some dishes are excellent, and the ones that aren’t are still good. Occasionally I’m not a fan of the flavor mix, but even when I don’t like it, I can tell it’s clearly thoughtful and high quality.
Ambiance. Design of the restaurant is excellent– nice artwork and interesting carvings on the ceilings. Atmosphere is OK but sometimes noisy. If you wanted a quiet romantic date, I’d go to Tonali rather than Dos Perros, whereas if you wanted a place for dinner & drinks with a group (or a less-​intimate setting), Dos Perros is better.
Price. Not «cheap» but not unfair given the attention paid to quality. Even for lunch, entrees are in the $ 10-​$ 15 range. Quantity is fair but not huge.
If you want street-​food Mexican (which I love and often crave), go elsewhere. You won’t get that here, and you’ll be mad at the amount you paid. If you want a higher-​end dining experience, then definitely consider it. I slightly prefer the flavors at Tonali overall, but Dos Perros is A-​OK.

I was there fore a private event, so I did not order food as it had been ordered ahead of time for us. I do have to say that it had a good and authentic flavor (I was very surprised to find authentic Mexican flavors in Durham I have to be honest here), and the service was attentive.
The salsa was not spicy at all. I mean, a baby could eat the salsa. That was a bit of a disappointment. But the mini churros drizzled with chocolate we got for dessert at the end were delicious! Crunchy, sweet, and warm. Just perfect.

I came to Dos Perros on a Sunday night, so the menu was their Taco night menu. I was planning on ordering some tacos until I heard their specials, so I ended up ordering the al pastor platter with plantains.
We started with some guac and chips, which was good. When my al pastor platter came, it was a plate with the meat, black beans, plantains, and some tomato salsa. There were four small tortillas on a separate plate. I always judge Mexican places on their al pastor as a standard for me, and Dos Perros definitely wasn’t my favorite. Their meat was almost like a stew, with all the meat, herbs, and even the pineapple all cooked together and served like a stew on the plate. It tasted good, but I prefer to have fresh pineapple on top, fresh herbs, and not as wet meat on the taco (Gonza does the al pastor much better). Also my friend ordered the enchiladas con mole, and she really did not like it (and she normally loves mole).
Our server (Nicole) was really cold to us. She didn’t smile, she didn’t engage in any conversation. She was blunt and we felt afraid to even ask her questions about the menu.
Dos Perros definitely isn’t the worst, but just like Unilocal’s two star rating says, «Meh. I’ve experienced better.»

Yep, expensive Mexican but the venue and quality of food help to justify it. I would like to give them a 3.5 and I’m not quite sure they are at a 4.
We came on taco night and ordered UK the Chipotle Lamb, Barbacoa and Carnitas tacos with the guacamole appetizer and left pleased. The guacamole is excellent but it is a small portion. The tacos are small but had good flavor and quality meat. All in all a fair deal as the restaurant is very nice inside and massive; there is a dining area upstairs and downstairs, a bar area and patio seating. Service was fast but it was not very busy. My date’s two cents «very delicious tacos, I want more.»

Plantain appetizer and pineapple chicken? Dont remember name were to die for. Carnitas were very good.

I heard from several friends Dos Perros is really good mexican food. Being from San Diego CA I have resisted coming here in fear of my biased exposure to Mexican food from Mexico and Mexican food in San Diego, which in my opinion far exceeds any Mexican food i have tasted anywhere else in the USA.
With that said, I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. My coworkers had a meeting here. We got there around 6:30 on a Wednesday night and boy was service… scarce. Perhaps one of their workers called in sick or something but all servers and hosts/​hostesses were running around like mad! Eventually with some prodding, we were shown our table.
From that point forward service recovered. Food came out evenly and quickly. Now the food on the other hand…
I had the Enchiladas de Borrego (braised lamb). The entrée was $ 18. I get it, lamb is expensive, but for $ 18 I certainly expected a lot more out of the meal itself. I couldn’t really tell if it was lamb. The meat was dry and I had to mix it up in the bean and enchilada sauce just to save it. I was pretty unimpressed.
I’m not sure if I’d come back here. Most of the entrees ranged in the $ 14 — $ 21 range, which for mexican food seems to me a bit steep. Just give me $ 1.50 street tacos and I’d be happy.

At the last minute we decided to come to Dos Perros. We walked in and the entire first floor dining room was packed with a large private party all going nearest performance theatre. One person my party was in a wheelchair and we could not sit at the hightops at the bar therefore the host was able to seat us in the basement dining room using the elevator.
Great service. The food had a good amount of spice in it. If you do not like spicy food you could probably only find a few dishes that you like. Plenty of vegetarian options and the desserts were delicious. We would definitely come back. Street parking was easy. Service was excellent, the wait staff was friendly and all of our courses came out of the timely manner. Definitely a place you can go to if you’re heading over to the DPAC or the Carolina Theatre for a show.

I popped in here because the chicken and waffles place had a long wait and was closing soon. I have to say the name is what caught my friend and mine’s eye. Brunch was coming to a close but we were permitted to eat there. I ordered the molletes and my friend had the vegan enchilada’s. Both were very tasty and full of flavor especially the molletes. The price was decent for what we ordered.

The 2014 Indy award recommended Dos Perros as the best margaritas in the triangle so I had to try them. They were okay. I’ve had my fair share of margaritas with jalapeños and habanero before so it wasn’t too inventive or exciting. The Hot Guava gave me a nice spicy tickle, hibiscus margarita — I wanted more hibiscus flavor? And the classic is just a regular margarita, a good go-​to drink. I think if I had to pick one it would be the blood orange margarita; it was a great balanced drink! It wasn’t too sweet, slightly bitter at the end, which I liked, and you can taste all the flavors.
The food was decent. I loved the chicken mole! It was so flavorful and the chicken was moist and cooked to perfection. However the bistek and chimichurri, I expected a green pesto looking sauce, traditional to South America, but instead I got a pico de gallo looking salsa. It wasn’t the flavor I was looking for. Maybe I was expecting something different?
It was way overpriced for what I got. I did give them 3 stars for mainly the location. We sat outside and I love the atmosphere of the lights and the people of different restaurants sitting together.