Habaneros

I’m one to always try to respect what a small business owner tries to do, and a restaurant venture usually begins with a passion to deliver what the owner deems as a quality product. That being said, I’m simply not a fan in this case. The food simply wasn’t very good. We ordered nachos to start as an appetizer and we were prett

The fish tacos could potentially be renamed glass shard tacos.
I recently went to Habaneros with my brother and good friend. My brother is obsessed with getting fish tacos since he saw that Paul Rudd Movie «I Love You, Man» and kind of inspired my friend and I to order them at Habaneros too. So the three of us all ordered fish tacos.
Started out fine. The waiter brought over sangria on the house.
But then he brought over fish tacos sprinkled with glass.
Not sea salt, glass. I wish the tacos had flavor, so I guess, on two levels, I wish it had been sea salt.
As I was biting into my second of three tacos, I felt a bizarre crunch and realized just exactly what was in my taco. My brother and friend both said they had munched something weird but thought it was just fish bones.
We were embarrassed to say anything right away, because the restaurant was empty. Against better judgment, we kept eating. I know, I know. If there is glass in your food, you should stop eating.
Anyway we kept eating. ha. A bite from my third taco had tiny pieces of glass, so I stopped. My brother crunched on a shard and pulled it from his mouth.
When the waiter finally reappeared (his absence is another excuse why we didn’t speak up sooner) we showed him a big chunk from my taco and the tiny piece from my brothers.
He didn’t really say anything, and never offered an explanation. He ended up comping my order, but really, all three of our meals were made from the same batch of fish I’d imagine. We all had glass in our mouths.
Ugh. Just a shame. I hate to give such a negative review, but I can’t really rate them anything above one star after this. Glass. In a pretty tasteless fish taco.

First the saga:
Ordered from here for delivery for lunch on a weekend. We were looking for a place to get some food and came across Habaneros. Armed with the online menu, we placed an order for delivery. 15 minutes for delivery. Great! 45 min later we got a call that the guy was outside. We ordered two sets of tacos (7 $ and 8 $ tacos). The bill said 10 $ per taco. We called to see what the deal was and they said it was dinner prices on weekends. Thats BS but whatever. Upon a recheck of the site, the dinner price is advertised as 8 $. WTF. We called again and the manager was pretty accomodating and gave us a 4 $ credit for next time. I get it, he is the mgr, not the owner, he can only do so much and he claimed the website wasnt updated (not his job) etc etc.
Pretty frustrating, but on to the food… Terrible. I got the chicken tacos and my friend got the beef tacos. Both were equally terrible. Dry as hell. There are these miniscule sides of salsaish stuff to put on them, but there is barely enough for 1 taco nevermind the 3 it comes with. The shells were soggy (maybe from a long delivery) and it was just overall dry. Even after we added some cheese and sour cream, the meat was just plain dry. They have cilantro (which I like) in their taco’s, but they use too much. Just overall, not good.
We also got chips and salsa. The salsa was like water with a drop of ketchup in it. bleh.
Its nice the mgr gave us a credit, but we will never use it.
Booo habaneros.

I was just here the other day and I don’t think it’s connected to that Thai place anymore… it looks like maybe it used to be because there are two separate rooms, but idk.
So my experience at Habanero’s was like a roller coaster ride… Pretty good food, but mediocre service. BYO, but inaccurate menu descriptions AND a misleading sign outside. Extensive enough menu, but weird portions and no side dishes.
We’re walking down the street and see a sign that says «Free Sangria.» SCORE! But there has to be a catch, right… Oh, there was. We walked in and the waiter told us the place is BYO… we bring the wine, they make the sangria for us. Cool, so we go up the block to the liquor store and come back with a bottle. While I was in the bathroom (which was clean and cute, with a selection of soaps to choose from), the waiter told my friends that the first 3 glasses are free and then we pay $ 12 for a pitcher… Hmmm, this is starting to sound like a scam. But we gave it a try. The first 3 glasses were like drinking grape juice with some lime. We get the pitcher and we can actually see the wine separated from the sangria mix. it was about ⁵⁰⁄₅₀. I does not like.
I asked the waiter what actually goes into their sangria mix and found out that I was paying $ 12 for some club soda, sugar and lime with «mixed fruit» (i.e. diced apples ONLY) in addition to the wine I already bought. Now I’m kinda pissed. We asked for them to add more wine to the mix and felt a little better when we were accommodated.
We ordered the veggie empanada’s as an appetizer which cost something like $ 7 and was listed under entrees and I assumed we would get an entrée-​like portion. WRONG. Two empanadas… which were actually delicious, but still… 2 for a dinner portion? You’ve got to be kidding me. The menu said they come with guac but they did not. We had to ask for it.
I had the fish taco’s which were good, but came solo. No rice or beans or veggies or anything. Same with the burritos my boys ordered. And Jordan was a little weirded out by the carrots in his veggie burrito, but Colin liked them, so I guess that one is a matter of opinion.
The service was also pretty slow, considering there were only 2 other tables the entire time we were in there.
Overall, I think this place has some potential because the food is good, but they need to get their act together. I think it’s just a matter of poor management. Keep the chefs, give us some sides, light a fire under the waiter’s ass, and for the LOVE OF GOD come up with a better sangria recipe! And I might think about coming back.

Good God, why? That is what you will be asking yourself after you’ve eaten at Habaneros/​Spice II in Montclair, NJ. It’s certainly what my boyfriend and I are asking ourselves 24 hours later. Why?
First, WTF, seriously? It’s not Thai/​Mexican fusion. It’s not even Thai or Mexican as far as we can tell. The food here resembles something that someone who has experienced neither Thai nor Mexican first-​hand might create after reading about it in their second (not native!) language. I had better Mexican during my study-​abroad in South Africa. And the Mexican in South Africa really doesn’t resemble anything that anyone in Mexico would actually serve you.
Since these two restaurants are in this odd, Siamese-​twin type state of being separate yet conjoined, you can order off either menu in both dining rooms. If it makes any difference to you, we ate in the Mexican dining room because the maitre’d in the Mexican Dining room was very enthusiastic about our business while the woman in the Thai dining room was yelling at someone on her cell phone. The Mexican dining room was playing delightful mariachi music. So that was kind of nice.
My boyfriend and I and our friends did just that — we ordered things off both menus. Our salsa with our 10-​chip appetizer was brown. BROWN. And it was not terribly tasty. The chips were fine, and not overly salty, but the serving size was meager to be kind. Although, I must note, they offered us more chips when we’d killed the basket off. We declined.
I had the pad-​thai with shrimp (a.k.a old, stiff, under-​cooked noodles in sugar-​sauce with shrimp that had the texture and flavor of cardboard). My boyfriend had the chicken burrito (and I quote: «It was comprised almost entirely of beans and lettuce and the beans tasted at least 5 days old.»). The burrito had no pleasant spices or sauces (as Allison O. noted). It was actually kind of gross looking. We both declined to take it home.
Our friends had the Pad Thai with shrimp and the spiced beef. We all shared the Pineapple fried rice. The fried rice was fine — but it wasn’t that great, and it was very bland of Thai food — closer to bad Chinese takeout with little chunks of canned pineapple thrown in. The spiced beef was a small portion that looked over-​cooked.
To top everything off, we all tried the fried ice cream, which was actually store-​brand ice cream wrapped in several layers of tortilla. Was it actually fried? I have no idea. It was warm, but the tortilla was difficult to cut through and added an odd chewiness to the ice cream, which tasted like it’d been open in a cardboard container in a freezer for a week or two. It remained unfinished, despite being on a table of four people who had each stopped eating their dinners prematurely. It wasn’t awful, but it just wasn’t good enough to warrant eating more of it.
I’m not overly familiar with all the options in Montclair, but there MUST be better Thai and better Mexican SOMEWHERE. Anywhere? I would not recommend blowing any money here. And you would be blowing it.
To their credit, the service was fine and the waiter was helpful, although I thought the prices were awfully high for what we received given that there is much higher quality food in this area.

This place is the sister restaurant to Spice II, and you have the option of eating Thai food or Mexican food at Habanero’s.
The last few reviews were pretty spot on, except in my opinion, less forgivable for a Mexican restaurant.
Chip baskets were teeny. Like 10 chips. Really? Is this a joke?
Everything we ordered completely lacked flavor and spice. My whole meal I was looking for some salsa or hot sauce or something to add more flavor (which is ironic, considering the name of the place is «Habanero’s»!). The dishes came with basically nothing on the side, no beans, no rice, no salsa.
You have the option to Bring Your Own tequila or wine, and mix your own sangria or margaritas. We did this, but the margaritas were just sweet and sour mix with a lime in it. Blegh.
In summary, this place produces food that has all the basic components of mexican food (tortillas, beans, rice) and looks like mexican food, but it lacks the sauces and in-​your-​face flavors of legitimate Mexican food. Sadly, the other mediocre Mexican restaurants in Montclair are better than this place.
Since Habanero’s just opened, I’ll probably give this place another try in a few months, see if they added some flavor to the food.

My friend just performed a little concert tonight at this cozy little BYOB Mexican restaurant owned by the Thai lady who owns the Thai restaurant «Spice II» next door. «Habaneros» and «Spice II» are actually connected inside and you can order Thai food from next door while dining at Habaneros. My friend picked a good place to have an intimate concert for a big group of friends. The ambiance is casual and low-​key, the food is tasty and inexpensive (3 soft tacos for $ 8, $ 10 burritos, and the most expensive dish is $ 17 seafood platters consisting tilapia, shrimp, mussels & calamari), and the owner is very accommodating and friendly. For dessert, I recommend flan al caramelo! This homemade caramel custard is not overly sweet, smooth silky and delicious!