"Abuelos is a chain Mexican Tex Mex restaurant with 38 locations. It has been in Knoxville for many years now and is located right in the middle of Turkey Creek. In past years, I 've been to this particular Abuelos and it wasn 't good. It was the type of meal that you forget after a few years like eating at a random Applebees. Nonetheless, I thought I 'd give them a second chance. After all, they somehow maintain a prime location in Turkey Creek and people seem to go there. If it was bad, wouldn 't the free market economy deliver a swift death blow? Alas, apparently there is room for mediocre and even bad restaurants to survive. Abuelos illustrates this perfectly. I ordered the pork tenderloin with sweet chile glaze (a so called House Specialty). It was accompanied by mashed potatoes and beans. We also ordered the guacamole appetizer. While I wouldn 't usually order mashed potatoes in a Mexican restaurant, Abuelos saw fit to include it on their house specialty. So, I falsely assumed the side would be decent and, at a minimum, edible. But, when it came out, it looked like pretty gruesome. Like a sloppy, homogenized mixture of cheese and potato mix that had been microwaved 2 minutes too long. For goodness sake, just look at the picture below. I felt that eating the potatoes would be a food A bomb for my gut. The beans were a little better. At least, they resembled beans. But, the beans were so flavorless it was hard to eat more than a few bites. Now, the pork. It tasted fair. But, it wasn 't very good. Certainly nothing special or unique about it. Strangely enough, the pork tasted an awful lot like the teriyaki chicken over at Panda Express. In fact, it was cut up the same way and had a similar (yet less appealing) flavor. For the money, I 'd much prefer the Panda Express teriyaki chicken. At least the sides would be better and I 'd even get a fortune cookie! My wife ordered tamales. Her food also was pretty bad. Probably some of the least appealing tamales I have ever consumed. Overall: Avoid Abuelos. It 's name is strangely appropriate. If you had put my grandfather into a kitchen, I suspect the food would have tasted like this. That 's because, when he was alive, all he could do was open cans and use a microwave."
