Critic's Review
I felt like Mexican, and not that Fresh Mexican junk. The last time I went to Aztec there was an incident; they charged me the dinner price and their POS clock seemed to be set ahead 1/2 hour, which caused you to be charged the "after 3pm" prices even if you left at 2:45. It was only $2 I think, but it's not right. I set out to see if it would happen again. I timed it so I'd be finishing up at 2:45.
I got there at 2:20. No hostess at the stand. They have a big bar on the right that isn't in use at lunch time.
Finally someone showed up and showed me to a table. It's very festive inside; apparently they have Dos Equis beer. There were also 2 women with 4 screaming kids in the room. Great.
The booths are pretty fancy, but I suspect that they weren't sourced in Mexico.
Chips and salsa came out first; it took a while for a serve to come over to take my beverage order. They do have lemon; a plus.
The salsa is very loose; but it's quite good. The chips were fresh and crisp. The bean dip was a nice addition; sort of like refried beans but not as mashed up.
My plan was thwarted by a menu change; they no longer have a Chile Relleno on the lunch menu, and I didn't want tacos or enchiladas. So I had to order from the regular menu. $9.99 including rice and beans; I ordered Mexican Rice and Black beans instead of the refried beans.
The server dude would disappear for 5 minutes and then come out with a tray full of dishes. I surmised that he might also be doing the cooking. There was no attentiveness here; he just rolled in and out of the kitchen.
The food came out in 5 minutes.
The beans weren't the Cuban style beans that you get at most places regardless of the restaurant cuisine. These were kind of strange. Not terrible. The bean dip was a good replacement for the refried beans without the cheese; so I had a full plate of stuff.
The chile relleno was superb; oozing with cheese, the pepper cooked just right.
At 2:50 I was ready to go but the server dude was out of site for a long time. I flagged down a floor person and got my check. Something interesting was that the time on the check was 2:30PM. I'm going to guess that their POS automatically puts the dinner price on the bill if you cash out after 3pm, which is obviously wrong (you get the price when you sit down, not when you leave). So they must be compensating by setting the clock back. Maybe they read my review.
Conclusion
This place is actually one of the nicer Mexican restaurants around. Good food, generous freebies and fair prices. Not the best service, but the food comes out quickly. Sometimes indifferent service is OK.
Review 1/24/13
I felt like some Mexican food without having to go too far, so I settled on trying Azteca Real up in Davie. It's in the same center as Round Up on the corner of 595 and Pine Island Road. It's kind of a twisty sort of parking lot, but I found myself a spot and went inside.
There was no hostess at the stand; no sign of anyone. I waited for awhile, and then a girl appeared with a take-out order. She showed me to a booth in one of the 3 main dining rooms. I was given a lunch menu, and I noticed that it said that lunch was served until 3pm (It was about 2:20pm).
The place is very "authentic", there's people screaming in Spanish and real Mexican music (Pedro Infante and El Relampago). One girl came buy and took my iced tea order, while another came by and dropped off some chips and salsa. They serve lemon with the iced tea, but beware that their yellow isn't splenda; it's an off brand.
It was a pretty soupy Salsa, but a good one. My Chile Relleno came out very fast, on a red-hot plate.
It was so hot I couldn't eat it right way; the cheese in the pepper was running like water. After a few minutes it firmed up, and it was an enjoyable lunch.
When I finished my glass was empty, and it wasn't until I asked for my check that I was offered a refill. I was ready to go so I declined. When I got the check I was surprised that it was $12; my recollection was that the Poco 2 Combo had a 6 in front of it and they charged me $8.95. I thought to myself that maybe I was looking at the wrong thing and I just payed the bill.
When I got home, I checked the lunch menu on their website and saw that the price was $6.95. My first impression was that they just made a mistake, and I wasn't happy about it. But then I checked my receipt and it became clear what was going on.
Notice that the time marked on the receipt is 3:09PM, but here's the rub. I took the main picture on this page as I was leaving, and my camera timestamped it at 3pm sharp. I used the bathroom on my way out, so it couldn't have been later than 2:50pm when I cashed out. I also noticed that the dinner price for this dish is $8.95, which is what they charge after 3pm.
Now it's ridiculous to charge someone the dinner price if they LEAVE after 3pm; you get the lunch price if you order before 3pm. But they've also fixed their clocks so that people who leave before 3pm also get charged the dinner price. You expect this kind of crap in Mexico, but not in Davie. I have to guess that they're doing this on purpose, which is really, really bad business.