
There's a variety of restaurants in Chapala and Ajijic, including very inexpensive food trucks off the roadsides.
My typical lunch from the local restaurant Lake Taco is a two-piece fish taco and a nice, big glass of lemonade. This meal is under 100 pesos (US $5.50). I usually run over to Lake Taco because it's like home and is very accessible.
I like to go to a really nice, full, all-you-can-eat Mexican and north of the border fruit buffet breakfast on a weekend, which normally costs 125 pesos ($6.85) per person and up to 150 pesos ($8.25) on special events like Christmas and Easter. The simple buffet would have soups, salsas, tacos, and vegetables. A full buffet would also include omelets of all kinds, half a dozen different eggs and other breakfast-type dishes, a table just for desserts, and drink-all-you-can coffee and juice.
All Mexican restaurant prices include tax. When you order in restaurants in Canada, the taxes added on to the final bill. It's nice that in Mexican restaurants, the prices you see in menus are what you get in your bill and what you pay for.
For dinner, there are a couple of restaurants that we like such as Roberto's Restaurant, which offers two-for-one promos on Fridays during certain hours. A meal of soup or salad, appetizers such as carrot and sweet potato fritters, and one of my favorite entrées of sea bass with orange sauce, rice or potato, and steamed vegetables costs around 180 pesos ($10). You can also go to Roberto's for lunch and they have a whole menu for 75 pesos ($4).
There are a lot of restaurants that have very excellent lunch-time specials around the 75-peso range ($4). A year or so ago, the lunch package cost was in the 50-peso range ($2.75), but the impact of the drastic change in the difference in the Mexican peso to US dollar resulted in the increase of food prices as well as the rise in costs of other products like gasoline.
You can also go to the mall and get a Subway sandwich for 45 pesos ($2.45).
(View from Lake Taco, Ajijic, Mexico, pictured.)