Well, if you've stuck with us this far, you've officially graduated to Taco Obsession - Level 10 as we're now 11 weeks into our local taco tour. Travis cheated a couple of months ago and hit Tacos Lopez WITHOUT US (jackass) and since he couldn't make it this week due to his reoccurring toe nail fungus situation (I kid, I kid) Chris and I decided this would be the perfect time to catch up to him and hit this local joint on West St.
Chris and I got there about our usual time of 1130am and there was no one there, save for the couple of employees present. The building is a plain Jane old restaurant building - typical for N West Street. If you're looking for ambience, this place is definitely not for you. When you enter, you go directly to the counter and place your order and pick up. Tacos here were 2.50 each (1.75 on Tuesdays). My first thought was that if I spend 10-15 bucks to have tacos and walk out of here hungry again (a la District Taqueria) then I was going to be a little cranky, considering I hadn't had breakfast that morning. I placed an order for 4 tacos - Adobada (pork), Carne Asada, Tripe, and Shrimp. Once I placed my order, there was a little counter where you could fill up on your choice of sauces and take as much extra onion, lime, or cilantro as you wanted. I kinda liked having the bar for those extras, but two of the sauces they normally make (hot and extra hot) were not available that day for some reason.
A short wait later, and tacos were in hand. No chips and salsa to start, but the plate looked like it would do the trick. There wasn't a shortage of meat and the 4 tacos were surprisingly filling. I started with the pork taco - it was an ok taco. The lady who took our order said it was spicy, but I didn't find it to be spicy at all. It had a pretty mild tomatillo flavor to it. Next up was the tripe. While tripe is just naturally a chewy meat anyway, this taco seemed to be pretty tough even by tripe standards. Given all the energy I had to exert to eat it, the flavor (or lack thereof) just didn't justify the effort. The carne asada was a decent taco - plenty of meat, but only a hint of seasoning in it. It went down much better with a splash of lime and some salsa. Not a bad taco, but nothing special. Lastly was the shrimp taco. Now compared to the first three tacos, I was a little disappointed in the amount of shrimp present. And while the other tacos were basically meat with a little onion and cilantro, the shrimp taco was covered in sour cream and lettuce. I don't mind either of those as a topping, but they completely overpowered the shrimp to the point where I could barely taste it. Huge let down.
Overall, I would say that Tacos Lopez is an okay stop on our tour to date. Not as bland as the tacos last week from El Gordo's, but this won't be my first preference on places to go to eat tacos again. My overall ratings on the 5 Taco Scale are below:
Food Quality - 2.5 Tacos
Price - $-$$
Value - 2.5 Tacos
Cleanliness - 3.0 Tacos
Service - 3.0 Tacos
Overall Rating - 2.5 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 2.5 Tacos
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