Travis - Taco Tour stop #36 - Angela's Cafe & Cantina - 2119 W 21st

This week we finally made it to a place that has been on our list since the very beginning - or has it?  "Angela's Cafe" comes recommended frequently, but the confusing part is there is one that was located on east Central that is now closed.  So honestly, I'm not sure which one was being recommended so much.  For this stop on the tour, we went to Angela's Cafe & Cantina on 21st (just west of Amidon).

The other goofs were there already and were chomping down some chips & salsa by the time I arrived. Speaking of chips and salsa - this place definitely has the goods!  The salsa had a little heat - just about right to be enjoyable.  The chips were warm and tasty also - I think we knocked out 3 or 4 baskets before our food arrived and our waitress kept the refills coming fast.

I ordered an al pastor, a barbacoa, and a carne asada.  I was a little disappointed they didn't have a carnitas or something else, but that's okay - this should give me a good feel for what they have.  Now I just have to wait patiently for my food... and wait.... and wait...  Part of the reason we ate so many chips is that it took over 25 minutes for our food to arrive.  There were barely any other patrons here - so that's not a great sign.

The tacos finally came out and they looked a pretty skimpy on the onion and cilantro and they used only 1 tortilla.  There were also no limes served so we requested some and the waitress offered lemons.  (huh?)  Actually she went on to say they didn't have limes.  An authentic mexican restaurant with no limes?  BUT, then she found some - crisis averted.

I went to work on the carne asada first. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit oily. The flavor was acceptable.  I wouldn't put it among the best we had but it was a decent taco.

The barbacoa was next - it definitely was a little bland.  Not a lot of flavor and needed more cilantro.  Kind of a disappointment and was a little fatty also. (The taco, not Shon).

Last but not least, the al pastor! (Hopefully something redeeming). There was a nice flavor in the meat - plenty of seasoning.  I enjoyed this flavor and overall probably was the best of the trio.  Overall it was an enjoyable taco.

Overall, this stop was a little disappointing just because I had higher hopes for a stop that (I think) was recommended multiple times and has been a Wichita stop for a number of years.  The service was polite, but the initial round of tacos was VERY slow - especially considering there were like 4 other people (2 separate groups) in the place the whole lunch hour.

Out of 5 tacos, here are my ratings:

Food Taste:
Value:
Cleanliness:
Service:
Overall:
Likelihood to return:

Angela’s Cafe gets TT’d

Today’s Taco Tour visit is at Angela’s Cafe at 21st and Amidon. This was based on the recommendation of a Facebook friend. 

Upon arriving, I find that Shon, for the first time ever, is on time. I review their menu and decide on 4 tacos. 

There is one concerning thing, at lunch time, there is only one other group of customers here. This seems odd for a restaurant that has been around for quite a while. 

After ordering, we experienced an extremely long wait, especially since we are now the only customers in the restaurant. I start getting irritated when tacos take longer than 20 minutes. It took roughly 28 minutes for tacos to arrive. 

Thank god for the chips and salsa (which were pretty good) as the wait was totally unacceptable. 

I started with the Barbacoa and three words come to mind; bland, fatty and worthless. 

Next was the Al Pastor. It was actually quite delicious. The meat was nice, tender, flavorful. This was actually one of the better Al Pastor tacos I have had. Not the best, but definitely a very good taco. 

The carne asada was pretty mediocre. The meat seemed to be cooked and seasoned well but it was very chewy. Maybe a quality of meat issue...

The fried flour beef taco was just ok. It was full of meat but it was flavorless. Just another totally average fried flour taco. 

All in all, this wasn’t the worst stop we have had. The Al Pastor definitely made the trip worth it. Not sure that I will be back but only because of the restaurants that are nearby that are quite a bit better. 

Shon's Take - Taco Tour Stop #35 - El Mexico Cafe - 2544 S Seneca

Tour Stop #35 brings us back to the south side for a place that has come highly recommended from several readers - El Mexico Café on S Seneca. I've passed the place a million times, but I don't recall that I've ever eaten there. If I did, maybe it just wasn't memorable.... kinda like this visit.


EMC is in a stand alone building on Seneca, just south of Pawnee. The place seems fairly nice for a locally owned Mexican restaurant. I arrive and Chris is already there. There's a group of 7 in front of us. But the entire front half is completely empty and there appear to be plenty of tables to choose from. Still, it took a while for them to get us to a booth. That said, there was a decent lunch crowd there and the place had "Wichita Eagle's Favorite Tacos 4 Years in a Row" right on the menu. So, I'm thinking we're going to get some tasty tacos here. Then, I look at the menu and realize - we're pretty thin on choices here. Ground beef or chicken (both on fried flour shells) or their Monterrey tacos. By the way, there's no real a la carte pricing. They say you can order the tacos for $3.99 each (seriously?!?!) or get the two taco plate with beans and rice for $7.99. Since we didn't have a ton of choices anyway, Chris and I both went with the taco plate with one ground beef and one chicken and ordered one for Travis who was running late. Chris and I made an executive decision and also ordered the Monterrey Plate which was basically a seasoned pork with tortillas and pico and we split that between the three of us. Everything came out fairly quickly and once we got a seat our servers were attentive, quick and friendly.


The taco plate came and it looked like pretty standard Tex-Mex fare - lettuce and cheese, with rice and beans on the side (I'm not a bean fan, so I went double rice). The tacos tasted like something I could've whipped up at home. Definitely NOT awful, but AWARD WINNING? I didn't get it. The meat had some seasoning to it, but overall they were the epitome of average. Same for the Monterrey. Again, not a BAD taco, but nothing to write home about. My rice was ... rice. Pretty standard. So, 3 tacos and rice for about 12.00 before the tip. Not high on the value scale, especially compared to some of our favorites.


Overall, I'd say the tacos here were middle of the road. And if you're looking for authentic street tacos, don't even bother as they're not even on the menu. If (big IF) I go back, it won't be for tacos. But the service and cleanliness were enough that I might stop in and try the enchiladas some time (all those people must've been there enjoying something, right?) My overall ratings on the 5 Taco Scale are below.


Food Quality - 2.0 Tacos
Price - $-$$
Value - 1.5 Tacos
Cleanliness - 3.5 Tacos
Service - 3.5 Tacos
Overall Experience - 2.0 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 1.0 Tacos

Shon's Take - Taco Tour Stop #34 - Tacos Y Mas - 548 S Oliver

Well after a train wreck of texts and failed attempts we did finally get together to eat tacos for Tour Stop #34 - Tacos Y Mas. And yes, this is stop #34. For those of you wondering, Travis ditched us the week of Cholitas (Stop #33) and apparently Chris decided he hated Cholita's so much, he isn't even going to review it. Wow. So.... long story short, Tacos Y Mas IS stop #34. Comment on Travis' post and tell him to get with the program. He'll love that.


So, we get to TYM on a Thursday evening (one of our rare non lunch stops) and the place is pretty empty. Granted it was 9pm, but whatever. The restaurant is located in a small strip mall just south of Kellogg on Oliver (right next to Churn and Burn Ice Cream Shop, which is awesome by the way). Chris was already there, and cranky from all the scheduling snafus. So I sat right down and went straight to the taco section and ordered. Our waitress was quick and nice enough. Anyway, I went with 5 tacos and of course I had to try the odd stuff because Thing 1 and Thing 2 are pansies. So I went with the chorizo, asada, and al pastor as well as the buche (stomach) and lengua (tongue/cheek) tacos.


While we waited I started with some of the chips and salsa, which were ok. The mild was basically runny tomato juice, but a quick spritz of the hot green salsa livened it up. Our tacos arrived fairly quickly and looked pretty good. They came garnished with a grilled pepper, lime, and cucumber. I started with the buche, chorizo, and lengua. I enjoyed these three tacos a lot. I thought the buche and lengua were pretty tender and had a nice flavoring to them. Chris for whatever reason didn't care for the chorizo, but I thought it was pretty good. It did seem to have a slightly different taste to the spice compared to most other places. Honestly, it's a little hard to describe, but I thought it was good. The al pastor and asada tacos were also decently flavored. But they seemed to me like they weren't quite as fresh. Still, I would rate them both as above average tacos.


Overall, I'd say this was a decent find. Especially out east, where we seem to have few "go to" places for tacos. I would probably be willing to go back again, with high hopes the asada and al pastor come out a little fresher on the next round. My overall rankings on the 5 Taco Scale are below.


Food Quality - 3.0 Tacos
Price - $
Value - 3.0 Tacos
Cleanliness - 3.5 Tacos
Service - 4.5 Tacos
Overall Experience - 3.5 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 4.0 Tacos

Travis - Taco Tour stop #35 - El Mexico Cafe - 2544 S Seneca

I know I've heard of this place before - I'm pretty sure we've had several people recommend it.  El Mexico Cafe has been around for awhile now and I'm sad to say this is the first time I've graced them with my presence...  :-)

I had high hopes - they've won best taco in Wichita for like 4 years in a row and it just looked and felt like there should be some good authentic food there.  I was at an install in the morning so was rushing to get there.  The 2 stooges ordered for me and my food was brought to me almost immediately after I sat down.  So I can't really tell you for sure, but the service definitely seemed pretty good.  However 2 tacos arrived with beans and rice - so I was a little confused and my 2 cohorts looked at my knowingly.

Apparently ordering a la carte here is quite expensive. And apparently this "authentic" joint has 3 taco choices: deep fried flour ground beef, deep fried flour chicken, and monterrey.

*insert very long dramatic pause here*

Yep. Oh and the monterrey was already on the table - it's a bowl of shredded pork (carnita style), a bowl of chopped onion/tomato/pepper, and a few tortillas in foil.

At this point I'm honestly confused - but I'm also hungry so I dig into the chicken that has lettuce and shredded cheese on it.  (Seriously, am I eating a fast food taco? a bar taco? what exactly?).  At this point I make a point to tell the guys that we've seriously become taco snobs.  (And I'm not ashamed to say it).  This taco was... about as good as it sounds. Not bad, but not award winning.

I tried the ground beef next - same story. It was filled with lettuce, cheese, and disappointment. Lacking flavor or originality, I assumed that the award winning taco HAS to be the monterrey. (I left a little of my ground beef on the plate - it wasn't worth finishing.)

The monterrey was the epitome of "not bad".  The meat was obviously sitting there for a few minutes before I arrived, so I'm not going to be too harsh on it.  The flavor was okay. I didn't mind throwing my ingredients in there and making it myself. I included some "hotter-than-mild" salsa.  It was an acceptable taco. It wasn't award winning - but it wasn't bad.  If I were to come back - I won't - but if I were to come back, I'd get that.

The chips were bland and disappointing also. The rice was hard and dry (probably sitting awhile). The water was wet and cold and I drank it all - so there's that.

Have I seriously become so taco snobby that this place frustrated me to this point? Apparently so.
At least the service was pretty good!  But it still cost me about $12 bucks.  Psh - I'm a mile from Pollo Express, won't bother going here again.  Whoever voted them best tacos 4 years in a row should come talk to me...

Out of 5 tacos, here are my ratings:

Food Taste:
Value:
Cleanliness:
Service:
Overall:
Likelihood to return:

Travis - Taco Tour stop #34 - Taco Y Mas - 552 S Oliver

Sometimes I feel like our lack of planning bites us - but I also don't see us changing our ways.  We are guys...

Anyway, somehow we decided to hit Taco Y Mas over on S Oliver, but we couldn't get there until Thursday evening. So it was definitely weird to be doing our taco tour at this time of night.  But tacos are tacos (not really, but you know what I'm saying).  So we find ourselves sitting in a fairly small diner like setting that looks fairly authentic, so I have good expectations...

Chris and Shon are already there because I'm running around like crazy since I'm driving 5+ hrs to Dallas the next day - but there's always time for tacos.  They do have an a la carte menu so I order a barbacoa, al pastor, carne asada, and a pollo.  The chips and salsa we had while we waited were just...eh.

It seems like the wait was a little longer than expected. Nobody died, but they weren't that busy so I'm not sure what the delay was.  When they arrived, they looked pretty decent and there was definitely plenty of meat.

I started with the barbacoa. It was pretty good. It definitely was tender and juicy and had a good taste. There was a little bit of fatty parts in the meat, but it wasn't anything too bad.  This was probably my favorite taco here - but bear in mind we've had better barbacoa.  This one was acceptable, but not enough to make me come rushing back.

The al pastor was next and it was slightly overcooked.  The taste wasn't bad though. It was still tender and had plenty of meat.  I must have started on the good end, because by the time I got to the other end, it was definitely more burnt. That kind of ruined it for me by the time I finished it.  I think this one had potential if it wasn't burnt.

Carne asada was next - and honestly all I remember was that it was a little overcooked, the taste was okay, and I left a little disappointed.

The pollo was last and it was a little dry.  It had an okay flavor.  There wasn't anything memorable at all - in fact this was about all I can recall about it.

Overall, for a place that looked like it should be pretty authentic, I left disappointed.  I think they have potential to be better, but maybe it was the late night.  Could it be that everything has sat around most of the day and now it's just not as good?  I don't know for sure, but frankly that's not an excuse.  If you're open, your food should be good - and this was just okay.

The summary of this visit is middle of the road and unmemorable.  If you're in the area, maybe try it at lunch and see if you fare better than we did.  Otherwise, keep looking and I think you've got better options.

Out of 5 tacos, here are my ratings:

Food Taste:
Value:
Cleanliness:
Service:
Overall:
Likelihood to return: