Travis - Taco Tour stop #60 - Pedro's Express - 602 N Tyler

Well, we ARE trying to get back in the swing of things - this time of year is busy and sometimes it's hard to get into a routine. Oh and hey, sometimes we like to swing back by places we've been - so that might be why we get a little quiet sometimes too!  Anyway, if you remember the old Charlie's Pizza Taco place on Central & Tyler, well it's now Pedro's Express and we decided to see what they were like!

The place looks like a fairly typical fast food taco joint - you order at the counter, take a seat and they bring the food out to you.  It's clean and well decorated and the staff seems friendly enough.  They have a fair selection of tacos so I ordered carne asada, carnitas, and al pastor street tacos.  I also decided to try the chicken and a ground beef (both on hard shells).

The tacos came out in an acceptable time and the first thing I noticed was big chunks of meat on all of the street tacos and a pretty hefty serving on the hard shell tacos too.

I started with the hard shell ground beef and the shell was VERY crunchy.  So crunchy in fact, that the taco basically imploded.  However I still thought it had a good taste and it was hot (temp).  There was plenty of meat with adequate seasoning - but it's definitely a mess.  In spite of the mess, I probably would get this again.

The chicken was next also on the hard shell and once again, the shell disintegrates in your hands when you start taking bites out of it.  Lots of meat again, big chunks in fact.  The taste was pretty decent - nothing special but really wasn't too bad.  It also was nice and hot temp (not spice).

Moving on to the more traditional tacos, I went for the carne asada.  Once again it had big chunks of meat. I was hoping it would have a nice steak flavor, but I felt like it was lacking.  It wasn't bad, but it just lacked that steaky flavor I was hoping for.  The meat was a little chewy too.  I did try a piece of meat by itself and it really wasn't too bad - but the flavor does get lost in the taco - even in spite of the amount of meat and the big chunks.

The carnitas were next and probably my least favorite of the stop.  The meat was dry and a bit crunchy.  Again, plenty of big chunks of meat, but lacking good flavor and being a little overdone kind of put this one out for me - I wouldn't bother again. Meh.

Last was the al pastor and it was very juicy with lots of marinade in the taco running out.  Lots of meat and it had a little kick to it.  Definitely a good flavor in my opinion and the meat was tender.  Out of the traditional tacos, this was probably my favorite.

Overall, I wasn't disappointed by Pedro's - however I didn't really have anything that would just make me come running back.  However the location for me is convenient, so I may keep them in mind if I find myself near to work and want something different than my usual stops.  With the amount of meat, I wasn't disappointed in the value either - so I think this is worth checking out. I don't think you'll come away blown away, but you might find something worth coming back for occasionally.  For me, it's still probably a place I'd put squarely in the middle - just slightly above average.

Out of 5 tacos, here are my ratings:

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