Travis - Taco Tour stop #65 - Restaurante delicias - 2117 E Central

You've heard us say it before and I'm sure it will be said again - restaurant turnover is inevitable in Wichita. Mexican restaurants are not immune either!  This week we visited a familiar location with a new name and owner... Restaurante Delicias has opened up in the spot that used to be...um...something else.  It was the place that left me standing at the counter for over 5 minutes without even acknowledging my existence. (Did I mention turnover?) Oh yeah, the old El Pollo Dorado El Carbon! (Wasn't memorable - did you catch that?)

Anyway, hoping that it's not a location issue, we ventured over here to check them out and without spoiling it, it was much better!

It's set up just like it was before. You order at the counter and then take a seat and wait for your order to be called out to you.  Complimentary chips and salsa were waiting for me (Chris beat me there).  Unfortunately the chips were slightly stale. They have both a green and a red sauce and the red is pretty darn hot.  Definitely not for the faint of heart!

The tacos came out and they were very hot in temperature! Yay!  Always happy to get hot food - sometimes tacos (since they are open) will come out cool or be cool by the time we're done eating them.  This was not the case today.

They were out of something - I think it was barbacoa but now I can't recall.  But starting with the pollo, it had plenty of meat. Even though it was just slightly dry, it still had a nice taste. Just barely chewy but overall a good taco that I enjoyed.

The carne asada was next and it had a good steak flavor to it.  Again, just a tad chewy but the flavor really made up for it in this case.  I really liked this taco.

The al pastor was next and it came out with the nice red color you want to see.  The flavor was bold and good - just like I was hoping for! Again, just a little bit chewy but nothing worth complaining about.

The service this time was much better too. Overall, in spite of a tiny bit of chewy meat, I enjoyed this stop.  The location is slightly inconvenient for me, but I'd still say it's worth checking out sometime - especially if you like hole-in-the-wall joints.  This one won't win any awards for presentation, but they do make some good tacos.

Out of 5 tacos, here are my ratings:

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

Shon's Take - Taco Tour Stop #64 - Rene's - I-235 and West Central

There's something to be said about "reputation". A good one can get you by for quite a while, even if you slip up. A bad one can make life hard for a looooong time. Rene's seems to have a good reputation and always seems to come up in our taco conversations with others. We finally decided to get together at the I-235 and Central location and put their tacos to the test.


First, I have to admit that I've only been to this location once in the 19 years I've been in Wichita and I didn't even have tacos. I got a burrito, as I recall, and it's been so long I really didn't remember anything about it. So I felt like I was coming in with an open mind. The restaurant is a quick serve, sit down restaurant, so I placed my order at the counter and copped a squat with Thing 1 and Thing 2. I decided to go with the fried fish taco, lengua, asada, and chicken. After a few minutes, the tacos were ready. Rene's does have a little bar with different salsas on it as well, so I decided to go with the green tomatillo salsa with mine. The fish taco came out with lettuce and tomato only. The fish was pretty bready and overall was very...... meh. So-so. Definitely not something I would come back for. But, it did benefit from a little salsa to get it down. The other three tacos all came out with onion, tomato, and guacamole. Like, covered in guac. Now.... unlike Thing 1 and Thing 2, I do actually like guacamole. BUUUUUTTT in this case? Not my favorite. The guac was just bland. It looked worse than it tasted, but still.... I felt like the guac definitely covered the meat flavor and not in a good way. All three of my tacos were filled with decent amounts of meat, prepared well, not chewy, etc. But when my tacos stayed together, all I could really taste was mediocre guacamole. Which brings me to another pet peeve: not a single shell stayed together. Not one, and the other turds had the same problem. If I wanted a taco salad, I would've ordered one. On the plus side, it did give me a chance to sample some of the meat from the bottoms that didn't drown in green goo. Those little morsels actually didn't taste too bad, but still left me..... wanting.


So, what's the verdict? I guess I'll be generous here and say that I'm... what? Neutral? Maybe. I think there's a possibility I could talk myself into going back and maybe skipping the guacamole. But for this review, I always like to go with the way they give them to me. And for me, I'm just not feeling it. The fish taco didn't help at all and there's no real service to speak of (not that it was needed really). The price was fine ($2.15/each), but I'm just not in a hurry to buy crumbly gobs of goo anytime soon. My overall rankings on the 5-Taco Scale are below.


Food Quality - 2.0 Tacos
Price - $
Value - 2.0 Tacos
Cleanliness - 2.5 Tacos
Service - 1.0 Tacos (not bad, just wasn't anything other than calling our name to get our order)
Overall Experience - 2.0 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 1.0 Tacos

Travis - Taco Tour stop #64 - Rene's - W Central & 235

Somehow I forgot to write this review - we hit up the popular "after-last-call" spot awhile back. Full disclosure: I've only been here when completely sober and that includes this visit.  From what I've heard, the food at Rene's Restaurant is pretty good when slightly inebriated - so you might take that into consideration! Also, please note in the title I put it as near W Central and 235 - technically the address is 677 N Eisenhower.  This is the one that's just west of the 235 overpass on Central - there is another location past Tyler that I've not been to.

Okay with logistics and semantics out of the way, what did we think of Rene's?  If you haven't been here, it's a very small restaurant with a drive through.  Not much parking or seating here, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. Didn't this used to be a Dairy Queen long ago or am I thinking of somewhere else?  I could really go for a Blizzard...

Okay this is fairly typical fast food - you order at the counter and they call your number when it's ready.  A la carte options here are okay but aren't the best value if you go that route.  Spoiler alert!  The word of the day is PLENTY of meat, and disintegrating tortillas...  (That was more than 1 word).

I ordered the ground beef, shredded chicken, carne asada, carnitas, and adobada.  Everything comes out in an acceptable timeframe.  Note - most of their tacos come with guacamole on them. I honestly don't understand (or like) this method of dressing tacos.  I feel the guac just covers up the flavor of the meat. You might like guac - you might even like it on a taco. I don't so I order without it.

First taco is the ground beef which was in a deep fried shell.  It was very crunchy. It wasn't bad actually - I did kind of enjoy this taco and it had a decent taste. That said, not a lot more to say about this one.  Deep fried ground beef taco should tell you what you need to know.

The shredded chicken was next and I got that in a hard shell. It was VERY juicy and there was plenty of meat. Honestly this one kind of surprised me - I wasn't expecting much but it had a tiny kick and turned out to be pretty tasty. It won't win any taco tour awards but if I come back, I'd get this one again.

The asada was next and came with pico on it.  In a word: eh.  Lots of meat but a little chewy. It wasn't bad but not really much flavor either.  There was something just slightly odd with the steak flavor - never quite figured out why.  The tortilla disintegrated after 1 or 2 bites and a lot fell out so I needed a fork.

Carnitas was next.  In my notes I put "hmm, not sure"! This one felt like it should have been better - but wasn't.  It was just okay. Again not a ton of flavor but lots of meat.  One big chunk of meat that could have been cut better.  This one seems like it was missing something - oh yeah, onions and cilantro instead of pico.  I prefer the more traditional instead of pico on my tacos.  But to each their own!

Last was the adobada - it was a mess. It had lots of meat also, kinda chewy, and plenty juicy. It too seemed lacking in flavor - nothing bold about it. The tortilla also disintegrated after a few bites and lots fell out.

With everything left over on my plate after falling out, I probably had at least 1 or 2 more tacos's worth of meat. But frankly, I didn't bother.  Nothing was good enough to motivate me to use the fork.  To sum up the visit, everything was just "OK" with lots of meat, mediocre flavor, and disintegrating tortillas.  The tortilla edges were a little tough and I think everything could have used 2 tortillas instead of 1.

I think this is my second visit to Rene's (both times sober). I honestly don't see the draw. It's okay - you get plenty of food, but I still think there's so much better quality around town.  I know they have a ton of fans and maybe it's for stuff besides the tacos.  So if you're out after last-call, try them out and let us know if it's something besides the tacos we should be having!

Out of 5 tacos, here are my ratings:

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