Travis - Taco Tour stop #27 - Taco Grande - 2315 W 21st

Soooo, this stop is on our list but it was also sort of a half-joke from the night before.  Dummies #1 and #2 weren't suggesting anything, so I just popped off with this - and was taken seriously.  (Lesson in sarcasm).  So we found ourselves at Taco Grande this week - and spoiler alert, the only thing "grande" was the size of the disappointment.

Since I'm kind of not in the mood to drag this out for a place I'll likely never come back to, I'll make this a cliff notes sized review and spare you my rambling...

I ordered 3 tacos and nachos with cheese.  This is a fast food joint, so these are not traditional tacos - they're fast food tacos (and they're not very good).

The funny taco was first - it's a soft taco around a hard shell taco (with cheese between). Has meat, cheese, lettuce, and maybe other stuff I don't remember. It's a fast food taco - and it tastes like one. It wasn't horrible - but that's all I can muster. It did have a slight hint of spice in the cheese.

A regular taco was next - hard shell ground beef. And that's what it tasted like. A hard shell ground beef fast food taco. I put some salsa on it, but I got the hot and "extra hot" confused - so I poured one on. It didn't seem "extra hot" but who knows. I don't know what I ended up with. The taco wasn't bad. Again, that's all I can muster.

The chicken taco was last - and I didn't eat past the first bite. It's filled with those chicken strips that you buy frozen at the grocery store. Pre-cooked - normally like I'd put on a home cooked quesadilla. They sucked. Seriously. It didn't taste like it was fully cooked (even though I think it was). Horrible after taste - I couldn't eat past the first bite.  I looked at Shon when he took his bite and he gave the same look I did - like something was wrong.  We didn't want to risk it, so none of us finished that taco.

The highlight of the stop was the "nachos". I say "nachos" because that's how they presented them: "nachos" (quotes and everything). I still can't figure out why - but we laughed about that most of the stay.  They weren't awesome - in fact they were just barely "good".

Overall, don't bother. Really. It's not good - and if I can't tell if the food is fully cooked, there's no reason to go again...  Sadly, this is probably a place I would have "recommended" to get tacos before this year because I was more of a fast-food taco eater. Frankly, I can't see why people recommend this place - especially when you can get so much better quality and taste elsewhere for basically the same price.  I spent $9.31 for 3 lame tacos and "nachos".  Psh.  Fool me once...

Out of 5 tacos....eh, do you even care at this point? Here are my ratings:

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

Shon's Take - Taco Tour Stop #27 - Taco Grande - 21st and Amidon

You should never, EVER, joke about tacos. That's the lesson from this week's visit to Taco Grande. As we texted back and forth trying to decide where to go, Travis suggested TG's. Of course the night before we actually go, he tells me that he was "half joking about it, I just suggested it because it was on the list." Well, too late.... and unfortunately too late for our stomachs as well.


Taco Grande is located in a strip center just west of 21st St N and Amidon. The place is your typical fast food taco joint, so I can't say I was excited to come here to begin with. Seems like all of the fast food joints are just crap anyway, although Travis for some odd reason really likes Taco Bell and Taco Shop. Meh. Anyway, I went in and ordered at the counter and got a chicken soft taco, ground beef soft taco, and a "Funny Taco" for a grand total of $8.25. So already, I'm perturbed that we're not at dollar taco day at Las Mananitas, but.... whatever.


Food came out in a short time and I started with the ground beef. It was your typical fast food taco - cheap ground beef in a soft shell with lettuce and cheese. That being said, it was an average and mostly edible taco as far as fast food tacos go. Next up was the chicken, and I gotta say - avoid it. I mean, I've eaten the brain taco at Raymundo's and this one I didn't finish. The chicken just had a weird texture to it - the rubbery fake chicken-ness of it, made it feel like it wasn't cooked all the way even though the color would indicate that it was. Lastly was the Funny Taco, which was a soft shell with nacho cheese and a hard shell ground beef taco inside it. Since this was basically the same as the first taco (just wrapped up in a soft shell) it was similarly mediocre.


Summary - meh. I mean really, even if I actually had a craving for cheap fast food tacos (which I normally don't) I'd go to Taco Shop before I come back to TG. That combined with it's mostly out of the way location (compared to where I normally am in town) means this will probably be the last time I set foot in there. My overall ratings on the 5 Taco Scale are below.


Food Quality - 1.5 Tacos
Price - $
Value - 2.0 Tacos
Cleanliness - 3.0 Tacos
Service - 2.5 Tacos
Overall Experience - 1.0 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 0.0 Tacos 

Taco Grando is no bueno

Today we went to Taco Grande. Let me start by saying that this is another one of those places I have driven by a million times without stopping inside. 

Upon arriving, on time, I discovered that this is a fast food restaurant. I reviewed the menu and ordered 5 tacos. 

I started with the chicken taco and it immediately revealed what I was in for. FAST FOOD. And not good fast food. The chicken was that same garbage, pre cooked chicken chunks that you can buy at Walmart. It tastes rubbery and I refuse to finish it. 

The "funny taco" is a knock off of Taco Bell's double decker taco, except worse. The crunchy shell is stale and the taco is totally underwhelming. 

Next was the standard crunchy beef taco, with their special twist, a stale shell. The beef is lacking in flavor and there is really nothing positive to say about it. 

I tried the "taco lite" which is a friedish flour taco shell with meat and sour cream in it. Guess what it comes with as standard equipment...stale shell!

I FOUND A FRESH SHELL, but it's a soft taco. The meat is still lacking flavor but this was the best do the crappy tacos I ate today. 

I won't be back. I regret spending $12 on these tacos when Tacos Raymundo is about a half mile up the road. 

To the owner, if you happen to read this, get good at something on your menu. Pick an item and perfect it. Stop trying to fancy up your tacos until you get your crunchy taco figured out. 

I won't even bother rating this place with tacos. I give them 💩 for a rating. 

Shon's Take - Taco Tour Stop #26 - Lina's Mexican Food - Central and Oliver

Well, after some back and forth, some delays, and a taco review that apparently isn't going to be a taco review (Chris and I went to El Patio without Travis last week, but Chris said we have to go back because he can't remember anything about it. JEEEZ) we finally got the three of us together again to hit one of the few east side places on our list: Lina's Mexican Food.


First off, let me say I had a good vibe about this place (although, thankfully I didn't pick it). I mean c'mon - it's got my mother's first name on it, and she's a great cook so it's HAS to be awesome, right? RIIIIIGHHHT?!?! It had the "hole in the wall" thing going for sure, as it seemed like the entire restaurant was about the size of my bedroom and there was very limited parking in the lot. There were a few people in the joint, so I hoped that would be a good sign. Anyway, I walked in and Thing 1 and Thing 2 were already sitting down waiting on their orders. One glance at the menu and the first thing that hit me was the price - $2.50 to $3.50 a taco depending on what you're getting. At those prices, they better be pretty darn good. I decided to go with 4 tacos - a fish taco, adobada, asada, and carnitas.


When my order came out, the plate didn't look too bad. My fish taco came out with some pico and cabbage while the other three came out with pico and guacamole. Definitely a little different than your standard street taco dressing of onion and cilantro. I decided to start with the fish taco. Plenty of fish and it was definitely better than some of the other fish tacos I've had. I had to throw on some lime for a little more flavor, but overall I'd say it was an "ok" fish taco. Next up was the asada taco - plenty of tender, decently cooked steak. But flavor wise? I'd say it was somewhere between bland and..... well.... boring. Not to mention none of my shells stayed together, which left me eating more taco salad than tacos. This was pretty much the theme of the last three tacos - plenty of boring meat covered by guac and pico (to TRY and flavor it up) on shells that tasted like crap and couldn't hold what they put in it.


Overall, it turned out to be a pretty mediocre plate of tacos. It really seemed like all the toppings were there to cover the fact that the meat just didn't have much flavor. As far as I'm concerned, they owe me and my mother an apology. My overall rankings on the 5 Taco Scale are below.


Food Quality - 2.0 Tacos
Price - $-$$
Value - 1.0 Tacos
Cleanliness - 2.5 Tacos
Service - 3.5 Tacos
Overall Experience - 1.5 Tacos
Likelihood To Return - 1.0 Tacos

Travis - Taco Tour stop #26 - Lina's Mexican Restaurant - 4910 E Central

Trying to venture out a little farther this week, we decided that we needed to make our way to Lina's Mexican Restaurant. There are two in town, so we headed to the one on Central just east of Oliver.  It's a pretty small place with limited parking and seating - but there was room for us.  The front of the restaurant is glass so you have a "nice" view of Central. Which ironically on this day was pretty exciting...

Chris was waiting (he was early!) and Shon was late. I arrived on time and after a short wait, Chris and I decided not to wait on dork #2.  I heard Chris ordering his tacos and heard that all their traditional tacos have guacamole on them (and pico de gallo).  On this tour, I've tried to stick to eating tacos as they are served - but I had to make an exception in this case. Just NOT a fan of guac.  I can handle it sometimes and in small servings. Definitely not something I wanted on EVERY taco.  I just wasn't feeling this place - odd ingredients compared to what we've seen so far. I decided to only order 3 tacos and I subbed the guac out and added cilantro to try to get back to what I was used to seeing.  My selection was carnitas (soft), ground beef (hard shell), and chicken (hard shell).

Honestly when the tacos came out I wasn't terribly excited. Was it an off day or was my gut predicting a mediocre experience?

Carnitas was first - and as you know, the bar is crazy high... This fell WELL short. The meat was plentiful but dry. It lacked any bold flavor - or really much flavor at all. It was, at best, a mediocre taco.

The ground beef was next and there was a lot of meat - more than you usually get on a ground beef taco.  But it just lacked real flavor - there wasn't much seasoning in the meat.  I added some sauce and that helped, but it just wasn't anything notable. It wasn't bad, but that's the best I can do.

The chicken was last.  There was a LOT of meat - almost too much actually. An awkward amount if that's possible.  Again, not much flavor. I added some sauce and overall it definitely had a nice kick.  But that's it. Nothing special - just an ok taco.

I'm usually pretty wordy (probably too wordy) - but I just can't come up with much to describe these tacos because there's just not much to talk about.  The only thing exciting about this visit was the 20+ cop cars surrounding the neighboring area due to a couple of fugitives (one running from the scene).  So that's why the front glass of the restaurant was a plus - at least there was something to look at and talk about.

Overall, meh. I won't bother coming back. There are so many other better choices around town, there's just nothing worth coming here for.  My bill was only $7.45, but so what? You can do better for about the same somewhere else!

Out of 5 tacos, here's my ratings:

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

Maybe we shouldn't have been excited...

Today we went to Linas on east Central. Upon arriving, the overwhelming smell of breakfast slapped me in the face. I fought the urge and ordered 4 tacos. 

I will spare you the details but the carne asada had no flavor, the carnitas was dry and flavorless, the polo asada was bland and the adobada had a chemically taste to it. 

I won't be back for tacos. But the breakfast seems promising...

Shon's Take - Taco Tour Stop #25 - Casa Del Charro - 21st St N & Arkansas

Well, for those of you who are consistent readers, you already know: I seem to have a bit of a bad luck streak lately when it comes to picking our taco joints. Three questionable places in a row (plus one other place that Chris wouldn't even set foot in - Thanks a lot Mr. Taco!!) is enough to make me a little gun shy. But since Thing 1 and Thing 2 couldn't/wouldn't decide on a place I decided to throw a name out and they, surprisingly, jumped all over it: Casa Del Charro at 21st N and Arkansas.


CDC is located in the building where El Paisa (one of my old faves) used to be. The building and interior is still pretty similar - nicer décor, decent building. The owners definitely have a little pride in their location. When I got there, the Bobsy Twins had already gotten impatient and ordered tacos for all of us. I ended up with a 5 taco plate with ground beef, asada, chicken, carnitas, and Al Pastor. Since I didn't have to scan the menu, I went straight for the chips and salsa. Personally, I liked the salsa a lot, but if you like your salsa on the spicier end this may not appeal to you as it definitely was on the sweeter end of the salsa spectrum.


After just a few minutes, our tacos arrived and they looked pretty good. My first impression though was that they were a little on the small side. That's when I was informed by Thing 2 that there's a $1.00 taco special, that apparently runs every day. It's funny what a change in price will do for your perception, as they went from small to fine in two seconds. That said, once I got into the tacos, they were all filled with a decent chunk of meat. All of the tacos came with cilantro, grilled onions, and lime on the side. First up was the ground beef taco. I thought this was definitely one of the better ground beef tacos we'd had. Decent flavor in this one for sure. The asada taco was next and it too was a pretty good taco - nice hint of seasoning, but not too heavy, with a decent amount of tender, perfectly cooked steak. Chicken was next and I have to say, we were all very happy with this taco. You might have noticed that I don't order a lot of chicken tacos on this tour. Mainly because it seems like every time I do, all I get is dry, bland chicken. This one was the complete opposite and may be vying for best in it's category - probably the best chicken taco I've had so far on the tour. Next up was the carnitas - I like this taco, it seemed to be a different cut of pork from what we normally get. It almost had a more bacony taste to it than some others. That said, it's definitely ranking fifth out of the five tacos today. Not a bad taco, but the other four were definitely worthy of a reorder. Last was the Al Pastor - this was on the opposite end, and definitely #1 out of the five tacos today - tasty pork, in a spicy red sauce that reminded me a lot of typical chorizo spices. The opposite of the salsa, so if your taste buds are sensitive, it might be a little spicier for you, but not super hot and not overwhelming at all. Definitely a delicious taco and I really liked the combo of flavors I had when I put a little bit of the house salsa on that last bite - a little spicy, a little sweet. Perfect.


Overall, I'm happy to say I broke my bad luck streak and managed to suggest a place that didn't turn out to be a total dumpster fire. Tasty, cheap tacos, with excellent service. Just an FYI, if you get the $1 taco specials (unlimited tacos for a $1 each!!) expect a $1.25 charge for the unlimited chips and salsa. Still, not a bad deal at all, as I ended up with a ticket under $7.00, before the tip. But the waitress didn't mention it up front, I don't like surprises on my bill. But all together, how could I complain?!?! My overall ranking on the 5 Taco Scale are below.


Food Quality - 4.0 Tacos
Price - $
Value - 4.5 Tacos
Cleanliness - 4.0 Tacos
Service - 4.5 Tacos
Overall Experience - 4.5 Tacos
Likelihood to Return - 5.0 Tacos