| Beautiful taqueria restaurant with authentic meals and excellent prices |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1040
Reviewed: 9/2/2005
Rating: 9.5
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Taqueria Tlaquepaque is probably one of the hardest names to pronounce, I say it La-Kay-Paw-Kay. Who knows if Im right but I do know I love this place. This is one of my favorite mexican restaurants in the area. They have so many things going for this place its like a laundry list of praise. With 3 locations in the south bay, we went to the one on Lincoln. Parking is limited and we accidently parked illegally to the left of the restaurant.
Dont let the taqueria name scare you away as this place is one of the nicest restaurants you'll encounter for the price. Its funny we almost gave up as one of the doors doesnt have a sign saying to use the other door or any indication that they were open. The only thing that led us to believe it was indeed a restaurant was the noise from the restaurant.
Once you walk in you'll think you've been transported to a small town in Mexico. From the lovely murals, red floor tiles, to the spanish tile roof over the kitchen and large Mayan Calendar, these guys spent a lot of time decorating and it shows. With a beautiful looking restaurant you would think the meals would be in the $12-17 range, hecccck no, the prices are taqueria prices!!! Simply amazing, these guys can do no wrong.
We sat down and the guy delivered chips and salsa. The chips were warm and the salsa had serranos or jalepenos. These chips were night and day with other places Ive had and some of the freshest stuff you can get. Salsa was awesome and its apparent people like it, they sell it by the container for take-home. Its a 10 in my book.
Ive actually made 2 visits to Taqueria Tlaquepaque in 1 week so that tells you how much I like the place. Both visits I got burrito and a beer. 1st time was a carnitas and the other was carne asada.
tortilla, rice, beans - all excellent. I will try substituting the regular pinto for refried beans on my next visit. The refried beans just melt in your mouth.
Carnitas - TOP 3 ranking....yeah thats right, its that good. If you follow my carnitas rankings and you love Taqueria La Bamba and Tres Portillos Taqueria, Taqueria Tlaquepaque is right up your alley. Crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside. Whatever they did for my carnitas, they hit it right the bullseye.
Carne Asada - thinly sliced beef cooked over open fire. Most taqueria places normally cook their asada over a flat grill but Im more of a fan of the fire charred taste. The asada was good but could have used more seasonings. This still ranks better most places and have no issues recommending it.
When you add the charming decor, warm chips and salsa, cheap prices, quality ingrediants, and excellent tasting food, Taqueria Tlaquepaque is a tough place to beat. They might not serve the biggest burrito but it should be more than enough to fill you up. Ive been to plenty of mexican restaurants and cant think of any place thats comes close to the value and taste.
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Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 739
Reviewed: 9/12/2005
Rating: 9
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I was excited to try Taqueria Tlaquepaque out for Jatbar. Since moving to Cupertino, we have not reviewed as many mexican places as we used to in Mountain View. And when we did, they usually were not so good. An authentic mexican place is always high on my list of places to review.
We get here and its really jumping. Even though its the middle of the week. Its most a non-mexican customer base, but it doesn't matter. Good food = lots of people regardless. Its an interesting layout. The kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant and the tables are all around it.
I go for a super veggie burrito, after getting shot down on the absence of a shrimp burrito. doh. In the meantime I munch on the chips. Wow, these are some of the best chips I have ever had. The salsas were good, but did not stand up to the quality of the chips. Regardless, I munched on the salsas as well since I wanted something to go with these amazing chips. I honestly could have just eaten the chips here and been satisfied.
The burrito finally arrives and I am a little disappointed as its not quite as super as I would have hoped. It was still decently sized, but I was a little embarrassed how quickly I ate it. It was VERY tasty however. I would call it fairly similar to Los Altos Taqueria quality. The price was right, the mixture was right, everything tasted fresh and flavorful. It was a sit-down place with taqueria prices. You can't go wrong here.
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RETURN VISIT for Terry! 9/15/2006 - 7.5 Rating: Went again with Agent Eddie today and this time I went with the combination plate: cheese enchilada, chile relleno and burrito. The plate was also accompanied by rice and beans. For $10.50, it was not quite as cheap as the burritos they serve, but I figured it to be a good test for a sit-down restaurant. The service was kind of slow today, even though all the tables weren't filled up. It wasn't too bad, as we had their good chips to munch on.
The food arrives and the serving portion was not huge, but was average. I worked the rice and beans first. They both were on the dry side. The cheese enchilada was the highlight, and was flavorful, yet small. The chile relleno, while not my favorite dish, is something I still enjoy, and this one was enjoyable. The spiciness was a bit muted, but the flavor was there. Even though I asked for a cheese burrito, I got mine filled with beef. :( So I didn't try it.
Overall I found the experience to be less enjoyable than my last one. I think if you go here expecting a cheap meal that will only sort of fill you up, then Tlaquepaque is a good destination. If you are looking for a memorable sitdown experience you will not be as excited. Still I found the food to be fairly good, just not the stellar experience I had with the burrito. |
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Reviewer: Stevetacular
Total Reviews: 25
Reviewed: 8/15/2006
Rating: 9
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Last week my friend and I were going to try this place out, but we ended up going to La Victoria's instead. This week when we swung by here I noticed there were several people standing outside with disappointed looks on their faces. This led me to think that the restaurant was closed, but my friend and I soon found out they weren't disappointed because it was closed (don't worry this location closes 9 PM everyday), they were disappointed because the wait was so long. Seriously, the wait for this place was pretty long which was unexpected from us because it had the word 'Taqueria' in the name which usually means in my mind, 'Quick food and quick service.'
The wait seemed long until I suppose other people didn't want to wait, so they just left. There were at least four names on the sign-up sheet that left. I think the problem with Tlaquepaque isn't that they don't have enough tables it's just that they don't have enough wait staff to clean the tables and set them up for the next customer. I could swear there were only two women doing tables and taking orders there. I envied the people that went to the front counter and got their food to go.
After about 20 minutes to 1/2 an hour my friend and I got our table. Although the wait seemed long the dinner seemed to breeze by. The lady who brought us to our table handed us menus, and then came back less than a minute later with chips and salsa. I must say these chips were pretty good; they tasted like fried wonton shells. The salsa had a very nice initial kick to it. The combination of the chips and salsa was a great free starter.
When I flipped through the menu I noticed that they had plate dinner combinations which gave me bad flashbacks of places like El Torito. Seriously, I was half expecting the food to come out with bad rice and beans with a small scoop of mashed corn. I tried to put my fear aside and ordered combo number 9 which came with a Cheese Enchilada, a Burrito with Chili Verde, and a Taco (your choice of ground beef or chicken, I went with chicken) which was a little over $10. My friend ordered a Super Burrito with Carnitas ($5.75) and an Enchilada Suiza with Chicken ($4).
I swear it didn't take more than five minutes after we ordered for the food to arrive which was impressive. My friend got his Enchilada first and from what I saw, the cheese over it was still bubbling. With all the cheese my friend got on his plate (literally...the ENTIRE plate) he could have made his own nachos. I got a large plate filled with my entrees along with rice & (refried) beans. I tried the beans which were still burning hot, but they were really good. The beans weren't runny or flavorless like you would get at other places (I'm looking at you On The Border). My Chicken Taco had dry pieces of chicken, but they were so good I didn't really care. I don't know if you can say this is a plus or minus, but everything besides my taco was so cheesy! This was expected from my CHEESE enchilada, but not from my burrito. The burrito was half the size of a normal burrito, but it was just as thick. Every bite had tons of cheese and pieces of pork; I loved every bit of it. Also the tortilla a smell that I couldn't pinpoint at the time, but now that I think about it it had the smell of olive oil. My friend's Carnitas Super Burrito was as big of a burrito I would expect. For $5.75 it was a damn good burrito, and I got to get a bite and taste the carnitas. The carnitas tasted like cutlets you would get from a sushi place (my friend described them akin to the cutlets at Fuji's in Davis) meaning it was delicious.
At the end of the meal the bill came to $23.11, not bad considering how stuffed we were by the end of the meal. If only they could do something about their wait problem I would definitely rate this higher. |
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Reviewer: ne00
Total Reviews: 187
Reviewed: 9/22/2006
Rating: 8
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I have wanted to dine at Taqueria Tiaquepaque for a long time now but could not convince anyone to go out of their way to drive there for a weekend lunch or dinner. I just so happen to have dance rehearsal in the area after work and I decided to make a small detour for dinner.
I leave work around 4:50pm from Mountain View and endured heavy traffic on part of 101 and a lot of traffic on 87. When I finally arrive at the restaurant (located next to a Precision Auto Care), the outside of the restaurant is just one strip of parking spots, about 10 to 12 spots to park, which were all full. Therefore, I had to drive around the corner street to look for parking.
I walk in around 5:40 and there is this couple waiting in the waiting hall. This restaurant is a bid strange as there is no host podium, you walk into a waiting room with seats, and on the wall is a clipboard where you write down number of people in your party. When a seat frees up someone will show up and call the next party. I stood around like an idiot deciding if I wanted take out or dine in. As I waited for some help for 10 minutes, there are families walking in and putting their names down. There are literally about 20 people are so waiting for a table this time around. I decided to grab take out and finally found a staff to ask how I could order take out. He told me to walk in and to the left to order my food. Load and behold, if you walk in and to the left there is there is the cashier ready to take your order to go.
I decide to order a combination Tamale plate, the same one seen in the above photo but instead of an Enchilada, I get a shredded beef tamale. The plate comes with Rice, Beans, Tamale, Chile Relleno, and chile verde burrito (paid around 11.00 with tax). There is hardly any waiting room next to the cashier so I tell the cashier I will wait up front and he said he would bring my food out to me in about 5 minutes. I did not believe the wait would be so short but he comes out in about 5 minutes with my food. If I waited to dine-in, I think I would have been there for a good hour to two hours waiting and dinning.
When I arrived at my destination, I dug in to the meal in my car. In the bag, there were no utensils, no napkins, and a small container of salsa but no free chips for to go orders. How am I supposed to eat without utensils? You would think if someone brought out your take out order they would stock up the bag with napkins and utensils. I decided to use the cap of the salsa container as a spoon type. I surely was not planning to use my hands. Yes gross, it is not my first choice but I had little choice at this point.
The beans with cheese were moist; the rice was a little dry but worked well with the beans. The shredded beef Tamale was a little dry on its own but the red sauce added extra flavor and helped soften the Tamale so it was less dry. The Chile Relleno was just average. The best out of the combo plate was the burrito. The Chile Verde was moist, had flavors, and plenty of Verde within the burrito. Every bite of the mini burrito had a nice bite of the Verde.
Over all the food here is good and I would come back to try other orders. I noticed this is a sit down atmosphere but the drinks come in cans without the refills. Service is a bit slow but this place seems really popular on Friday nights starting at 5pm. Parking is ridiculously limited, and make sure you get your utensils if you take it to go.
Pluses: Accepts credit cards, good food, affordable prices.
Minuses: Lack of parking, no drink refills, questionable service for to go orders.
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