Taquiero Taco Patio
4517 Campus Drive
Irvine, CA 92612
Being a restaurant reviewer during these crazy times has been a little dodgy. I have found myself a bit depressed and uninspired to write very much during these unprecedented times we live through. A large part of the restaurant experience is inside the restaurants, experiencing the environment and how the food is presented. Seeing the pride that the servers and other employees have in the place where they are employed.
It would also be unfair and kind of mean to write a scathing review of a place in these challenging times for restaurants. Restaurants are struggling financially, and one report I saw claimed that a quarter of restaurants will not make it through this. That's a lot. This is my 872nd different restaurant review, and if that report is to be believed, it means that 217 of the restaurants I've visited in the last ten-plus years will cease operations. Unbelievable.
During this quarantine time, Katie and I have been getting a lot of takeout from the restaurants around us. It's probably no surprise, but we don't cook too much at home. I make an odd meatloaf sometimes, or if Katie prods me enough, I make her favorite pasta, carbonara, which I made for her on one of our first dates. We had grown a bit tired of our local places, so we decided to branch out by getting some takeout from Taquiero Taco Patio in Irvine.
I had heard some good things about this place that opened in the Campus Plaza, tucked inside UC Irvine. In just over a year of being in business, they get a very respectable four-star rating with over 600 reviews on Yelp. They have been mentioned in quite a few best-of lists in Irvine and were featured in the OC Register as helping to end the taco famine that has plagued the city for a long while. Most impressive to me, though, was that after eating here, one of OC's original food bloggers, Griffin, from Griffin Eats OC, was so inspired by the food he consumed here that he wrote a restaurant review after five years of radio silence on his blog. This spoke volumes, and I decided we'd try them while taking advantage of the light freeway traffic.
Taquiero Taco Patio was started by two guys, Sean and Roberto. Roberto was born and raised in Tijuana; from what I can tell, he's the food guy. Sean grew up in Irvine but lived in Mexico for ten years. Both men saw a need to bring the tacos they loved south of the border back to Sean's hometown. They are doing things the right way, with house-made tortillas, salsas made fresh daily, and meats prepared to honor their Tijuana roots. Let's see if they accomplished their mission.
All of this talk about Tijuana, and we start with something more a specialty of San Diego, rather than Tijuana, Al Pastor Fries ($10). This begins with a serving of french fries and is then topped with marinated pork fresh from the trompo, cheese, chipotle sauce, sour cream, and avocado sauce. This was a pretty solid effort, but I think it was the item that suffered the most from our 20-minute commute back home. The first few bites were magical, with the splendid pastor pairing nicely with the other toppings and fries. Then the fries got a little soggy, and all the toppings were on the top layer. As we dug deeper, we only had fries left over, which were getting less crisp by the minute. I look forward to trying these again when we are allowed to eat inside the restaurant, hopefully soon.
During the pandemic, Taquiero Taco Patio offered their tacos at Taco Tuesday prices, a dollar off their usual $3.50 price tag. A nice touch and an added incentive to try them out. I got the Conchita Pibil Taco and a Carne Asada Taco. I liked both of these, but I'd give the asada taco edge slightly. It came with onions, cilantro, and guacamole, which is always a bonus. The beef was tender, and they did not really skimp on the amount they included. The pork taco came simply dressed with pickled onion and plenty of Yucatan-styled pork. The pork was tasty but went up with the addition of their green salsa. The tortillas did a great job of holding everything together. They were thick but did not get in the way of letting the contents become the show's star. I'm intrigued by their fried cheese tortilla option, which I will try on my next visit.
If you are new to Mulitas ($6.75), they can best be described as an unfolded quesadilla. Think of it as a sandwich, but instead of bread, two corn tortillas are used to create it. The inside of this one was filled with chicken, onion, cilantro, and cheese. I've had quite a few mulitas, and this one wins the prize for being stuffed the most by a long shot. The chicken was nicely seasoned, and the cheese was present but did not overpower like a traditional quesadilla. The price might be a little steep, but this will satisfy most appetites.
Taquiero Taco Patio really reminded me of the Taco Stand in Orange. Their menus are very similar. Both specialize in al pastor, which they cook on the vertical spit, and their price points are nearly identical. The Taco Stand has a few more options with proteins, sides, and breakfast. I liked our takeout meal at Taquiero Taco Patio. It helped break the monotony of the places we have had over the last two months of sheltering in place. I look forward to returning here again to enjoy a meal inside the restaurant and see how the food holds up without the twenty-minute drive home.
Out of five digital thermometers (because this restaurant is trying to emulate the food from Tijuana, and that city produces 80 percent of the world's digital thermometers), five being best to zero being worst, Taquiero Taco Patio gets 3 digital thermometers.
For more information about Taquiero Tao Patio, head to their website here: https://www.taquierotaco.com/
Thanks for the mention!
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