Unlike other Mexican restaurants, Tapatios Cocina Mexicana doesn’t have $6.95 lunch specials, it doesn’t have 12 pages to its menu and it doesn’t serve margaritas. Instead, it goes for more robust flavors through slightly more complex dishes.
Let’s start with the tacos. You can get a traditional taco ($2.75) with either steak, chicken, pastor, chorizo, campechano or barbacoa. In addition to onions and cilantro, it’s topped with cabbage.
If you want the next level of taco, you have four other choices. I enjoyed the El Tapatio ($3.50), which comes with melted cheese, beans, pico de gallo and avocado. Fortunately, these toppings complemented, not overpowered, the meat, which in my case was the well-seasoned chorizo. Note, the chorizo is expectedly a little greasy, so you’ll probably need two napkins to get through it.
Tapatios also has a decent selection of entrees, including three kinds of fajitas, three kinds of enchiladas and tostadas. Plus there are two salads and a soup.
I’ve heard good things about the burritos, so I tried two different ones. The first was the Cali fresh ($10), a filling and satisfying mix of grilled steak, beans, cheese, guacamole and yes, French fries. I liked that the steak was tender, the fries held their form and the burrito itself was lightly grilled and ample in flavor.
The shrimp burrito ($10), too, did not disappoint. It’s got beans, rice, pico de gallo, lettuce, avocado, cheese and a really tasty chipotle salsa. The shrimp are not overcooked (yay!), and they are plentiful. As the burritos are so flavorful, you don’t need to add any salsa, but I did add some homemade hot sauce because I wanted some heat.
Tapatios Cocina Mexicana is open every day for lunch and dinner. You also can find it as a food cart called Cali Fresh in Library Mall.
