A couple of people had asked me about or mentioned this
place to me, and it is really close to my house, so we thought we’d give it a
try with the kids for lunch. It is a taqueria,
so you go up and order what you want, and they pretty much fill it however you
like (extra charge for guacamole and queso). The thing that makes this place
stand out from the standard quick service Mexican place is the fact that they
press fresh flour tortillas to order. You go up and pick your vehicle (burrito,
taco, etc) and they get out an appropriately sized dough ball, press it, and fill it. The meat choices
were chicken, beef, carnitas or you could have a veggies.
I had the taco option ($4.75) which comes with 2 tacos. I had
one chicken and one carnitas (the beef was a little too gray and cubed
looking for me). They took smaller discs
of dough and pressed them into the right size for tacos. I had mine filled with the meat, cheese,
salsa and pico de gallo. Surprisingly,
I liked the chicken version the best.
The carnitas meat was sitting in a liquidy broth that made the meat literally
drip with the broth. It kind of killed
the tortilla because it soaked it so much.
It was a bummer because the tortilla, as I said, it what makes this
place stand out from other similar places.
The fillings are pretty standard.
The chicken was pretty good—not as dry and flavorless as it often can
be. It was hard to tell with the carnitas—they had a bit of an almost cinnamon flavor
or something but because it was so soggy, I didn’t even end up finishing the
taco.
My daughter and hubby split a burrito ($6.25 + $1 for guac)
which she filled exactly as she wanted it—with black beans, rice, carnitas,
guacamole and sour cream. This was a
much better vehicle for the pork, because it didn’t suffer from the extra
moisture of the meat---in fact, it was helpful to make the entire burrito quite
juicy. Again, it was all wrapped up in
an even bigger tortilla and overall, I would say was the better choice over
tacos. They were both quite happy and are ready to go back for another one.
My son had a cheese quesadilla ($3.95 for cheese only) which
was one of the giant burrito sized tortillas folded and stuffed with cheese (of
course you can fill them with whatever you want). It was fine, but he was not a
big fan a declared that he does not like Mexican food (other than La Hacienda).
That was his verdict.
Honestly, even though my daughter is jazzed to go back (and
I think hubby would go if she asked), I didn’t find anything that exciting
about it besides the tortillas—and they are pretty good. There is no salsa bar type thing, or salsa on
the table, so it is hard to know what kind you want without trying them all.
Not sure I have ever been in a taqueria that didn’t offer additional salsa to
finish up your food (there are bottles of hot sauce). The chips didn’t seem fresh which was kind of
surprising what with the whole fresh tortilla thing, although since they are
corn chips, and they don’t make corn tortillas, maybe it isn’t that
surprising. The chips just ok—the mild
salsa we got with them was pretty fresh and tasty though. The people were super nice, although I was
surprised by all the up charges for things (especially since the amount of guac
you get for $1 is pretty minimal).
Obviously these types of Mexican restaurants are becoming
more and more popular around town, as they seem to be springing up all over the
place. Unfortunately, I think like
anything, the more mass produced, the more generic the food becomes. This one has a hook with the tortillas, but
for me, that’s about it. So, which one
is your favorite?
Panchero’s
4335 East 82nd
Street
Indy 46250
317/288-2677
Your comment about the salsa, did you expect this to be different that Qdoba or Chipotle?
ReplyDeleteRed Habanero and Pancho's are what I was thinking of actually...but you're right, the chains don't seem to have salsa out.
ReplyDelete