La Taquizza

Real authentic Mexican food in Vaughan?  No way!!!!  Of course I’m there.  As the hubby was driving there after yoga class, I read the reviews on Yelp.  They have some pretty good reviews, got me pretty darn excited.  Tacos, delicious tacos……and I won’t have to drive downtown to get them!  Menu seemed pretty standard, nothing too out of the norm.  We ordered a horchata, chicken tinga tacos, and the fish tacos. The tacos come with a side, you can get their beans or rice.  We got one of each to try.   After ordering, we went to the salsa bar to grab some salsas to accompany the tacos.  They make their own in the restaurant.  There were 2 red salsas, both of different heat level, 1 green salsa, fresh cilantro, chopped onions and limes.

The horchata was pretty good, creamy, sweet, cinnamony taste.  

Horchata

The chicken tinga tacos were served ‘naked’ as they call them.  On corn tortillas!  So glad it’s not flour tortillas, bleh.  Serving them 'naked' gives you the flexibility of putting on the accompaniments of your choice.  I put green salsa, onions, cilantro and lime juice.  Still not enough flavour.  The chicken tinga tacos were so bland!  Also, there was more potato than chicken.  Is there supposed to be potato in the filing?  I don’t recall ever having any potato in tacos before.  I loaded the remainder of my tacos with other salsas to give it some sort of flavour.  The beans were also bland and watery.  So again I had to load the beans with salsa to give it flavour.  The rice had some flavour, tasted like MSG.  So not the greatest in my opinion.  The fish tacos looked a lot better.  The fish was grilled, not fried.  Topped with avocado and some sour cream based sauce.  The hubby liked the fish tacos.  I took one bite and found it a bit too fishy for my liking.

Chicken Tinga Tacos, Fish Tacos

Yes it’s better than Taco Bell, but no I wouldn’t return for tacos.  I’d rather drive the farther distance and go downtown for better Mexican.  Even with my dislike for the food, there were a steady stream of people coming in to do take out orders of burritos.  Maybe their burritos are better than their tacos?

La Taquizza

3175 Rutherford Rd., 

Concord, ON

L4K 0A3

Phone:  (905) 669-2277

Hours:  Monday Closed

             Tuesday - Thursday 11:30am - 9:00pm

             Friday - Saturday 11:30am - 10:00pm

             Sunday 11:30am - 9:00pm

http://www.lataquizza.com

Gourmet Gringos

There's something I find fun about food trucks.  I'm not sure what it is.  But whenever I get a chance to eat from a food truck, I make sure to go and give it a try.  When I was in Vancouver last year, I made sure to check out the food truck festival there.  I was in heaven!  And because it's a summer long event (it's on every weekend), there wasn't much of a lineup at each of the trucks.  In Toronto, it's quite unfortunate, but food trucks aren't nearly as accessible as in other cities mostly due to laws and bylaws in Toronto.  I'm happy to say though, that Toronto is slowly getting there.  There have been quite a few pilot projects, and now we have Food Truck Alley 1 and 2 for select days during the week with a few rotating food trucks that will park there during the lunch hours.

Because where I work, I don't have much of an opportunity to try out food trucks.  So when I heard that Gourmet Gringos opened a location in Aurora, I decided to pop in.  The other reason was my dog's groomer is close by, so I had an hour to kill.

I asked the server what she would suggest.  She said her favourite were the fish tacos.  I don't eat fish normally, so I chose the next most similar, shrimp tacos.  The hubby ordered the chimichanga.  Each of the mains come with 2 sides.  From what I remember, there were refried beans, salad, sopa de frijol, rice and beans, and some other stuff to choose from.  The food didn't take too long to arrive, which I expected since there weren't many in restaurant diners.  But there were many people who came in for take out.

Shrimp tacos, 3 in an order.  Looked good, tasted blah.  To be honest, I was expecting the shrimp to be grilled, not deep fried like popcorn shrimp.  Not only that, the shrimp were just very slightly warm, also overcooked.   The upside, they used corn tortillas.

Shrimp Tacos

The chimichanga was massive (I think it was almost a foot long) and super greasy looking.  I can't remember if an authentic chimichanga is deep fried and then broiled with cheese, if its just broiled with cheese.  In any case, this was a deep-fried cheesy mess.  Inside there was beef, lots of beans and rice, and more cheese.  Flavour was not bad, nothing to write home about.  I'm not sure how the hubby finished this dish and not feel sick.....

Chimichanga

From what we ordered, the best thing was the pineapple chilli sauce.  Super flavourful.  I wouldn't make a trip up to Aurora just to try Gourmet Gringos. But if you happen to pass by the food truck, then by all means give them a try.  Remember to ask for the chilli sauce!

Gourmet Gringos
15380 Bayview Ave.
Aurora, ON
L4G 0K7

905-713-9993

Hours:  Sunday - Thursday 11:00a - 9:00p
             Friday - Saturday 11:00a - 11:00p

http://gourmetgringos.com

La Tortilleria

I love Mexican food, and I don't mean Tex-Mex.  This means I don't like flour tortillas.  In Kensington Market there's a restaurant that sells corn tortillas by weight.  I thought about buying a bunch home, but my freezer was full at the time, so I was left to just trying their tacos.  I regret that I didn't write this blog post as soon as I tried the tacos, because right now I can't remember which fillings we got!  All I remember is that the corn tortillas were delicious, soft, but had a slightly chewy texture to them.  The fillings, even though there was sauce, I found the meats too dry.  Definitely will go back to pick up some corn tortilla shells, but I think I will make the fillings at home.

La Tortilleria

198 Augusta Ave.,

Toronto, ON

M5T 2L6

Hours:  Monday - Friday, Sunday 10:30am - 7:00pm

             Saturday 10:30am - 8:00pm

http://www.latortilleria.ca

Kings Taco

One word to describe.  OMG!!!  I don't know much about Mexican food, but I do know that Taco Bell is not real Mexican food and not to go there when i'm craving Mexican food.  I found this place through Chowhound, my favourite restaurant researching site.  Upon additional research through other sites such as Yelp and Restaurantica, I actually started to get a little worried, because of the pictures I saw.  The logo and restaurant frontage looked a bit, well, kiddy and not professional.  I decided to trust the gut instincts of my fellow Chowhounders and off we went.

The hubby and I met my very pregnant former coworker (now mommy) and her husband there for dinner.  Decor inside the restaurant was so-so.  But all you could hear in there was Spanish.  This was definitely a good sign.  I started off with a horchata, a rice based drink with some spices in it, and the boys ordered Mexican Coca-Cola.  I don't know what they put or don't put in the Coca-Cola in Canada and the USA, but it doesn't taste as good.

For a starter, we ordered a half order of guacamole, tasty!  But I wish we knew that we would be getting free chips!  Along with the chips were 3 hot sauces with 3 different levels of spiciness, an onion and cilantro mixture and limes.

Guacamole, Chips, Hot Sauces

For the mains, we ordered tacos asador (4), tacos barbacoa (4), ya vas and the last dish I can't remember.  Everything was super delicious!  Seasoned really well and portions were very big!  Pricing was very reasonable as well.  I was so stuffed!  The best part, CORN TORTILLAS!  I love them.  None of the flour tortilla junk.  I can't eat tasteless flour tortillas anymore.  I had no idea, but tacos are not usually served with salsa.  It's apparently a north american thing.  Same with cheese.  Who knew?

Tacos Barbacoa

Tacos Asador

Ya Vas

Dish I forgot.....

I can't wait to go back again!

Kings Taco
1216 St. Clair Ave. W.,
Toronto, ON
(647) 342-0262

Hours:
Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday 12pm - 10pm
Friday, Saturday 12pm - 11pm