Los Ranchos

Great portions! Good tacos!!! They have an amazing weekday special for 5 dollars. You get 4 tacos. On Thursdays, we eat pastor (pork) but on Friday? Asada (steak)! It's always packed around lunch time, the Hispanic locals are definitely gatekeeping this place. I'll keep working on my Spanish enjoying the delicious food. I've had the tacos primarily but the asada quesadilla I had recently had a mild cheese flavor that paired nicely with the seasoned beef. The drinks are super fairly priced too, you can get a medium agua fresca for 3 dollars! Salsa verde is flavorful. It's not a fancy place, just some tables pushed together like a cafeteria. I go for the restaurant portion but the market side has a lot of good options as well. I'm hungry just writing this!

Never having tried this Mexican/Latin American restaurant, I thought Cinco de Mayo was a great day to give it a shot. Big mistake. Full disclosure, I have lived in Mexico so I have higher expectations. The tacos, sold individually but pictured on the menu as three, were all bland. The chicken had no spice or seasoning, the shrimp were unseasoned and as a taco (shrimp & onions) very bland, and the barbacoa had some flavor but not anything to order again. I ordered a Valdeas (I think it was supposed to be a Baldeas, a Honduran dish) and the description was "with cheese, beans, cream, avocado, egg." I added chicken for $2 but had zero idea what I was getting. You can see below it was HUGE but also bland and my inner Gordon Ramsay exclaimed, It looks like a baby's diaper!" I took three bites. When I ordered the Valdeas I checked Queso as a side, fully expecting cheese dip. Instead I got a puposa, a fluffy masa tortilla stuffed with a little melted cheese. My order contained a baggie of pickled slaw-type topping but no indication which dish it was for. Overall, the food was largely inedible and ended up in my trash which makes me sick. I hate tossing food. But I love Mexican food and this was not it.

I love the deli inside of Los Ranchos. Hubby and I always come back for the big beef burritos and green chile.