Review: El Taco Torro
Author: WIBIA | Filed under: Food Reviews, Location: Indianapolis, IN
El Taco Torro
79th and Michigan
Indianapolis, IN
The WIBIA inbox is a pretty funny place (btw, thanks for all the e-mails). One e-mail trend that is consistent is that people seem to really dig the taco joints. The good news is…I do too.
I have passed this place up a few times and always wondered about it until I ran into this now defunct Indianapolis blog that had a review. It looked good, so I gave it a try.
More of a seated restaurant with the server and chips/salsa setup. Menu has tacos, burritos, tortas and a few other items as well but is mostly a standard taqueria. El Taco Torro has a little more selection of meats than normal, tongue or intestine, etc.
What I Got: Taco Carnitas, Taco Al Pastor $1.50 each. Carne Asada Burrito $4.99.
The tacos were stuffed full and I could barely fold them. The Carnitas was a big miss. There were a number of really fatty pieces that were inedible. They were about the size of a piece of Trident and never should’ve made it to the plate.
Taco Al Pastor was a let down as well. Instead a flavorful marinade carrying the taste, it reminded me of a seasoning packet that you would mix with water. Plus there was no sign of a gyro spit (usually you can see all the meat staked and then sliced like a gyro)…bad sign there. What was I thinking? Both tacos were a little heavy handed on the sour cream, but since it was not a normal taqueria setup where you only got cilantro and onions, it was a nice bonus, especially at the price point.
Carne Asada Burrito
The carne asada burrito was pretty good actually. The best quality of meat out of the three items I tried. It was a good size and packed with beans, rice and a little too much sour cream. Really nice, no complaints here.
Would I Buy It Again? Yes/No. No because the tacos were huge, but not very good. The chef was heavy handed on sour cream and the red salsa with the chips was not to my liking (my guess, chilie de arbol based.) Yes, because service was friendly, had a solid burrito, wide range of meats on the menu and the green salsa was good.
Bottom line…I need a re-visit. I think there could be a couple of winners here, but I am not 100% convinced to sign my name to giving it a YES without reservations.
-WIBIA
Tags: carne asada, el taco torro, Food, Tacos, Taqueria
That’s interesting. Most authentic Mexican joints I go to that serve extra meat varieties like tongue offer their tacos regular, with just onions and cilantro on top, or “gringos”, with tomatoes, sour cream, ect. Was that how it was there? That’s a hell of a lot of sour cream.