Taqueria El Chilito - Review #1

Taqueria El Chilito 15852 Pasadena Ave Tustin 92780-5414 (714) 730-9182 No online directory listings found. No known official website.

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Here's another review reprinted with permission from the Griffin Eats OC blog:

I drove by Taqueria El Chilito the other day and I was immediately excited. Looking at the shabby exterior of the restaurant made me think, "I bet they have great Mexican food!" Unfortunately, I had just eaten lunch so I made a mental note to return later to try it out. The next day my wife felt like Mexican food. She felt like having nachos from Alberta's. I told her about this new place I passed the day before and she agreed to try it. I drove out to Taqueria El Chilito and thought to myself, "I might be discovering our next favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint!"

I pulled into a parking space and walked through the door. There were a couple coolers of Mexican ice cream bars. They sounded good since it was such a hot day, but I passed them up.

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Taqueria Mexico - Review #1

Taqueria Mexico 108 W Katella Ave Ste C Orange, CA 92867 (714) 538-5772 Open 24 hours Listing on Yahoo! Local Listing on Ask.com's Citysearch No known official website.

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Here's our second guest review, reprinted with permission, by new food blogger Griffin Tamura of Griffin Eats OC:

When you walk into Taqueria Mexico, you approach a counter with a glass partition. Behind the glass are steam trays full or delicious looking meats. The setup kind of reminds me of fast food chinese. You order what you want and they assemble it quickly as you watch.

I decided to sample some of their tacos so I could try as many different kinds of their meats as possible. I ordered four tacos ($0.95 each). I got carne asada, lengua, al pastor and carnitas.

The guy threw down eight mini tortillas, (two for each taco) covered them in big scoops of meat and then topped them off with onions, cilantro and hot sauce.

I sat down and squirted a little lime on all my tacos, and added a pinch of salt. I decided to try the lengua first. It was fantastic. Perfectly seasoned and tender. I moved on to the carnitas. They weren't the best I've ever had, but they were pretty damn good. The carne asada was juicy and the hot sauce complimented it well. The last taco was the al pastor. I was excited about the al pastor. They prepared it here like you might see Gyros prepared in a greek restaurant. A giant log of meat, slowly turning on a vertical spit, basting itself with it's own juices. Unfortunately, this was my least favorite meat of the four. It was good, but not fantastic.

I will definitely return to this place when I am in the area. If I'm really craving tacos, I may even make a special trip. It's so hard to find good lengua tacos these days...

Read Griffin's Original Report Here

Albatros - Review #1

Albatros Mexican Food 23591 Rockfield Blvd. #G Lake Forest, CA 92630 (949) 859-9600 Across from the Captain Creams Shopping Center, facing the north side of The Hat. No known official website.

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I recently found out about a new food blog on the block called Griffin Eats OC and its most recent review is about a new Mexican restaurant in Lake Forest. I wish I could go to every Mexican restaurant in the county every day. Well, not really, but there's still only so much one person can do so I asked Griffin if I could reprint his review of Albatros and he kindly gave his permission. So without further ado:

I recently visited the brand new Albatros Mexican Food in Lake Forest. Although they have a bird on their sign, I got the impression that they were trying to make people think that they were an "Albertos." This place is tucked away in a tiny strip mall. The location has had so may different tenants recently that I didn't think that anyplace could survive here. Until now.

I went to Albatros with high hopes and wasn't disappointed. I have only tried one item so far, the carne asada burrito ($3.50), but I was really impressed at both the quality of the burrito and the cost. I watched as the cook took a large portion of fresh beef and threw it on the grill. The small pieces of beef quickly cooked with a few tosses of his spatula. The cook then threw a giant flour tortilla on the grill, removed it and put some oniony guacamole on it and then filled the tortilla with the beef and rolled it. No rice, no beans, just meat and guacamole. An all meat burrito for $3.50? Unheard of! It was also actually so large that I couldn't even finish the whole thing! The meat was tender, but a little under seasoned for my tastes. I would have liked a little more of a citrusy flavor. It wasn't bad at all though.

Their salsa was very watery and not very spicy. Another guy from my office got their carnitas burrito. It too was all meat and guacamole, and he enjoyed it very much as well. I look forward to returning to Albatros soon to try their other menu items like Tortas ($2.75 ham, beef, chicken, chorizo-$3.00 carne asada, carnitas) Tacos ($1.90-$2.25) Enchiladas ($3.40) and more. I hope they don't raise their prices soon though. I can't believe how cheap some of their stuff is!

Read the complete entry at Griffin's blog: Griffin Eats OC

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UPDATE (April 9, 2013): Here's some pictures I (Christian) took at Albatros when I finally made it there myself a few days ago:

Click any one of them to be taken to the complete flickr photo album.