| El Suahayo (The Former "Tacos Chuchos") @ the Cypress Auto Spa 5890 Lincoln Ave Cypress, CA 90630 (714) 503-1400 Listing at Yahoo! Local No known official website. |  |
Following up on a recommendation given to me months and months ago and trying to finally cover a place in Cypress, lonely, lonely Cypress, I finally set out to find Tacos Chuchos. After getting off the freeway and driving up Valley View and noticing a million other car wash places along the way and checking them all to see if perhaps they had a Mexican restaurant inside I finally found the Cypress Auto Spa that had a Mexican restaurant inside, except this one was called El Suahayo, not Tacos Chuchos.
Eventually I found somewhere in the signage a "Tacos Chuchos" that had been crossed out and replaced with "El Suahayo" so I figured I had made it to the right place. My friends Chris and Kristanna caught up with me and they actually played by the rules and got their car washed.
I went in and checked out the menu board and there were all sorts of authentic Mexican items such as lengua tacos, menudo soup and more. There is one Mexican man that runs the whole eatery. He rings up your order and makes your food and if you come in while he's making someone else's food be prepared to wait for him to finish cooking the other order. I asked for a lengua taco and he said they were out. Then I asked for a bowl of pozole and he said they hadn't made any that day. I asked for one or two other items that he said they were out of and finally he told me that most gringos don't order the stuff I was attempting to order so they cut down on keeping particular ingredients on hand.
I ended up with a rather more pedestrian selection of a chicken taco and an al pastor taco. While the meat was good in each, especially the al pastor, everything else was pretty standard, with store bought corn tortillas, bagged shredded cheese and lettuce and canned refried beans.
When Chris and Kristanna ordered they too attempted to order a number of things that were on the menu but not available. Kristanna ended up with the chicken quesadilla:
While Chris ended up with a big, wet burrito:
Apart from the fact that it's at a car wash place the food here is much like that that can be found at taquerias in Santa Ana, straight up Mexican with little Americanized dilution, but in kind of an emasculated way. Would you want to go here simply to try the food? That might be hard to answer yes to but if you are there getting your car cleaned I would say give it a try. Three Speedy Gonzaleses:
If they're not serving some of the good things because gabachos don't order them, what does that say for the percentage of brown skinned diners who frequent the place? I don't know about you, but if I enter a Mexican restaurant that has a dining room full of people who look like they just rolled in on the bus from Brainerd, MN, I won't be expecting much.
ReplyDeleteLooks like they use sour cream instead of crema. 5 point penalty.
Yuck, canned refritos. I'd rather eat mud. 50 point penalty.
One more thing: What did the other two think of their food? The quesadilla and the wet burrito.
ReplyDeleteYour assessment is basically right. But if you happen to be there I'd say take a chance. And let me know if they brought back the pozole.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I can't even remember. Well, they basically liked their stuff but, like me, had a damper put on everything when three or four things they tried to order weren't available.
ReplyDeleteI recently put that clientele assessment to the test here in Fontana. We entered Mexico Lindo on Sierra Ave, saw nothing but people who look like me, and both of us hated what we ordered.
ReplyDeleteThere are exceptions, of course. El Patio in Capistrano Beach is a notable one.
Yeah, the clientele base can be an indicator but not the ultimate one because you never know what you might see if you went back on a different day at a different time.
ReplyDeleteJACK'S NUMBER ONE RULE FOR MEXICAN RESTAURANT DINING:
ReplyDeleteNo matter what.... if I enter the place, I'm ordering food. Rating placard be damned, I'm ordering, be it A, B, or C. About the only thing that will put me off is if I see the cook blow his nose into the beans, or a rat carry off a small child.
I've seen rats carrying off large children and I was fine with it.
ReplyDeleteWould love to see some reviews of fried Tacos (not taquitos, but fried tacos) and Menudo reviews.
ReplyDeletePretty sure I've mentioned fried tacos on the blog before and I do have some menudo mentions coming up. Are you a menudo fan?
ReplyDeleteyes, big menudo fan. And yes you did a couple of fried taco reviews, jsut would like to see more
ReplyDeleteOkay. Sounds like you have menudo more often than I do. Feel free to do a guest review sometime.
ReplyDelete