Chronic Tacos Now Open at Westcliff Plaza

Newport Beach, California, September 17, 2010 – Chronic Tacos, a Newport Beach favorite since 2002, has opened at Westcliff Plaza in Newport Beach. The casual restaurant offers fresh, made-to-order Mexican food from authentic, third generation recipes.

The restaurant strives to be an active community partner, and participated in the Annual July 4th Celebration at Mariners Park, and plans to get involved in many other local events to give back to the Newport Beach. "Newport Beach is where Chronic Tacos was born. We love this place and plan on playing a bigger part in the local scene. Don't be surprised if you see us at your next event!" stated Mike Gleich, President of Chronic Tacos.

Chronic Tacos prides itself on serving a full menu of great tasting taqueria style Mexican food in a restaurant that has its own unique style. "It's definitely not your corporate Taco Shop. The restaurant will have many large screen TVs, colorful custom artwork, music and a local Newport staff that will make you feel right at home. The portions are big but the prices are small, added Gleich.

Chronic Tacos offers custom made tacos with the option of flour, corn or wheat tortillas, and a selection of meats, fish or shrimp, veggies and salsa. The menu also features burritos, tostadas, taquitos, enchiladas and other items, along with guacamole made fresh daily. The restaurant will also serve breakfast daily.

This is the second Chronic Tacos in Newport Beach. There are more than 30 locations in four states.

The new Chronic Tacos is located in Westcliff Plaza at 1120 Irvine Ave. off Seventeeth, in Newport Beach, and can be reached at (949) 645-8226 (TACO). For more information, please visit www.eatchronictacos.com.

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Chronic Tacos - Review #2

Chronic Tacos 7520 East Chapman Ave Orange, CA 92869 Official Site

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Now I know why people have been doing so many searches for "Chronic Tacos" lately: it's because they have just opened a new location in Orange Park Acres. Guest reader John Olsen aka "Automatic" informed me about it then accepted my commission to go and take some pictures. This is another place so new that no information can be found for it online (until this review goes up); not even the official Chronic Tacos website mentions it.

Here's Johnny's report:

I went to the location that just opened in the East Orange area known as Orange Park Acres. Big long line at about 12:45pm.

This location has ten tables to sit at.

I went with the burrito lunch combo special. Burrito, chips, salsa and drink $6.49 It's enough for for 2 normal appetites. I went with pork al pastor, spanish rice, black beans, onions, cilantro, cheese. Flavors were good with maybe a touch of sweet spice on the end.

Chips were good but I have to give low marks to their regular salsa. It is too sweet with a tomato paste-like base. The salsa of any Mexican place has a big influence on my opinion on a place. For some dishes the salsa is the only thing to judge a place by other than freshness of ingredients. This one tasted like an average store-bought mild salsa that you get in a jar, the cooked kind you find on the canned goods aisle.

This location is drawing big crowds all the time, maybe because of its proximity to Santiago Canyon College or maybe because Taco Bell is the only Mexican food anywhere near by.

Returned at Christian's request to take some pictures. So I returned for dinner with my wife Thea. Thea is a huge cheese enchilada fan and usually that is the first thing she tries at a new place. She did the same here ordering two cheese enchiladas. They make these in front of you like everything else but they don't ask you if you have any preferences. They put shredded cheese and sauce into a corn tortilla, rolled it up and then poured some more sauce on top. Then it was off to the microwave to be nuked to melt it all together. The sauce for the enchiladas suffered from the same problem as the salsa. It is definitely sweet and Thea said it tasted more Italian than Mexican. Indeed I tried a couple of mouthfuls of the cheese and sauce. Without a bite of corn tortilla, it tasted like pizza topping, not enchilada filling. Very strange. I am happy to report that they have a hot salsa also. It is red chile based with obvious flakes of pepper and pepper seeds visible. Adding some to the enchilada lent it a more Mexican flavor.

With these two experiences I would suggest any real Mexican food fans should avoid the mild sauces.

I tried the Fatty taco combo with the beer battered shrimp. It was stuffed with shrimp and after adding some cabbage, onions and the sour cream-based sauce they suggest for seafood, it was a full taco as you can see from the photo. The sauce is a nice choice being creamy and spicy. The shrimp taco had good flavor and I'd order it again. This time I asked for hot salsa to go with the chips and found it to be much better.

You certainly get good quantities of food. I saw a number of people order the nachos, usually two people sharing one order as they are really big. But then everything is good-sized here. I am sure if you are a teenaged or college-aged boy you'll love it here. For us, we found that Chronic does some things very well and somethings not well at all. So that leaves me considering this place a 3 - right down the middle ratingswise.

Thanks, John. To the rest of the readers, we've got another review of John's coming soon.

Chronic Tacos - Review #1

Chronic Tacos 4533 W Coast Hwy Newport Beach, CA 92663 (949) 642-2458 Listing on Yahoo! Local Listing on Ask.com's Citysearch Official Site

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I've been getting an incredible amount of people coming here lately searching for information on "Chronic Tacos." I don't know what caused the sudden surge but it's been so many that I went to the Newport Beach location earlier today (my one other visit was before starting this blog) and my review of them is going to jump ahead of everything else in the pipeline so I can give the people what they want.

I suspect what the people want to hear about is Chronic's "Fatty Tacos." They aren't named that way because they are only for overweight people but because they are absolutely stuffed with . . . well, the stuffings of your choice. When you order your taco you go through a Subway-like line where you tell the worker just what toppings you want. For my carnitas taco I asked for guacamole, cilantro, onions, and cheese. I watched the whole process of the taco being made yet, somehow, when I opened my foil and paper-wrapped taco to eat it after paying for it there was even more inside it than I saw go in. Every square millimeter of corn tortilla real estate had been sold and utilized with fresh crisp ingredients. I made my dinner a "combo" by paying $1.49 more to add chips and salsa and a soft drink. You can pay a little bit more and make it a "meal" by having beans and rice added.

By the way, every order at Chronic Tacos is to go and they don't have much seating, a couple stools inside and the sidewalk outside. And, from my photo above, it looks like you can bring dollar bills in and tape them to the soda machine.

I usually take these exterior shots as I enter a restaurant but this one was taken as I was exiting. There were a couple guys right below where the camera shot who looked like they didn't want to have their picture taken so I had to snap the picture then jump in my Maserati and speed off. So, to the guys hanging out in front of Chronic Tacos: if you never become famous don't blame me. (Okay, so I don't have a Maserati and I didn't have to speed away from there but this was still a good example of guerilla food blogger photography.)

I'm going to do something different for this review and let people comment on how many Speedy Gonzaleses I should give Chronic Tacos. So, if you've eaten there before leave a comment telling what you think of it and how many Speedys you would rate it (up to five). I'm in the 3.75 - 4 range myself.

Clicking on the "chronic" label below will also take you to our review of Chronic Cantina, the big version of a Chronic Taco at Triangle Square in Costa Mesa as well as other Chronic Taco coverage:

Chronic Cantina - Review #1

Date of Visit: November 4, 2006

Chronic Cantina 1870 Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa, CA 92627 (949) 646-0227 Listing on Yahoo! Local Official Site

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STOP!! If you are looking for information on Chronic Tacos then Click Here!!!.

Chronic Cantina is to Chronic Taco what Taco Rosa is to Taco Mesa: the more elite flagship restaurant of a small, laid back Orange County Mexican food chain. Except that Chronic Cantina has way more big screen TVs than Taco Rosa, possibly even more big screens than all the Mexican restaurants I've been to combined. I think it's impossible to sit anywhere in Chronic Cantina's large open air seating area and not be able to see one of their big screen TVs broadcasting all the sporting events you could hope for. I didn't count them but I think someone estimated there could be 40 there.

You can find Chronic Cantina on the upper level of Triangle Square (never realized until now what an odd name that is for a shopping center - it's a triangle and a square?) on Harbor and 19th in Costa Mesa. This center was all the rage when it opened in '93 or '94 but slowly died down as merchants like Nike Town and Virgin Records and some sort of virtual reality laser tag game moved away. Chronic Cantina seems to be infusing some of the life back into the place. I'm pretty sure the chronically scantily clad waitresses help bring in a lot of male customers.

Chronic Cantina is not just about watching sports. Did I mention they also have Mexican food? The menu mentions that they use third generation recipes for their food. I ordered a grilled garlic shrimp taco and a carnitas torta a la carte and together they made a great lunch. The taco was stuffed so full I had to eat a lot of the filling out with my fork before I could attempt to pick the rest up and eat in a proper taco eating manner.

They also seem to have a MySpace Profile, although I'm not sure if it's official. They might also be the only Mexican food chain that was spun off from a clothing brand, but, hey, that's the county we live in and that's where I'm stayin'.

The service from my waitress (Danielle?) was excellent and I had a nice chat with the owner, Mike Biello, who was quite affable. Chronic Cantina earns a four Speedy Gonzales rating: