Las Barcas - Review #2

Date of Visit: March 4, 2006

21032 Beach Blvd
Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Listing on Yahoo! Local

Official Site

We now have our second reader review. This one was sent in by my friend James and he included a couple pictures as well. I believe James is the one that told me about Las Barcas about a decade ago.

Baby drinking glass not included with meal


The lemon's trying to escape

I went to Las Barcas restaurant on Saturday afternoon at 2:30pm. I ordered a taco & enchilada comination plate, my wife got the machaca burrito, and my mother got the chicken tostada. All three were very good! I used to live about a block away from Las Barcas and I would phone in orders and walk down and pick them up (usually the chicken tostada, which back then was less than $4.00). I love the chips and salsa there too -- the salsa is probably the best I've tasted. This time I tried to figure out if their salsa has vinegar or Mexican oregano in it, and thought I detected the latter. The food leaves little to be desired, unlike many run-of-the-mill combo plate Mexican places. I think they deserve an extra "Speedy" for the salsa & chips too.

I'd give them four Speedys:

Thanks for the review, James. We've still gotta hit Mexi-casa and Miguel Jr. sometime . . . and Blue Agave again. And some other places.

Las Barcas - Review #1

Date of Visit: January 30, 2006

21032 Beach Blvd
Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Listing on Yahoo! Local

Official Site

I've noticed that if you can start a taco joint anywhere down by the beach at Huntington Beach (and perhaps near any beach anywhere) and you serve even halfway decent food then you are likely to have a booming business. Somehow beaches and good, fast Mexican food go hand in hand and Las Barcas exemplifies this theme. Celebrating nineteen years of business (the banner out front says so) they are likely to continue to grow in popularity.

When they called my name to alert me that my order was ready it was over a loudspeaker but it was so clear that I thought somebody had come out in the dining room and called my name. When I realized that I had to go up to the counter to pick up my food I first went to the takeout window to get it and saw something that didn't look like my order. Then I realized I was at the wrong place and had to go right back to the cash register window to get mi comida. Why I didn't remember this from my previous visits is beyond me (hey, I'm not perfect) but even for those savvy enough to remember the protocol there (i.e. everybody on the planet apart from me) you still have to break through the line of people waiting to pick up their take out orders to get your food then break through them again with your food and hope that no collision occurs.

Aerial View

I had ordered the two tamale plate (#28 on the menu). One was beef and the other carnitas. One was covered with red sauce and one was covered with salsa verde. It looked so good that I started eating it before it dawned on me that I was supposed to take a picture of it. Also got a large Orange Bang (have I mentioned that I like Orange Bang?) and went back for flan after finishing off my dinner.

They don't take credit cards at Las Barcas but they do have one of those little dinky ATM machines inside that charges you to use it . . . then your bank usually adds an additional charge for having used an ATM outside of their system, so come prepared with good old-fashioned cash.

Overall Las Barcas earns a four Speedy Gonzales rating:



Thanks to Phil Pico, my photographer for the evening, a man whose roots in California/Mexican heritage run deep.