We came here on the Taste of Kelowna Food Tour and loved it so much that the next year we came back on our own. This place has the best Mexican food I’ve had in Canada, and that is high praise considering that I grew up in Southern California and live in Vancouver now.
The street tacos are absolutely authentic. My favorites were the vegetarian Rajas Poblanas with poblano chilies, the pork Cochinitas Pibil, and the fish Pescado Veracruz. The chilaquiles were also the best I’ve had, with half green and half red sauce to make them even more interesting. Margaritas here are great, too.
By complete coincidence, we ran into Andrew, the wonderful guide from our Taste of Kelowna tour last year, who was escorting another group around and happened to arrive as we were eating. He even remembered my name, and was so kind that, after he left, we discovered he had comped us a delicious order of churros served with a wonderful chilled caramel sauce.
TacoRiendo serves traditional Mexican food ranging from tacos and enchiladas to burritos and chile rellenos. The nachos and guacamole are quite incredible, and the red sauce is appropriately spicy on all of their main dishes. I particularly like the fish tacos with the green sauce. The margaritas are excellent, and the price for a pitcher is quite reasonable. You can get quite busy, especially on Friday nights, so don’t go when you’re in a hurry; enjoy it.
This is probably the most authentic Mexican restaurant we’ve yet tried in Vancouver. It’s in a somewhat seedy section of Gastown, but the interior is absolutely gorgeous, with lots of hanging lanterns that create a magical mood. The food is definitely authentic Mexican, not Tex-Mex, but the real thing. I particularly enjoyed my Enchiladas Sauza, which is a recipe I have not seen anywhere else except in Southern California. The chicken enchiladas were doused with a wonderfully piquant green sauce that was perfect.
We also enjoyed the assortment of guacamole, refried beans, and salsa that was served with chips as an appetizer.
The margaritas are interesting here because they are served as a cocktail, shaken, not stirred, and presented in a coupe glass, which I actually really liked a lot because you get much more margarita and a real purity of flavors.
It’s hard to believe that this is part of a chain, because this is some of the best Mexican food that I’ve had in Canada. In particular, the table-side guacamole was the best I’ve had anywhere, with the perfect mix of onions and jalapenos in super fresh avocados. The tacos were also very good, in particular the fish taco. Service was friendly, and the atmosphere was decidedly Mexican Cantina. A pleasant surprise for a tourist area.
This place was a pleasant surprise since it’s in an area frequented mostly by tourists. I wasn’t expecting that much, but their Mexican food is actually really terrific, quite authentic, and their margaritas are top-notch. I would definitely return to this place as my top pick of restaurants in Granville Island.
This place has a great atmosphere. There is a long bar with terrific artwork and fanciful trees above it, plus high top and booth seating, and an expansive outdoor patio.
I went at lunch, which has a fairly short menu but hits a lot of favorites. There’s a Mexican slant to many of the dishes, but it is definitely not an entirely Mexican restaurant.
I had the nachos, fully loaded, which was very much like ones that I would make at home. I also tried the chicken wings in two different styles: one tossed in salt and pepper and the other tossed in a habanero mustard sauce. The habanero mustard sauce was particularly interesting.
The margaritas are good, and the service was friendly.
It’s hard to find authentic Mexican food in Vancouver, so I was delighted to come upon this place on Davie. I’d walked past it quite a few times, but somehow or other it just didn’t draw my eye. I tried the one down on Denman, and it was pretty good, but it was more of a counter-service place. When I realized this was a full sit-down restaurant with a bar, I decided to check it out. I’m glad I did.
The space is nicely decorated. I guess it could be pretty loud and noisy when it gets crowded, but I was there at a quiet lunchtime.
The menu is short but has lots of authentic dishes on it. I was torn between the molcajete, mole, or the enchiladas, but I decided to go with the enchiladas because pastor was offered as one of the fillings, and that’s not all that common to find in enchiladas. They were really terrific. The pastor had more of a ground meat consistency to it, but was the right flavor, and the green sauce was the best that I’ve had in Vancouver, with just the right amount of bite from the peppers. The refried beans and rice were also decent.
I really liked the complimentary chips.
The margarita was a standout, hand-shaken and at a reasonable price. Probably the best margarita I’ve had in town.
Service was friendly and attentive since I was alone.
I grew up in Southern California, and so I’m pretty picky about Mexican food. I wanted authentic, not Americanized. It matters whether the corn tamales are fresh and the right kinds of cheese are used. The quality of the jalapenos. The variety of the salsas. And especially the way the meats are seasoned and cooked.
It seems like the farther I get away from Mexico, the more unreliable the Mexican food becomes (although I must admit, I did once have a great Mexican meal at a hotel in Sweden!) Anyway, Vancouver is pretty far from Mexico. And so the results are pretty dicey at a lot of the Mexican places around here.
But Mi Casa really blew us away.
It’s a little hard to find, it’s just a door with stairs going up. But once you’re up there, it’s quite, spacious, with picture windows lining two walls.
I was pretty sure things were going to go well when I got my Margarita. None of that fake Margarita flavored syrup here, just real lime juice and a generous two ounces of tequila and a rim half salted without my having to ask.
Then the enormous pile of nachos showed up, thoughtfully layered and covered in the right kind of cheese. Plentiful pickled jalapenos with just the right spice level. A mound of delicious guacamole. And an incredible chorizo. I’ve never even been much of a fan of chorizo, and if I’d known it was going to be on there, I’d probably have had them leave it off, but it really made the dish. It was complex and smoky, and its flavors infused everything. Honestly, these were the best nachos I’ve ever had anywhere.
I also had the lunch special, which was two tacos. I chose pastor and cochinita pabil. Pastor is a longtime favorite of mine, and this was prepared in a very traditional way. It was excellent, but the cochinita pabil was even better. Succulent and plentiful. Some of the best I’ve had.
My wife had two tamales with chicken filling. You could tell they were homemade with perfectly done cornmeal wrappers and served on corn husks.
Service was friendly, and the server verified our suspicion that the owners were from Mexico City. I’ve dined in hundreds of Mexican restaurants, but I have to say this was the biggest surprise and was among the very top of all that I’ve been to. It really exceeded our expectations and will become a regular on our rotation.
It’s very difficult to find good Mexican food in Vancouver. There is some Tex-Mex, but even it is of widely varying quality. There is little truly authentic, let alone regional Mexican cuisine. So it was delightful to find Taqueria Jalisco. And find is the operative word because it’s not all that apparent where it is from the street, but if you climb the stairs on Denman you’ll find it in the first narrow storefront upstairs.
While it’s not a full-service restaurant, it does offer the sorts of food you would expect to find in one. Prices also seem like what you’d expect in a full-service restaurant, but on the other hand, when you see the size of the portions, you’ll understand the reasoning. Although the menu is fairly short, a lot of the items are for large quantities (e.g., 10 tacos), so it seems that they are aiming for groups with a lot of menu items.
We tried the highly recommended Mega Quesabirria; it had an ample amount of Birria and was served with a consommé for dipping. If you’re into Birria, I think you’d really like this dish.
But our favorite by far was the chilaquiles with green sauce. This was the most authentic Mexican dish that I’ve had in Vancouver. The chips were the sturdy homemade kind that had soaked in just enough of the sauce to give them the true character of chilaquiles, and the green sauce had exactly the right spicy and acidic bite. It was a generous portion, really enough for two people. The accompanying refried beans were a bit soupy but flavorful. I’ll definitely go back for more of their green sauce on the chilaquiles and perhaps their tacos.
They also have some authentic raw fish dishes that sound intriguing. Beverage options are limited, but they do serve beer and shots.
Service was friendly.
They don’t open until 1pm, which is odd for a place that serves what is such a perfect meal for lunch. Too bad.
This is the most authentic Mexican food I’ve found in the West End area. The tacos are served traditional style, with a choice of traditional filling such as pastor, pibil, and carne asada. The carnitas were the best, succulent and juicy.
The Mole don Pollo was excellent, a bit more chocolatey than traditional, but nicely complex with spices.
The complementary chips are excellent, apparently fried twice to get them to puff up a bit, and the accompanying salsa verde was spot on.
Service was pleasant and efficient, all seemingly done by one person who was also tending bar. Speaking of which, the margaritas (lime, on the rocks, of course) were excellent.
On a second visit we had chicken tostadas and the “Gringas Quesadilla with Pastor”. Both were excellent. I think I would have the quesadilla again, but perhaps with carnitas or the chicken that was on the tostadas. The tostadas would be good with some cilantro and a side of red sauce.
