Las Margaritas was one of the 2 restaurants we visited for Dine Out this year.

Their dine out menu was only $18 and it included my Scallop Ceviche appetizer, Crab Enchilada main, and Churros dessert. It was a pretty good deal.

The serving of the Scallop Ceviche was prett big for an appetizer. The glass cup was packed with scallops. The scallops were really soft, it was citrusy, but the overall flavor was rather mild. It was a nice light appetizer.

Enchilada! I was once again, disappointed. The crab enchilada here wasn’t very much of an enchilada, and mainly because of the regular red or green sauce was replaced with a cream sauce. It does not taste Mexican at all.

The enchilada came with a side of broken rice and salad. The broken rice didn’t have much flavor, the texture was rather weird because the rice was all broken up.

The churros were kind of hard rather than doughy. It was very cinnamony, and it was better than the flan, the other dessert on the menu.

I remember coming here once before and wasn’t too impressed with the food, this time around, also not too wowed by this highly buzzed restaurant.

Not the best place to get authentic Mexican food in Vancouver.

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Las Margaritas
1999 W 4th Ave
Vancouver, BC V6J
(604) 734-7117

I have been craving for enchiladas for a couple months now, therefore I brought myself to Bandidas Taqueria, a Mexican restaurant on Commercial dr.

Walking into the restaurant, my first impression was, this place smells weird, kinda like old furniture. This place was also really busy during lunch.

The obvious choice for me to get was the enchiladas. But, it was my first meal of the day, I needed my breakfast fix. I ordered the Huevas Rancheras instead. I also ordered a side of Corn Bread. Enchiladas, some other day. Also in a breakfast mood, my friend ordered the Pineapple French Toast with sausages.

We waited a long ass time for our food. I know it was busy and all, but we waited for 30-40minutes.

Huevas Rancheras came with 2 eggs, ranchera sauce, beans, purple cabbage salad, and roasted potatoes and yams. Everything on the pate was really good and each item has their own distinct flavor. The sauce was light, it had just enough spicy hint for a breakfast plate. I really liked the roasted yams, they were really sweet, they were a good mix with the usual potatoes for breakfast.

The corn breads were a little disappointing. They were really flat, and oily at the bottom. It was more crunchy rather than fluffy.

My friend wasn’t completely impressed with the Pineapple French Toast. Although there were fresh sliced pineapples beneath the french toasts, it tasted rather mediocre.

This was a real hipster place. The atmosphere reminded me a lot of Foundation on main. Service here was friendly, but also quite slow. It’s probably not a good place to go if you have work to get back to after lunch.

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Bandidas Taqueria
2781 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC V5N
(604) 568-8224

I was looking for a quick lunch in Vancouver, and my friend suggested that we’d go to Best Burrito, a place he discovered recently. The menu was really simple, I ordered a Chicken Burrito ($8) and watch the owner made it in front of me.

The size of the burrito was huge, pretty comparable to the donair size at Donair Affair. It felt like it weighted a pound. It had rice, beans, lettuce, salsa, and a ton of chicken. I also asked for some hot sauce.

It took me a couple bites before I got to the chicken, and the chicken was really tasty. It was flavorful, moist, and some bits had charred BBQ texture and taste to it. The whole thing tasted really good all together. The rice was al-dente. The only thing I didn’t really like was the salsa, I wasn’t a fan of the mushy tomatoes.

I think this would be considered cheap eats considering the size of the burrito. It wasn’t the best nor the most authentic burrito I’ve had, but it’s decent. It’s a good place to get food on the run, but just be careful, you might get a food coma after.

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Best Burrito
195 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V5Y
(604) 879-2378

Last week we had a birthday dinner at Cobre in Gastown. After eating there, I thought it was a Mexican fusion restaurant, however according to their website it was a fusion of Argentinian, Cuban, Brazilian and Mexican.

All items on Cobre‘s menu were tapas, and they came in mostly servings of 4. For example, an order of Pulled Duck Tacos contains 4 duck tacos. The duck tacos were my favorite of the night. The tacos were served on corn tortillas, with just the right amount of meat on top. The duck was really moist, succulent and it was added by  the sweetness of caramelized scallion on top. Very delicious.

The Lamb Tacos were really interesting. They were lamb patties topped by garlic flavored popcorn. The lamb patties were fairly moist, and the popcorn itself was well seasoned. Everything all together was pretty good, the popcorn added a different texture to the tacos but flavor wise, it didn’t really do much.

Another highlight dish of the night was the Maple chipotle tamarind glazed wild boar belly. This dish was so yummy, big chunks of very fatty pork in sweet maple glaze. It was full of fat, but it wasn’t greasy, it just melted in my mouth very nicely. I rarely enjoy fat in pork, but I liked this a lot.

Our birthday boy is a dessert fiend, so we ordered all 3 of Cobre‘s desserts. They were Churros with Caramel sauce, Chocolate cake, and Goat Cheese Penna Cotta. The best one was the Goat Cheese Penna Cotta, it was creamy, sweet, and I loved the berries it came with.

The service here was excellent. The waiter had full knowledge of all the dishes and he did a good job on explaining them as he served them to our table. The presentation of all the dishes were pretty pretty in an elegant way. Beer here were as cheap as $3.50 per pint, which was really good for a tapa restaurant. We had a great time there, we’ll definitely return.

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Cobre
52 Powell St
Vancouver, BC V6A
(604) 669-2396
www.cobrerestaurant.com

I went on our first food walking expedition with the team, and we went to the highly buzzed La Taqueria Taco Shop. With all the buzz, I was pretty excited to finally get to come here, but I also tried to lower my expectations as much as I could.

When we got there, the place looked pretty promising. It looked very run-down, very.. Mexican. The place was tiny with limited seats. The menu took me a while to read because they all had Spanish names, and I had to read the descriptions. You can get one taco for $2.50 dollars or a 4 tacos for $9.50.

We got a taco plate with Asada (flank beef), Arrachera (skirt beef), Pescado (grilled fish) and Carnitas (pork) tacos.

All 4 tacos came on the same plate, portion was pretty tiny to be honest, however  it looked authentic. There also a salsa bar, with 2 types of hot sauce, 1 guacamole sauce, pickled onions and jalepeños.

I’ve had a fair share of bad fish tacos in Vancouver, so I had the Pascado grilled fish taco first, thinking to get the worst one out of the way. It was not bad at all. It wasn’t great, but it was horrible either. It was a little too dry for me, and it also had a pretty strong fish taste. I had to add a lot of sauce on it from the salsa bar, either to get more moisture to the taco or cover up the fish taste, I don’t know.

The Arrachera taco was again, OK tasting. Like the fish taco, it was too dry for me. Taste wise, disappointing. I found it really bland, not much distinguished taste, no excitement. I only found myself putting more sauce on top to help me finish it.

The staff was friendly and the food was served quick. Maybe there was too much type for this place, and I went in with too much expectations. It was rather meh, I wasn’t too impressed.

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Ok, I should start out by saying I am basing El Taco‘s review on the one Fish Taco I had. They might have a signature item on their menu, but this is my Fish Taco experience at El Taco.

I guess the fish taco was what they were promoting because when I walked past by the restaurant, they had a big sign saying: Beer Battered Fish Tacos. Fish Tacos? I’ve got to have it! I love fish tacos and I have yet to find a taco join in Vancouver that sells a decent fish taco.

The Fish Taco ($6 dollars) was pretty big. It came with 2 decent size strips of deep fried fish, which was fried to order at the front of the restaurant.

Plus one point for using authentic corn tortilla, not the white packaged tortillas you’d get at supermarkets. Plus one point for topping it off with shredded cabbage. Plus one point for frying the fish perfectly, the batter was crispy, fish was perfectly cooked.

Ok, here come the parts I didn’t enjoy too much. I was a bit turned off when they also topped the taco off with vegetables you’d get in a pre-packaged mixed salad. Ice burg lettuce pieces and shredded carrots? On top of that, the taco was finished with a swirl of… I don’t know how to say it.. liquid guacamole? It’s like they tried to  make the taco look big and at the same time cheap out on the ingredients.

The whole taco tasted really bland all together. The mixed salad obviously didn’t have any flavor to it. I didn’t taste the guacamole at all. And even though the fish was fried perfectly, it needed some seasoning. It was also really messy to eat, but wasn’t really a problem for me.

It was about half way through my taco, that I realized there was a salsa bar. I wished the waitress told me that before I started eating. The salsa bar had sliced lime, and 4 or 5 kinds of salsa for different spicy levels. The taco didn’t taste as bland after squeezed lime juice and poured some salsa on it.

My friends ordered shrimp tacos and a tamale, they didn’t seem to enjoy those either. So unless there are rave reviews about one of their dishes here, I’d probably would not return.

My quest to search of a good fish taco in Vancouver continues..

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I’ve been to Salsa & Agave Mexican Grill a couple times, but both times because I needed somewhere to eat, fast. I’ve read a lot of rave reviews about this place, but I’ll have to disagree.

The Mexican food here is only average. The bowl of complimentary chips came with their own salsa. The salsa is pureed with apple sauce like consistency. Pretty weird to combine it with crunchy chips, but doesn’t taste bad.

This time I had the beef burrito ($8), which had beans, steak, salsa and cheese inside. I thought it tasted rather bland and dry, although it was nice of them to use steak chunks rather than ground beef. The portion is giant. I only managed to finish half, but the taste of itself probably had something to do with that too. The burrito also came with sour cream, and green salsa on the side. I really liked the green salsa, it has a strong taste of cilantro, a hint spicy, and something else in it I can’t put a finger on it. It was very good.

My friends had their shrimp burrito ($8), pork taco ($2.25) and azteca soup ($7). Azteca soup is basically soup with corn chips and avocado. It had A LOT of corn chips in it. It would be better if there were less corn chips because the soup itself was pretty good (see picture below to see the amount of corn chips). I had a taste of the shrimp burrito, and it was definitely better than the beef burrito because it wasn’t dry at all.

Besides the food, the service here is really good, and the people are nice. I would return, but this is not the first place that pops into my head when I crave for Mexican food.

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Salsa & Agave Mexican Grill
1223 Pacific Boulevard
Vancouver, BC V6Z2R6
Tel: (604) 408-4228