Happy Friday!!! A new taco place opened near my house late last year and we stopped by to find out what’s behind the mustache. As you know there is no shortage of taco stands throughout San Diego. Because of the saturation it can be hard to find one that stands out. We’ve only been once, but our lone visit encourages us to head back and explore the other options on the menu.
I liked how the menu was easy to read with clear categories to choose from. There’s only room for about a dozen people to sit inside, and we were feeling like lazy bums that day, so Anh and I got our order to go. As we were perusing the menu, what appeared to be one of the owners of the shop was talking to someone in line who didn’t know what to order. With animated hands swaying back and forth, and bold conviction he told the customer, “you can’t really go wrong with anything. The chicken burrito is the best one you will ever try…the tacos are really good too…” From that point there were really only two ways it could have gone for us: really amazingly good or does not meet expectations. Going into a hyped place is a tough position to be in.
Here’s what we ended up bringing home: adobada fries, rolled tacos, carnitas taco, carne asada taco, and mahi mahi taco.
The adobada fries were delicious! It had everything you’d expect and more. We normally order carne asada fries but after seeing the adobada rotating round and round in front of us on the vertical grill, it was an easy call to make. It took about three meals to finish it all. Parts of the adobada were crispy while other parts were moist, salty, and smokey. The cheese melted uniformly over the heap of french fries and adobada. We’d order it again and again.
I enjoy rolled tacos that have a crispy fried exterior, with a generous portion of juicy and flavorful meat inside. It brings me back to my college days. These were some of the better rolled tacos I’ve had in recent memory. The filling was plentiful, toppings lasted until the last bite, and the rolled tacos were not overly oily. We were off to a great start!
The carne asada taco left something to be desired. It lacked flavor, was a little cold, and just didn’t pop like street tacos should with the fat, salt, and beefiness you normally get.
The carnitas faired a little better than the carne asada, but was no stand out either. Again, something seemed to be missing here. It was more crispy than juicy and did not leave a good imprint or give us reason to order it again. 
The shining star of the taco trio had to be the mahi mahi. What the previous meat tacos lacked, the mahi mahi had in abundance. It was moist, flaky, flavorful, and was very pleasant to bite into. I get a little bit of a kick and my internal dance cartoon character busts a move when a satisfying bite like this captures my attention.
One visit down. Even though there were some misses, we’ll venture back in the future to give it another go and see if we happened to catch them on an off day for the two tacos. One last thing I’ll mention is I noticed one of the chefs wearing a chef’s coat from Twisted Vine. It looks like Twisted Vine closed last year so perhaps one of the chefs now has a new home at Tako Factory.
Tako Factory
7287 El Cajon Blvd.
La Mesa, CA 91942
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