Tacos are one of the best foods out there – messy but hearty, delicious but primal – after all, you eat them with your hands. These Edmonton establishments serve up tacos worthy of the finest taco stand you would ever find in California or Mexico.
It’s all about choices at this Mexican grill. You can have soft corn tortillas or crispy corn shells, with ground beef, chicken, shrimp, veggies, beef loaf or carne asada. All tacos come with bell peppers, grilled onion, cilantro, lime, sour cream and house-made salsa. Or, you can get your fill of tacos in the form of a salad. A huge tortilla bowl comes full of veggies, rice, beans, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, lime and your choice of beef, chicken, shrimp or extra veggies.
While the fish tacos are listed under the small plates section of the menu, the two tacos are big enough to be considered an entrée (without sides). The soft white corn tortillas fold over flaky white fish (unbreaded!), shredded cabbage, salsa and chipotle mayo. Each taco is overflowing with stuff, so be prepared to get a bit messy. The chipotle mayo has a much-appreciated zip to it. While this certainly isn’t a Latin restaurant (and isn’t trying to be), the chef nails the tacos.
To create the delectable Baja fish tacos, the chef takes cornmeal crusted cod from the West Coast, cabbage, pickled red onion, cilantro and salsa and piles it all on top of some soft flour tortillas. To eat them, you pick them up, try to keep all of the ingredients stuffed inside the tortillas, take your first massive bite, and watch half your taco spill onto your plate. Repeat until there is more taco in you than there is on your plate.
The downtown location of Original Joe’s serves up awesome Long Beach fish tacos that will almost fool you into believing you’re in sunny California instead of chilly Edmonton. Each flour tortilla cushions blackened mahi mahi, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro and a house-made chipotle sauce. The fish is seared in a chili lime sauce, giving it some spunk. Edmontonians take their fish tacos seriously, and this is one of the good ones.
This awesome Mexican restaurant has the coolest vibe - the walls were painted by a Los Angeles street artist, the menu is amazing and the drinks are out of this world. The tacos, in particular, are fantastic. They are stuffed with goodness and are so reasonably priced that you can try more than one kind. I recommend the short-rib taco and the steak taco if you're a carnivore; the taco vegetariano if you're not. Try them with the restaurant's out-of-this-world guacamole.