zabbo

An Exploration of Portland Food and Drink has put up a review of Taqueria Nueve. Alice and I go there pretty often, it’s on the top of our restaurant list when it’s sorted by the ratio of food quality to cost.

The following is my favourite part of Food Dude’s review:

I’ve had a few people email me complaining that Taqueria Nueve is not “real Mexican – they are so cheap there’s hardly any cheese!” Sigh. Be aware, this is not TexMex, this is not Sonora style, Americanized food. Real Mexican food is not acres of cheese floating in a pool of rice and beans. This is the real stuff.

This leads directly into the story we tell about checking out Taqueria Nueve before our first visit. On its citysearch page is the following gem:

We were excited to check out this “Mexican” restaurant after the rave reviews it received. Hardly a Mexican restaurant. They do not serve tortilla chips (even if requested) and there is little to zero cheese in their dishes.

This became part of our set of things we look for in good restaurants. If the mouth-breathers on citysearch complain about the lack of cheese, or the small portion sizes, or the lack of a TV (no, seriously.), then we figure that it’s a safe bet that we’ll enjoy the place.