| rev:text
| - Taco Chelo is a little taqueria that recently opened up in that uber-cool area of Roosevelt. You know that neighborhood where all those giant apartment buildings mysteriously popped up overnight and look over a strange mixture of tiny homes that are either business-operated or completely abandoned? Yeah, that's the place. Graffiti is welcome. Parking is not. But Taco Chelo fits right in just fine. And it has a St. Francis connection to boot.
They had only been open for about a week when my girlfriend and I visited, so I was surprised to see a line going out the door this early in the game. But a lot of that has to do with the setup. Chelo has a little bar, but for food, they're shooting for the good ole' "order at the counter" approach. If you walk in through what appears to be the front door, you'll be very confused, as it's actually the exit. The beeline starts around back. It's a bit weird.
Given the layout of the restaurant, I'm not so sure if this is the best idea and I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually abandon it - especially if they want their servers earning tip money. It just felt like kind of a mess.
The menu is fairly simple, with a few appetizers and traditional street tacos that fall somewhere in-between taco truck prices and hoity-toity taco prices. They might want to update their website, because the big bowl of guac pictured on their menu isn't quite an accurate representation of the actual teaspoon-sized serving in a plastic cup that you actually get. Nevertheless, their guacamole was excellent, or at least what little of it I was actually able to try. Their quesadilla, although much smaller than what you're probably accustomed to, was also a respectable starter.
The menu on their website states that their tacos come with lime, but ours did not. My girlfriend had to cut through the line to request them, which they had to retrieve from the bar. In terms of their flavor, it's sort of a mixed bag. We both found the carnitas to be a bit too dry, while the barbacoa was just so-so and pretty much comparable to what you'd find at any run-of-the-mill taco place. The asada was actually a bit surprise, having a nice smoky flavoring that I wasn't expecting. We would have been better off just ordering a plateful of those.
When we left, the line was even longer, so clearly many people are very eager to try this place. And given their whole trendy and lively setup, I'm sure they'll do just fine. But to put it bluntly, it's really nothing groundbreaking. Everything you can find here can also be found within spitting distance. But prices are reasonable and the food is mostly decent, but as a few other reviewers have noted: Competition is stiff.
Check them out.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)