Restaurant Review: Rock & Tacos

*UPDATED: Rockin Tacos rocks no more. I guess everyone else also thought that the food here wasn't up to snuff. In a perfect world Dos Tacos would move over here and become as popular as they should be. Oh well, we'll see what happens to this prominent location in the future.*    


     Daegu's newest Mexican restaurant/bar is located where Berkeley used to be on the bar street. This was a total surprise to me as I had seen that they were doing some work on the property but being drunk (it's called bar street for a reason) I didn't look to carefully and just assumed that Berkeley was doing some remodeling. Well was wrong. When I passed Rock N Tacos (or Rock & tacos depending on what sign you choose to believe) I HAD to try the food. Good Mexican food is the only thing that I miss in Korea, and while Dos Tacos does an admirable job of it, I'm always happy to see more Mexican places for me to choose from.

     We actually sat at the outdoor bar at first, but the bar does this thing where it changes colors constantly and it was giving me a headache, while making DumbTwo dizzy. After about ten minutes of that we moved to an open table on the patio.

     We ordered two margaritas while we looked over the menu. The menu was ambitious, perhaps too ambitious as they didn't have the first two things that we tried to order (jalapeno poppers and taco salad) the waiter then gave us the rundown on what they actually did have, which was only about half of the menu. He informed us that the kitchen wasn't yet fully running, so they couldn't prepare a lot of the items. Anyway, we ended up ordering the chicken enchilada.

     The margaritas were good, but were they 8,000 won good? The jury is still out, and while they're deliberating, I'll order a beer instead (I'm kind of a cheapskate). As for the enchilada, well, it wasn't an enchilada. Go ahead and do a quick search for "enchilada", here, I did it for you. I love enchiladas, my mom makes awesome enchiladas, and I grew up eating enchiladas, but this sir, is not an enchilada. This is a burrito covered in sauce. That said, it was a delicious burrito covered in sauce. But a saucy burrito does not an enchilada make. If they had called it a "smothered burrito" or a "wet burrito" like Sharky's in Busan does, I wouldn't have been as disappointed, I don't regret ordering it, as it was really good. But still, c'mon. I also liked the salad that came on the side as well, it's not rice and beans, but it's a nice touch.
     UPDATE: We went back to Rock N Tacos last weekend to try and order from the full menu. Here's the menu for you to check out.

     Again, they didn't have the "Crunch Jalapenos" which sounded so good, but they had the rest of the menu, I think. We didn't ask about the taco salad as we were in the mood for nachos instead. Check out what we ordered.

      First up was the Naco Grande. This came out very quickly and we were happy to munch on it while waiting for our entrees. It could have done with some layering though, as it was the bottom chips were stuck with only whatever fell off of the top chips

     Next up was my Avocado Burrito, which arrived about five minutes before the next entree, which arrived five minutes before the final entree. This might not sound too bad, but that means it took ten minutes before everyone at our table of three had their food. Hey guys, just keep it in the kitchen until everything is ready then bring it all out at the same time. Anyway, as for the burrito, it was severely lacking in flavor. I think that it was because it was about 50% raw cabbage. This tended to mute whatever other flavors that they were trying for. There was no way to know if any avocado was in this.

     The tacos looked awesome, but looks can be decieving, as they were again lacking in flavor. These also tasted primarily of cabbage. DumbTwo asked for some hot sauce to try and give them some flavor and we were provided with a bottle of Tabasco. Dos Tacos this is not.

     As for the rest of the place, they have tons of space. They have two bars, three dart boards, and a shuffleboard too. Smoking was allowed on the patio but I'm not sure about inside. We were here on a Tuesday night the first time and a Saturday night the second, niether time was busy, but I've heard they become more of a bar than a restaurant later in the evening. When it comes to musical selection then they should have named the place "Rap N Tacos" as there was no rock music to be heard. After a promising first visit, I have to say that I'll be getting my Mexican food fixes at Dos Tacos from now on.

Final Review: 2.5/5  The food here is just lacking in flavor.

Location: Rock & Tacos is located downtown across from Who's Bob, where Berkeley used to be on the bar street (Dongseong-ro 3-gil). Here's a map.

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