I revisited this place after the new owners have had a go at it for a couple years. Hopefully they re-tuned and addressed the problems of the past.
Well, it's not really better - not even by a tiny bit.
This now less than funky local hangout has one of their employees roaming the local streets spinning "Tacos $.99" signs, particularly in front of the drivers trans-versing the intersection of Santa Fe and Willow. He's a pretty aggressive bugger too, I almost hit him once when he ventured off the curb in into traffic. It's almost cheesy, but necessary mode of advertisement I suppose.
I decided to have lunch there and take advantage of the $.99 Taco deal. I mean it must have improved in the last 24 months, right?
Parked the car in their quirky parking lot. One other person was sitting in the dining room when I walked in. It looked like he had half eaten a bowl of cocido. As the metal security door closed behind me, the waitress said I could sit anywhere. Uh, no I can't - all the open tables are dirty.
I sat at a table next to the window. It was also the table that was the least dirty. Two minutes later, the waitress came to the table with a menu, bowl of salsa and a basket of chips. Without removing the dirty plates and glasses from the table, she placed the chips/salsa down and asked me if I wanted something to drink. I ordered ice tea. She left and returned with the drink and then cleared the table of the dirty dishes.
I skipped from ordering from the menu and ordered a plate of 5 tacos; 3 asada and 2 pollo.
While though the new owners have done some improvements to the dining area, like getting rid of the old icky Naugahyde booths and replaced them with some sensible table and chairs, the space is still cheap and empty. The biggest adornment to the room was the20 year old glass fronted 2 x wide refrigerated cooler that had an obnoxiously loud and noisy compressor/fan. Inside the cooler was a large selection of domestic and imported beer and pure canne sugar sodas.
The tacos came out inside of 8 minutes - very hot and looking freshly made. I lifted up and attempted to bite into an asada taco. Grease promptly soaked the tortillas causing it to disintegrate in my hand before the first bite - this is starting out bad. I then tried a pollo taco hoping it wasn't as wet - sorry, the exact same effect happened as I lifted it to my mouth. It's deja vu all over again I said to myself.
In the end, my taco lunch had to be eaten with a knife and fork. I didn't want an asada/pollo plate - I wanted asada/pollo tacos.
The asada meat was greasy and inconsistently cooked. Some pieces were burned, some were just slightly cooked. This was weird since the meat was hot. It was as if they served me a mixture of uncooked and overcooked meat that was microwaved before it was plated. The pollo meat was a bit better, but it almost seemed as if the meat was dipped into some kind of broth... and then microwaved itself. As to why the double stacked tortillas couldn't hold anything, I later realized the reason why was because they were microwaved as well, not dry grilled on a flat-top. All of the tacos had diced onions, cilantro and a very nice rojo taco sauce on top. The good sauce didn't compensate for the other problems though.
That was another problem I had with Casa Perez last time, their table salsa was way too watery. On this visit I see the salsa has improved (you can no longer see the bottom of the salsa dish when you look into it), but the taste is now overly salty - you only taste salt and red chile - no onion, citric acid or tomato taste in this tomato based salsa.
The normal price for these tacos is $1.25 each. Even at a $.26 discount per taco, Casa Perez still needs to get their basics right. And that also includes the table service basics, like clearing tables promptly. read more