I first went to Taquiza over a decade ago when it was located at 15th & Collins; at the time, I…read morefelt that the tacos were too small and way overpriced, but I liked the blue corn homemade tortillas and the pastor and asado were perfectly cooked.
Then, they moved to the Broadmore Hotel, quite possibly the worst hotel on Miami Beach. I stayed there once, only once, and still question why anyone would stay there, much less eat there. Therefore, I never ate at that location.
Last week, I read that Taquiza was relocating due to that crappy hotel being torn down for some new overpriced condo hotel. It said that it was moving into its own tortilla factory in the NE 2nd corridor. Since this is near our home, I made a mental note of it. This area has one of the best taco shops in all of Miami, La Santa, so there is some stiff competition.
Nonetheless, I convinced my wife to go grab a couple of tacos before heading home. We got there, no one was waiting, so we were able to order immediately. We asked was the most popoular items were and they said the crispy fish tacos and pastor. We decided to order the asado and carnitas along with the esquites.
We were told that we should wait outside while they assemble it. We did. It took forever. I decided to go next door for a beer from Off Site/No Seasons while we waited...for over a half an hour. Way, way too long for tacos. When the order came, though, it was packaged extremely nicely. The tacos are small, very small, even for street tacos. My wife is Mexican, so when she says this, then you know they are on the small size. The asado meat was juicy and tender and perfect. The carnitas meat was cooked nicely but had the overpowering (and unnecessary) flavor of cardamom; carnitas should not have this flavor. In addition to the meats, the lovely blue corn tortillas of old were non-existant, replaced with what seemed to be day-old crunchy and curled corn tortillas. These were definitely not fresh, which was extremely weird given the time that it took to make. The onions and cilantro were nicely packaged up for us, even if the onions were a little larger chopped than traditional. The limes were super dry without any juice. Ugh, the misses just kept coming... Finally, the esquites portion was large, perfectly cooked with a little bit of char on most of the kernels. This looked delicious. But, it wasn't. There was no seasoning. No Tajin. No pepper. Not even salt. Just bland kernels. It did have a little cotija cheese, but ever so slightly, not enough to alter the flavor. We had asked for sour cream, but none was included in our take away bag. While we ate the tacos in the car, we made the decision to bring the corn home and add to it lime juice, more cotija, sour cream, Tajin, and salt. It ended up tasting quite nice, but it should have been presented that way when we purchased it.
I guess, after this experience trying to help out a local company, I'll wait another decade to try it again. You know sometimes, you just want a place to be great, but it just isn't. For me, I have no clue how this place made it into the MICHELIN Guide; what you see in the Guide is not what you get.
If you want good tacos in that neighborhood, go across the street to La Santa. You can thank me later.
