Don Guacamole’s

Restaurant: Don Guacamole’s
Cuisine: Mexican/Tacos
Last visited: October 12, 2011
Location: Vancouver, BC (Robson Street/West End/Downtown)
Address: 1333 Robson Street
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 3.5 – 4 (based on few items I tried)
Service: 2 (friendly, but very inattentive)
Ambiance: 3
Overall: 3.5
Additional comments:

• Mexican owned/operated
• Specializes in ‘authentic’ Mexican tacos
• Home made fillings & salsas
• Extensive menu
• No seafood options
• Casual/good for the game
• Affordable
• Vegetarian friendly
• Beer/Wine/Cocktails
• Patio seating
• Dine in/Take-out
• Mexican brunch/breakfast items available
• Mon-Sun 11am-10pm (Sometimes until 11pm, but depends)

**Recommendations: Lengua (Beef Tongue) tacos, Lamb tacos, Carnitas tacos, Alambre

My one taco visit to La Taqueria turned into a taco binge. I ended up trying TacoFino Cantina, Doña Cata and now Don Guacamole’s in search of a great taco. I can’t really even compare them all because they’re slightly different in styles, especially TacoFino. TacoFino serves Baja (Californian) style tacos that are more like Chronic Tacos, but way better. Anyways, I promise this is my last taco post for the time being, because I don’t know about you, but I need a bit of a taco break.

It’s already been 3 years since Don Guacamole’s opened and I have a feeling the passion and care in the food has dropped a bit. This is just from comparing my photos with some others that were taken in its earlier days, but the difference is visually noticeable. Anyways I can only judge by what I had, and things can change over time, but usually I hope for the better.

I came specifically for the tacos since I was on a taco hunt. I do think it’s somewhat fair to compare them to La Taqueria and Doña Cata since all three places claim to serve authentic Mexican tacos. I won’t go as far as to say whose was more authentic, but I do think there are levels of authenticity. In the end it comes down to which I liked the best in terms of flavour, but authenticity is something I respect.

I’ll just restate what I said in my previous post about Mexican food in Vancouver. It struggles.

Now moving on, I did find these tacos good for Vancouver standards. The meats are actually the most seasoned and flavourful compared to La Taqueria and Doña Cata, but the quality of the meats weren’t as good as the other two. It was just a bit fattier and chewier at times, but it wasn’t the greasiest. The other two offer a lot more home made salsas to dress up your taco, but their tacos are reliant on the salsas and they can’t hold their own without them. I liked the large variety of home made salsas at Doña Cata, but I liked La Taqueria better than Doña Cata. If La Taqueria and Don Guacamole’s hooked up, and took the prices from Doña Cata, there could be something worth bragging about!

Just for quick and easy reference, here’s a Taco chart.

Comparing Mexican Tacos in Vancouver

Doña Cata, La Taqueria & Don Guacamole’s

Note: There are certainly more taco options than this in Metro Vancouver, I just took the three most popular restaurants for authentic Mexican tacos. These places aren’t necessarily the best, but it gives an idea, and my taco hunt is not finished.

On the table:

Complimentary Chips & Salsa

• Doña Cata serves complimentary chips and salsa too.
• Salsa Roja – spicy red chile tomato salsa. This was the spiciest, but it wasn’t hot. It was medium spicy.
• Pico de Gallo – or salsa fresca, fresh salsa with chopped tomatoes, jalapenos, onions and cilantro. It had some citrus lime juice and spicy heat.
• Green Tomato Salsa – or salsa verde, this was actually a bit spicy and I’m used to it being mild.
• All of the salsas actually carried a decent amount of spice which surprised me. They weren’t hot, but a mild-medium to medium spicy.
• They don’t have as many home made salsas as La Taqueria or Doña Cata. The salsas here weren’t anything special, but the meats are more flavoured than the other two, so it didn’t require them.

**Birria (Lamb) Tacos – 3.5/6

• Marinated steak (or your choice of meat) with green peppers, onions and bacon. Served with 5 tortillas. Chicken $12, Arrachera $15, Grilled steak $14.50Vegetarian $11.50. add cheese +$2.75. I special ordered mine with al pastor (slow roasted marinated pork) for $15
• I asked my Mexican server what his favourite was, not the most popular, but what he would eat. He said his option wasn’t really on the menu. It was the alambre with al pastor instead of grilled steak. I requested his dish and it wasn’t problem.
• I never requested the extra cheese, but when the bill came it was added for an extra $2.75, not a big deal, but I didn’t request it.
• Alambre is supposed to refer to a shishkabob of grilled steak, so this version wasn’t traditional.
• Anyways this was a very hearty and greasy dish and it almost reminded me of Chinese stir-fry meets fajitas, but with melted oozy gooey cheese on top. It might sound odd, but it worked because the sauce was obviously Mexican, and not Chinese.
• The portion is generous and it would be enough for 2 for lunch.
• It was really oily, greasy, and saucy, but it tasted pretty good!
• The layers of melted cheese throughout just made it that much more rich.
• There were more fried onions and sweet green bell peppers than pork, but the pork that was there was quite tender although very hard to find since everything was so diced up.
• The al pastor (slow roasted marinated pork) just tasted like baked pork chop, but I couldn’t taste its marinade under all that sauce.
• Al pastor is supposed to be cooked in chilies and pineapples, but I lost that aspect in this context and there were no pineapples or spice.
• I would have preferred larger chunks of al pastor, but since they were using the al pastor for the tacos, it was all minced up. It ended up being almost smaller than the vegetables.
• On another note I’m not sure if the tiny pieces of really fatty pork was the bacon… ? Regardless, the bacon came unnoticed especially having it with al pastor, and I had no idea it was in there.
• The sauce was quite smoky and earthy and reminiscent of adobo sauce. It had some garlic and paprika, but it wasn’t spicy or bitter. I liked the flavour and it had a slight acidity which I thought was from a tomato base, but it’s likely from a touch of vinegar.

• It was served with 5 individually grilled tortilla shells and I could have eaten it with or without the tortillas. I could have eaten this with nachos or even rice.
• Meat + gravy + cheese… you can’t really go wrong with that combination… did someone say poutine?
• If they let me choose my own meat, next time I’d possibly order this with carnitas, but it is traditionally supposed to be a steak kebob.

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