Smoking Gringos — Restaurant in Sydney

Edit: I have eaten here several times since my last review (from when they first opened) and unfortunately the quality of the food has gone slightly downhill. I understand this is due to cost cutting/service efficiency, however, this has come at the expense of their end product. Taco shells often come soft/soggy instead of crisp and assembly just seems messy. Consume also quite watered down now. No longer my go to taco pick.

Delicious! My previous go to taco place was Taco Street in Beverly Hills and Smoking Gringos is equally as good - except much closer to home, will definitely be my new go to!

I got the Gringo Pack with beef and mild salsa. The mild salsa had a decent kick for me. The consume was thicker than what I’ve previously had at other places; was very vinegar forward and got a little rich for me in my last few bites. I appreciate you get corn chips that come with the tacos , however I do wish a full lime wedge was given instead of half a wedge. Overall however, amazing taste, fresh ingredients, beef was flavourful and not dry whatsoever. I devoured it all and will definitely come back again! I hope they add some seafood fillings (fish/prawn) in the future 👀

ALSO, they have an underground council carpark right underneath thats 3 levels with 3 hours free - called Warrick Lane Carpark. Literally just drive to the restaurant and following the turn and the parking entrance is in the side with lift access to take you to...

Starting with cons: One of my biggest hates is waiting for food so we got there before open time to avoid lines. I found it really weird that even though the doors were open etc, we weren't able to put an order in at 525 PM when it opened at 530 PM. Saw someone else get knocked back at 529 PM too. I'm sure theres a reason but a preorder system as such would be super efficient.

What topped this off was that I put our order in at open time for 3 x taco packs (3rd order I think) and then we started to get worried when all the numbers after us were getting called.. I thought to be patient but eventually I asked and it turned out ours had somehow been forgotten/lost due to a printer error. Didn't really see a huge amount of urgency after this was realised as another 3-4 orders came out before ours. Took about 45-60 minutes to get 9 tacos when we had ordered 3rd literally at open time.

Not gonna lie .. I was fuming but then we get to the PROS:

BEST TACOS EVER! One bite and all was forgiven. Please don't water your consume down as you expand like all the other Birria places. Outstanding!!

Look it's a real mission for us to get to Blacktown so unfortunately I can't be a regular but the fact that I would 10000% visit again and recommend to everyone even with the awful first impression...

Texas native here, this is the best Mexican/Tex-Mex I’ve had in Australia by a very wide margin. Cant go wrong with the beef tacos or the gringo box. There are perfect flavors in the beef, the varying salsas, and the consommé. The guac has great flavors as well but I wish it had small chunks of tomatoes, onions, and parsley- however it’s not a deal breaker without. I don’t love the spices on the chips, to me I don’t recognize any flavors that I love from traditional Tex Mex chips but adding a bit of lime makes them so so good. I would also order the spiciest salsa they have because to me that would be more mid level spice- I am used to this kind of spice so take my reference with pause if you don’t have a spice insulated mouth like me. Pro tip: Watermelon Jarritos tastes like Jolly Ranchers. This place puts GyG and Lone Star to shame, those locations have no excuse now because they can try the real thing and know longer peddle their season-less nonsense to the world. I am seeking refuge at the Smoking Gringos, so relieved to find some excellent...