Tacorazon — Restaurant in Sacatepéquez

After three months of taste testing, I can honestly say these are the best tacos (and chips!) in all of Antigua.

Not just because of their presentation, which is brilliant: the stainless steel "V" racks hold all the fixings inside the soft taco shells (which are filled completely and would spill all over your plate if laid flat). The fried-chicken tacos are great, the vegetarian tacos are pretty dang good, but my favorites are the carnitas and al pastor. Wow.

Ask for "todas las salsas!" when they ask, and try them all. The oily cobanero paste is pretty hot, so go gently until you get the spice level dialed in to your preference... then it's amazing (if you like spicy). So are ALL the salsas, but the only truly spicy one is the cobanero. Also, every taco order comes with one blue-corn taco shell and one regular-corn taco shell. I didn't see an option for wheat tortillas; I think that's seen as a burrito wrap here, not a potential taco shell. Which is good to know if you love tacos but detest corn products for some strange reason. ;-)

Their Soda de Jamaica is my wife's favorite jamaica beverage in Antigua, partly because they do not add chopped pineapple bits or pomegranate seeds—"no pulp" plus the perfect balance of club soda and rosa de jamaica. It's a simple thing, you'd think other places would get it right too, but... well, you'll find it here!

For our entire time in Antigua, my wife and I came here every week without fail for Taco Tuesday, when they really do give you TWO tacos for the price of one. And by this they do NOT mean they say "Okay dude, happy Tuesday, here are just two little tacos for the price of one. You're done." I've had that happen in other stingier taco joints. At Tacorazón, they actually DOUBLE your taco count, no matter which menu item you're ordering. Even if you choose the big "feed the whole team" option on their taco menu. So be careful: if it's a Tuesday, you might order ten tacos and get TWENTY unexpectedly.

But at Tacorazón, that's not a crisis, that's manna from heaven! Your team will thank you later.

(Note that other menu items are not doubled: you won't get two tazones if you order one tazon instead of a taco.)

They do a brisk take-out business, so if you come early for lunch, on a Tuesday especially, be prepared to wait a bit while they fill the delivery guys' insulated boxes FULL of tacos. Tacorazón is obviously popular among locals as well as expats.

(There is one little thing on the menu that we are not super excited about: the choco taco. It was ...okay. And it would be lovely on a really hot day. But given the creativity and quality and attention to detail given to everything else on the menu (literally everything else), a choco taco like the kind you get from an ice cream truck was disappointing. But one bite of anything else on the menu will make you forget you've ever been disappointed in your life. Did I mention the freshly-made tortilla...

Whitewashed - I am steal a perfect word from a 3-star review for this restaurant. Like many American tourists, we go to places with good Google reviews. In Antigua, we are talking about 4.5 stars and above because I guess the Google review scores are inflated here due to many American tourists who were tortured by bad service ok taste yet expensive food and tips in the U.S. This store is not deserving of such high ratings based on my many dinning experience in this beautiful town. The waiter speaks perfect English which should be alerting. 😂

And the restaurant layout just like many tasteless taco franchises in the states, and the below average tacos and burritos proved my assumption. The PAPER STRAW, OMG, the republic of California ethos has influenced not only North America, the central America became the victim. Moreover, the waiter told me since I was taking out the food not dine-in, I was not eligible to enjoy the buy two get one free taco promotion of the day!

Some additional cues:

The waitress tried to upsell me drinks which it never happened in other restaurants during my stay.

There is no free salsa,and you will pay the salas you were recommended to add for each taco and burrito.

We spent almost $60 for two adults with two kids to get less than Chipotle quality food in a supposedly half off pricing Antigua. And we are hungry!

Unlike almost all the restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, they don’t accept AMEX credit cards. I knew AMEX costs higher for the business, but why other vendors all have two POS terminals to accept all credits cards but this one? A meticulous design of maximum the profits every step…

Finally, the food. 90% of the tacos and burritos i had in California, Arizona are better not only the meat quality and the seasoning. The fancy fried avocado is very salty. Be careful when you want to try...

Tacorazon is a taco joint in touristy Antigua. It has a Chipotle vibe with how they serve and make the food but it tastes WAY better! I started with an horchata which is a sweet cinnamon rice drink and it was pretty good it was nothing special though for the price. I also got the fried avocado bites with chipotle sauce and holy it was so good! All of the food was made fresh so the avocados were crunchy and deep fried and when you combined the soft avocado with the delicious chipotle sauce and the crispy breading it was delicious. Thankfully the food was coming out very fast. I also got 3 chicken adobado and 1 carnitas tacos and they were all delicious oh s with the cilantro avocado sauce. Every thing tasted fresh and was being made in front of us. The meat was intensely tender and tasted great with the other toppings. I ended off with some postres(dessert) which were the churro bites and they were so delicious. The churros themselves were SOO hot and fresh you could literally hear them frying it in the back and when dipped in the gooey chocolate sauce it was the perfect dessert! OVERALL, the service was nice and the food was delicious but the price was definitely exorbitant so make sure to watch out how much you are actually ordering. OVERALL, there are definitely better restaurant options in Antigua but Tacorazon was still very delicious so if you ever want something tasty and made fast in Antigua give...