Nopales Fresh Mex Express — Restaurant in Asheville

Nopales is a very welcome addition to this area. It is certainly going to become a welcome addition to my favorite local spots to go.

As soon as I walked in, I immediately felt very welcome and felt like everybody behind the counter wanted me to have a fantastic meal. They were all quick to offer recommendations, happy to wait while I mulled over some choices, and made everything very speedily.

The atmosphere of the place is great. It's very bright, very clean, and just generally a restaurant I'd be more than happy to eat at. You feel like your food is in good hands from the moment it's being prepared until you receive it.

The price is genuinely fantastic. You can come here and spend about $10-11 after tax to get an absolutely loaded 14" burrito with chips and a whole bunch of salsa. $12.50 for 4 street tacos that you can customize however you want. The other person talking about the bad prices here is off their rocker, these prices are basically exactly what I hoping for.

The food was solid. You get chips with your order which is always great, and there's a salsa bar with a whole slew of choices, the 3 I had ranged from very good to some of the best salsa verde I've had. That all being said, I do have a few small issues with the food that I hope this review can help change:

Like you'd expect, they have a "standard" not spicy red salsa that you automatically get with chips. I don't know if it was an off day or the salsa is normally like that, but it kinda just tasted like canned tomatoes with some onion. Canned tomatoes are the obvious choice for a quick delicious salsa, but when the canned tomato flavor itself is the primary flavor it really does not do it justice.

I got the 4 street tacos, so they were corn tortillas. The tortillas themselves tasted very good and I'd be extremely surprised if they weren't homemade. My only issue with them is that they didn't hold up very well when I tried to pick them up. This could be due to what I got in them, as it wasn't really "traditional" street taco fillings which generally don't have much liquid, so maybe the pico pushed it over the edge.

The meats were a little disappointing. I just felt like I couldn't taste them as much as I would have hoped. The saving grace of this is that once I added a tiny bit of salt on top of the tacos, the flavors of the meat showed themselves and they were indeed delicious. I don't know how much salt they use, but I think a little more salt in the meats could be a real game changer.

As I said initially, great little place that will definitely become a regular in my rotation, I just really hope this review can help some. As it stands, absolutely worth the money.

EDIT 12/21/2023: Went again, got a burrito this time. It felt like they basically fixed every issue I had initially. The food had so much more flavor popping off, it really just felt like there was a little bit more salt and it made a world of difference. Their "main" salsa was also definitely better, it didn't have that canned tomato flavor. It wasn't my favorite, but it was much better...

Go here.

I come from south Florida for most of my life.. and in can honestly say they obviously care about their food. In an area with way too many taco trucks/places it’s hard to find a standout ….This is one.

Hidden gem right off the highway. It’s Moe’s style.. but made authentic and much less chain restaurant quality and feel. Their pineapple spicy salsa was unique to me.. steak was tender and good flavor but you can add so much feel good natural flavors with their toppings and fresh lime and salsa bar.. just really good fast Mexican concept. Pastor was very tasty, like a great greasy cheeseburger is.. for the times you don’t care and go for it, diet be darned! Choriqueso dip is awesome.. again, some salsa bar spices can get it even more awesome. Coca Cola products and they have good horchata and Mexican bottled coke in the bottle is always an awesome thing to have on hand (it’s like what Coke should actually taste like from back-in-the-day quality, with sugar cane instead of industrialized sugar products you always get)

Hidden behind the gas tation in front of the biltmore theater/ Exit.. nice location to jump off the highway and grab some tacos or bowl or quesadilla..etc.

I hope they keep up their quality and freshness while we really support them and keep them alive with our increased business/traffic. We need to keep great little places...

Been meaning to check this place out as it's close to where I live, and I sure am glad I did. Bright and inviting space, clean and spacious and nicely decorated, Nopales follows the Chipotle model of fast custom-built Mexican burritos, tacos, bowls and more. Only far better than Chipotle- more authentic in style, broader options to choose from and true to their "Fresh Mex" name it was clearly all very fresh. Staff were friendly, attentive and helpful in explaining the wide variety of fixings- I had a shrimp burrito which was bigger than my head, accompanied by pico, roasted jalapeno & corn, cilantro, refried beans and rice in a warm, freshly pressed tortilla. Like a number of other local Mexican restaurants, Nopales offers a salsa bar- but theirs comes with some interesting options I hadn't seen elsewhere (if they bottled their spicy verdé I'd buy some to keep in the fridge at home). Best part of it all- I'm pretty sure my family of four got out of there spending less than we typically do at Chipotle, for much better quality food and friendlier service. It seems they're doing a good amount of DoorDash orders which is good because there weren't many other customers there when we were in- hopefully folks catch on to what a solid spot we now have in Biltmore Park and keep this place nice and busy. I know...