Mister Oso Boulder — Restaurant in Boulder

This was my first visit to Mister Oso in Boulder. We ordered the Queso to start. It took a bit longer than expected to come out, but it was delicious. Id' say it was the best queso I've had in Boulder or perhaps anywhere. So good. We also ordered the Short Rib Birria and Lamb Barbacoa tacos. They were both very very good. The lamb being a bit better with those shishitos really sending the flavor to and 11. We loved the Birria taco, but the consume was just ok / needs improvement. I feel like when you serve a consume in which to dip anything, it better have a flavor that stands out beyond the thing you are dipping. In this case, it felt like it just made the taco wet, not more flavorful. Granted, that Short Rib tacos have a lot of flavor on their own but we found that dipping it that awesome green salsa was so much more gratifying. I has a dipping consume from a taco truck a couple years ago that was so good, I just wanted to put it on everything. This was not that.

That was the good. This is where we were lacking. The Lamb Barbacoa tacos are $17 and come as an assemble-your-own kit. Great, we were sold. However, we made 2 tacos, one average and the other small, and we used up all the filling. (Large taco - cannot roll the tortilla all the way around the filling, Average taco - can wrap the tortilla all the way around with enough overlap to comfortable eat it without spilling it everywhere, Small taco - you can wrap the tortilla all the way around the filling and the tortilla to filling ratio is such that you are eating too much tortilla in each bite.) So, really we got 2 tacos for $17 or $7.50 / taco which is probably the most expensive taco in Boulder. Even more than Cozobe Fonda Fina's Taco Decochinita Pibil. At least it...

We stayed at Moxy on a Saturday night and didn’t want to go downtown for dinner so we were excited to find and try Mister Oso. 4.8 stars so it must be good, right? Unfortunately the entire experience was disappointing.

We wanted to eat across the sidewalk on our hotel patio, so they packaged our food to go which was okay with us. After ordering our food to go, the gentleman told me 10-15 minutes tops, yet I ended up waiting 30 minutes +. He disappeared and spent the remaining time chatting behind the bar. Several other servers walked by me and would casually tell me “your food will be ready soon!” but with no additional follow up. I even left a pretty generous tip for takeout when ordering (even though I hadn’t received the service yet), but apparently that didn’t matter. After the long wait, they told me they didn’t have any takeout utensils so we had to scrounge some up at our hotel. When we opened up our food, we realized they didn’t give me my entree. I went back and had to wait another 7-10 minutes.

The food was fine but definitely nothing special. Very small portion of chips and two of the three salsas in their “flight” were pretty watery and flavorless. My partner liked her steak tacos but my chicken tinga had no depth of flavor. It felt like a couple pieces of chicken served in broth. We knew they served their tacos this way, but does anyone actually like their tacos served deconstructed? The smoked potatoes were pretty delicious, but the overall meal was incredibly underwhelming.

I would pass on Mister...

I have so many wonderful things say about my experience here, I don’t even know where to begin! The atmosphere is so fun and inviting. We started off with the queso and guacamole(as you can see it didn’t take long for me to go in on the queso) we also had the opportunity to try this tuna dish that blew my mind. The citrus garnish paired so well with the tuna! We also had the BBQ empanadas which we inhaled so fast we almost forgot the delicious sauce which is an absolute must have. I even put some on my brisket carnitas which I recommend because they are spicy but so full of flavor! My better half went with the lamb barbacoa tacos which he loved! The tortillas were so light and flavorful, such a fan. I also highly recommend the tamarind margarita. It’s lightly sweet and refreshing! We immediately gravitated towards the churros for dessert and I wish I could eat them everyday. They’re the first churros I’ve had in a long time that weren’t rock hard and dry. They were so perfectly cooked and the brown butter sauce with it is absolutely mouthwatering. I cannot wait to come back and try everything else! Shoutout to Drew and our server Justin for making our first experience so great! The whole team looked genuinely happy to there and provided fantastic service from the moment we walked in to the moment...