El Metate Taqueria — Restaurant in California

El Metate is my family's favorite taqueria. I've been to over a hundred taquerias in the Bay Area and El Metate is easily in the top 10. The food is delicious, the portions are generous, and the prices are great. The space is clean, bright, and colorful, and the servers are very kind.

I often judge taquerias on some of the simpler aspects. How good is their rice? (Very good). How family-friendly is it? (I bring my kids and I see tons of families here). Does the local Mexican community love it? (Come on a Sunday night.) And is the pico de gallo salsa fresh? (Their unlimited fresh salsa bar is so good). And finally, are there TVs with soccer matches or telenovelas? (Yes).

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It's too bad the food and the cooks are outstanding. However the fact that the restaurant is next to a bar sucks because there are drunk men that will go to the restaurant and harass the cashier and the customers. I was harassed and so was the little lady cashier & she took her attitude out on me. I can feel how uncomfortable most of the customers were as well because he made nasty comments. It was so bad I ended up leaving and said forget it! There's no way this is OK! If only they could relocate bc again, their food is great! but I don't think I'll ever come back again for this reason and no one said or did anything about it, until I did. Hopefully...

We used to love the food from this place, traveling all the way here from SF just to get their steak and prawn burrito, chile verde, chile colorado plates among other foods, but the service was always terrible which is why I refuse to ever go in and order food, I make my husband do it as I get too annoyed. There's no eye contact or acknowledgement other than taking your order reluctantly and the order is not always accurate when you receive it, and no apologies when you try to resolve it. The last couple of times, the quality and flavor of the food was inconsistent. We will be sticking to our side of the peninsula...