Taco Casa — Restaurant in Des Moines

It is a curious sort of person who travels to Des Moines, Iowa in search of "authentic" Mexican food. And it is an ignorant sort of person who disparages the adaptation of traditional dishes to the local terroir because all of the great world cuisines derive from that potent combination of tradition and local inventiveness.

In fact, what we conventionally call "Mexican food" in this country is a pastiche of Spanish and native Central American food traditions filtered through the sieve of North American agribusiness. And what most people call "authentic" Mexican food is really just a delivery vehicle for tequila-drenched suppers that blur into ill-advised personal choices and semi-tragic mornings-after.

Taco Casa is not about that kind of "authenticity." Indeed, it lacks a liquor license so people who need to drink in order to enjoy "real" Mexican food probably shouldn't go there. But Taco Casa is also a hidden gem of a restaurant that combines the cheap and excellent local ingredients that one expects to find in the belly of the nations breadbasket with the deceptively sophisticated culinary traditions of Mexico. Nowhere is that more apparent than the excellent sauces made fresh at Taco Casa. All of them are outstanding. You should eat them. Daily, if at all possible.

As for the meat, cheese, masa and tortillas underneath those wonderful sauces, they are all central Iowa fresh, good and cheap. Everyone should be so lucky as to have staple foods like these and perhaps the most reliable way to improve a corn-centric cuisine is to transplant it to central Iowa. I'm partial to the cheese enchiladas and bean burritos myself, but it's all good.

As for me, I'm both a food snob and a fan of cheap, local Mexican restaurants and see absolutely no contradiction between the two. After all, most Mexican cuisine was not developed in the palace of Montezuma either before or after the arrival of the conquistadors. It's working-class food, sold as often as not by street vendors in dodgy neighborhoods. Taco Casa is definitely in line with that tradition.

As a transplanted native of Des Moines, I always return to Taco Casa when I'm back in Des Moines for the State Fair and wish that I could find someone who would adapt Mexican cuisine as skillfully to my new local environs as the owners of Taco Casa did in Des Moines. Sadly, even if that restaurant existed, it would almost certainly cost many multiples of what Taco...

I have been going to Taco Casa for over 30 years. I have NEVER been treated so disgustingly or distasteful in my life than I was today. When she repeated my order back to me, I corrected her for the 2nd time and said no onions on 3 of the burritos. I get there and they have onions. So I go back in and politely explain the issue, only for her to walk away from me with no response. 4 minutes later, everyone working there comes back and tells me that it's my fault for not correcting her when she repeated my order in the rudest and loudest way possible, while shoving the order ticket in my face. I asked if they could please remake them the correct way, as I just spent $40.00 to feed my family dinner and am told NO. They said they had called their supervisor and apparently their supervisor told them they have protocols to follow and that I was just out of luck. So I asked for my money back instead. And in response got a hand slammed on their order window pointing at a no refund sign. So, they can't take 30 seconds to correct THEIR mistake and refuse to refund me. Great customer service. Being that I work in a customer service based job, this is absolutely unacceptable behavior by every single employee that decided they needed to get loud with me because they couldn't comprehend a simple phone order. I will NEVER return due to their ignorance and blatant disrespect. And quite honestly, the entire situation is nothing but pathetic. So thank you for taking my money that I worked hard for and doing nothing to fix the issues that you...

This place is very different from any other Mexican Restaurant I've been to. To be frank, I ordered two things I love when I go to stereotypical Mexican Restaurants and that was Mexican Rice and a Beef Chimichanga. I asked for some white queso on the side, which they do not have.

Then I got my food. I've never seen a chimichanga topped with so much tomato chunks and black olives. No big deal, I just move that all to the side. The meat of the matter is the meat of the chimichanga. It also wasn't what I was expecting, nor was the cheese. It was of a variety that tasted much like sharp cheddar mixed with some sort of Velveeta block cheese. This was very unappetizing.

I then took a few bites of the Mexican rice. It was just plain and bland, but it's fairly standard, normally you'd mix something with it such as hot sauce or, in my case, white queso.

I quietly got up and threw it all in the trash and walked out. You definitely have to try this place to know if you would like it and it's not for me to judge. I went for "stereotypical Mexican restaurant" and what I got was not that. I will probably never go back, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love the difference. It's like some sort of amalgam between Taco Bell/Taco John fast food and stereotypical Mexican. It's an odd duck but it's...