Taqueria La Flama — Restaurant in Garden City

My husband has commented on Taqueria Las Flama's having some of the best carne asada tacos around. They are conveniently across the street from his work. It's been a while since he has had their tacos so today for lunch he asked me to grab him some.

It's my first time in this joint. Walking in, it's quite loud and fun! It's got music going. Many patrons eating and talking. There are bright colors and banners everywhere. It looks like a fun and vibrant venue to have a good meal at.

I ordered at the register. The gal that was helping me gave me basic service. Your average customer service. I grabbed 4 carne asada tacos without onions and cilantro for the husband and the chicken flauta combo meal for myself.

I grabbed a table to hang out at while my order was being made. I wanted to grab some salsa to go at the sauce bar. There wasn't any to go cups available so I did ask someone for some. She said she would go grab some for me and never did. My food finally showed up and I had to ask another gal for the to go cups. I finally got my sauces and headed out the door.

First glance at the food, I was excited! Everything looked fresh and delicious. The cheese was melty on the tacos. The quac, rice and beans looked good in my to go plate. But looks can be deceiving. Unfortunately, the carne asada was so dry. Dry in texture and just tough. Like the meat has been sitting for a while and they just grabbed the top helping of meat instead of mixing it. We did add a good amount of lime to add some wetness to the taco but it didn't help. Out of 4 tacos, my husband only ate 2. The chicken flautas looked promising. The tortilla was airy and crispy. I wish I can say good things about the chicken. The chicken pieces were too big. You would take a bite and the whole chicken chunk would come out. It was also dry and unflavored. The only thing that slightly helped the flauta was the sour cream and quac. The rice and beans were pretty generic so they were good.

I spent 32 bucks on this meal for us to only eat half of. I don't know what happened for my husband to say the tacos were legit a while back to end up ordering this mediocre meal today. So disappointed with every part of my meal. Customer service was ok. So many fantastic Taquerias out there but this joint isn't...

This review is 100% related to the food.

The 3 stars rating is relative to Boise and would be lower elsewhere. If you have eaten at taco shops in southern California, particularly San Diego, this place would only get 1.5 stars in that competitive market of numerous outstanding taco shops.

I tried two items, but I weigh how good a place makes a carne asada burrito quite heavily because it is a go to staple and it's not fried, so a pretty good test of a taco shop.

Ingredients: It us primarily made up of beans and rice (super inexpensive ingredients), with less meat and cheese than is typical. A few key ingredients that were completely missing were pico de Gallo (typical non spicy, chunky salsa, made primarily of tomatoes, cilantro, and onions), and guacamole.

Meat: Besides the quantity of meat being very low, the quality has a lot lacking. Real carne asada is from flank or strip steak. It's a really inexpensive cut of beef, so there's really no excuse for not having the real deal. I'm not really sure what my burrito had, but it looked like a cross between finely cut beef and ground beef. The marinade was okay, it was actually very difficult to get to true flavor because it was drowned with so much beans and rice.

Size: the size of the burrito was as you would expect and should fill up most people. I did however also have a carnitas street taco.

So, I was completely underwhelmed with the burrito.

The carnitas street taco was quite tasty. You should catch them during happy hour (before 5pm) to get them for $0.99, because they are quite small and I could probably eat 6-7 of them. I will try this place again for more tacos during happy hour.

If you like this review, give it a thumbs up so it floats to the top. There is SO MUCH room for improvement with taco shops in Boise and I remain hopeful that an amazing one gets...

WARNING: Do not go here ( my opinion). first time here and last time.

This is pretty much a upscale fast food place with sit down prices. I would think that with these type of prices a person would get some chips and salsa, but no.

I did find the restaurant and sitting area well maintained and clean. Staff friendly, but couldn't hardly hear the cashier. had to keep asking her to repeat what she said and she didn't know the menu or how or what was in certain items

My wife and I ordered two different items so we could share and get a full since of the food. My wife ordered a carne asada burrito. Her burrito tasted like the meat was two days old, and was so dry that it could of been used as kindling wood. There was so much cilantro in the burrito that's all you tasted.

I had that carne asada plate, again meat tasted old and pretty much all I tasted was salt.( so overly salted there was no taste) The beans and rice were alright. Neither one of us finished are meal.

I usually give a first time restaurant at least a 3 star rating, but when both of us got sick all night long, possible due to bad food, than the rating literally goes in the toilet.....along...