Tacos El Pariente — Restaurant in Glendale

I’ve been to Tacos El Pariente several times in the past when they had their food truck, and every visit was amazing. The service and food were always on point. So when we found ourselves on this side of Phoenix, we decided to try their brick-and-mortar location. Unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment.

First off, the restaurant is small and cramped. The open-air mesquite aroma that used to greet you at the truck is now replaced by a smoke-filled dining room. We came in around 11 p.m. after an event (hours online say they’re open until 12). Instead of a greeting, the guy at the front just said, “Look, that’s all I have in the salsa bar.” The salsa bar looked picked over, but we were hungry, so we decided to make it work.

There were five of us. After the first person ordered, the cook came out to tell us they were out of asada, not ideal, but we ordered other options. As we waited, the guy at the front was more interested in chatting with someone who came in than in getting our drinks ready. In fact, our tacos came out before our drinks, and I had to remind him to bring them.

The tacos had good flavor, but the portions were tiny, either they were running low on meat or had cut back. They also messed up our order and brought extra asada tacos (the meat they said they didn’t have). Instead of just fixing the mistake, they still charged us because one person still wanted their birria tacos.

Overall: food was okay, service was terrible, and the location doesn’t work. This feels like a textbook case of a great food truck that lost its magic after going brick-and-mortar. The guy at the front even said they “always run out of food on Saturdays.” If that’s the case, why not plan better? I miss the truck, and the friendly ladies who worked hard to get your order right. I won’t be back, and I won’t be bringing...

I will start on the positive side of things as I am not a fan of the negative review. So the condiment bar was nicely appointed and had a particularly good, spicy and flavorful salsa. That would be the darker red one closest to the front. The papa in the papa asada was good as well. It was an actual potato and not just a powder mix. The place was clean and had a nice little theme to it. The young lady who took our order was nice and friendly as well. Unfortunately that was the full extent of the positive experience. The order got mixed up. My quesadilla and the papa asada had the meats switched around. The papa asada was cold. Below room temperature. My quesabirria did not have the consume even though I confirmed that I did indeed want it as a good quesabirria consume is an elixir that can fully restore a man's virility. When given our to-go order I did notice that my frijoles charro was not included. That problem was solved and I think I see what happened with my consume as I was given two orders of frijoles. Now on to the taste. The Pina agua fresca was basically pineapple Kool aid. The asada, adobada and birria were all very bland. The frijoles had a large pepper that took up about 1/3 of the volume so if you like chili quero this is for you, personally I don't like that kind of disrespect. I don't forsee a...

This is another restaurant I found with not many reviews and figured I’d give it a try and let me tell you, I’m glad I did!

They have the friendliest staff and even give you a complimentary soup. The tacos are fairly priced and taste delicious even without dressing them up. If you want good taco make sure you try the Birria and Tripas.

I don’t think a lot of people dine in here so you won’t ever have an issue...