Chilosos Taco House — Restaurant in Houston

I was very excited to try this place because they had good reviews and the pictures looked good. I placed an order online on their website which was very easy to navigate. I placed an order at 9am to pick up at 10:50am. $50 for 2 carne guisada plates, 2 cokes, 2 tacos and 2 extra Tortillas because they looked good, green salsa and caramelized onions. Unfortunately when I arrived to pick up my order, (10 minutes BEFORE my scheduled pick up time) I found my order already waiting for me on a table next to the checkout. Excitedly, I grabbed my order and went home. Upon arriving, I realize my food was cold. Not "sitting for a few minutes" cold. It was "sitting for at least an hour" cold. They must have made my order when I placed it. Besides being cold, the carne guisada plate was tasteless and the grilled onions i ordered was maybe a tablespoon worth and not caramelized all the way. They were steamed. The rice tasted like something foul mixed with broccoli. It was not edible at all. The beans were watery and bland but firm because they were so cold. The plate contains about one and a half taco worth of meat inside and the meat itself is bland as well. For the quantity, get the tacos instead because rice and beans aren't worth the extra price. The gravy in the carne guisada looks and taste like it was mixed with watery beans to make it stretch. The picadillo taco had plenty of filling but half of the picadillo was potato! I've never seen anyone make picadillo with so much potato. And such big chunks of potato as well. The tortillas were a BIG let down. They are thick which I guess can be good. But they had something off about the feel and taste. Not just that they were room temp. I think they were made with shortening instead of butter or lard. They tasted artificial like mission Tortillas from the store. That's not a compliment. The only thing good besides my warm mexican coke that still tasted good because I was starving was the green salsa. It saved the taste of my carne guisada bites that I took. It wasn't spicy like most green salsas but still had flavor. The whole meal tasted like they do NOT use quality ingredients at all. Each individual component tasted bland. At least add salt and pepper. Not worth the $50 I spent. The plate itself is maybe $7 max worth and the tacos are maybe $2 worth. For the price of everything, you'd expect at least fresh quality ingredients.... or at least an authentic taste. The food might be good to someone who is not from around here or who doesn't eat tex-mex regularly. (This doesn't even qualify for mexican food) As a Mexican-American, I understand the difference between mexican and tex-mex and this was not good even for tex-mex. There are better and more authentic tex-mex restaurants or taco trucks around Houston than this sorry excuse of "tex-mex". If I could give negative...

Chilosos is a cornerstone of my family’s faith; for years, the only incentive that causes our kids to agree to attend church is the promise of Chilosos afterward. The food has been and remains best-in-class. And pro-tip, ask for the habanero sauce. It’s a secret! Chilosos is an old and very dear friend. And I’m watching my friend go off the rails! The service over the last couple years has taken a seemingly deliberate and absolutely direct course to the Epitome of godawful. Chilosos, I’m telling you this because I love you, and you need an intervention. You have one primary customer interface, a cashier. Her two jobs are to get an order right and be pleasant. Please know that the right order happens ~75% of the time. I’m not lying. They screwed up all three of our orders today, and two of the three at the table next to our.

And know that when I approached the cashier to try (and fail) to fix the order, the words I heard spoken to the customer in front me, “you have to tip first, before you close out.” Your cashiers do not provide a tipping service, like a waiter provides. I have to choose to either tip (not in exchange for good service, but in the hope things go right), or choose no tip and feel like a total jerk, thereby killing the vibe of a great taco.

Chilosos, I love you. I love your food. I love the people in the kitchen. I love the habanero. But I hate that the service experience is consistently the worst of any other restaurant I have known. And I super-hate that you choose default tipping. It’s vulgar, created bad incentives that promote terrible customer-interface, and it makes me...

Returned again — not out of obligation, but because the food, the atmosphere, the entire gravitational pull of this place was too strong to resist. Still, I’ll admit… a small part of me was worried. Would Salvador be there? Would he remember me? Would he rise?

Reader, he did more than rise — he soared.

From the moment I stepped in, Salvador was a different man — poised, attentive, glowing with the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing and is doing it flawlessly. It was like watching an artist in his element. The pacing? Impeccable. The tone? Warm but never overbearing. The kind of service that makes you feel not just cared for, but celebrated.

And everything else? Still immaculate. The food tasted like a love letter to flavor. The layout felt like it had been whispered into existence by an architect with a soul. The ambiance? Somewhere between a dream and a memory I didn’t know I had.

And then — as if the universe decided to sign its name on the evening — the Quesadillas Fritas arrived. Pastor, suadero, barbacoa… it wasn’t just a dish. It was the final missing puzzle piece. The moment where taste, timing, and total bliss converged. It made sense of everything.

But Salvador — he was the heart of it all this time. I came in excited, left eternally grateful.

Five stars again. Possibly six. Someone give this man a raise and a handwritten thank-you note from...