El Trompo Mexican Taqueria — Restaurant in Johns Creek

This is a review-in-progress.

I want to so badly give this experience five stars, but I can't just yet. (I will giving this place a second and possibly a third visit). This is also my first review-in-progress because I want to speak on some things that really left an admirable impression on myself thus far.

I don't know who the gentleman was that served me (I should have gotten his name), but he immediately made me feel welcomed as I walked in through the door. Honestly, he almost-immediately started feeling like a homie. Because of this, I was able to gauge his opinion and base my purchases on what he suggested. Tonight I had the Horchata, Tacos Asada, the Tortilla soup, and the Chorizo Fries with Queso.

I've got to say that the soup that I had was some of the best soup I've ever had a Mexican restaurant. It was fresh, bursting with cilantro and fresh herbs. But the herbs didn't overpower the beautiful umami of chicken stock and rice that lingered at the bottom. Each bite made me feel like I was treasure-diving through a sea of flavor that I really didn't want to end. I finished the soup quickly because it was THAT GOOD.

Now, I'm not an expert-tongue when it comes to authentic hispanic cuisine, but I've had a lot of authentic tacos in my day. I don't know which take they were using with their tacos, but the fact that I had no sour cream or anything outside of salsa to give some liquid-life to the freshly-made tortilla, made the experience of the taco unsavory. I also wasn't given a wedge of lime, or like I said, anything outside of sauteed onions to accompany the parsley and beef. It wasn't great, so I'm glad I ordered only one.

Moving on to the fries, I'm going to start off positive and say that it is the only time in the past year that I've had crinkle fries that were cooked properly. Usually, they're so fried that their is absolutely no life or moisture left in them, but these crinkle fries were done so well that it was absolutely pleasant to experience the meatiness of the potato in the fry itself. In addition, I really appreciated and enjoyed the pico de gallo that was served on top of the fries (where was it with the taco!? :/). That's about all that i enjoyed for the fries, however.

I think that because the queso was more than adequetly salted, along with the fries having been salted, and then you add the chorizo to the mix, everything together was honestly just too salty. It made it difficult to enjoy the dish, and by the time I'd eaten a few of the fries and tried a touch of queso at the bottom of the bowl, I'd used up most of the pico de gallo (which I assumed should have been more than enough for the entire bowl). I'm not even sensitive to salt, like I said, each component just had a little too much love with the salt, so when it came together, I could taste the saltiness even in the queso.

Anyway, I did like my experience here. Honestly, that's just how freaking dynamite the soup was. If I'd had just the the soup and horchata (which was pretty awesome, a good 3.5 stars), then I would have probably given this initial review a full 5 stars. I'll update this if/when I make a second trip back, and I'll do a bit more exploring while primarily sticking to that...

The customer service at this establishment needs a lot to be desired and I will never patronize this establishment ever again. Today, the cost me was a $10 meal but I strongly believe in spending my dollars where service to the customer is the #1 priority. I don't believe the manager/owner actually gets this.

I found what I thought was a neat Mexican restaurant right in my neighborhood. Today, I ordered 2 to go dinners and got home and realized they had made a mistake with one of the orders and had also only given me ½ of what I had ordered. I immediately called and was advised by the young lady who took my order to bring the incorrect order back. Upon my return to the restaurant, the manager, refused to exchange the food, stating that she would have to throw it out. The conversation exchange got a little heated and I ended up throwing the food in the trash for her, as she refused to take it back.

Finally, she told me that she was in the process of replacing the order; I left and sat in my car directly in front of the restaurant, for 15 minutes waiting for the order to get completed. When I returned to pick up the order, she told me she had canceled the order because I was playing games. Is this the way you treat your paying customers? Unacceptable!

This lady has no idea who I am, how often I eat out and my network in the community. Her rudeness and arrogance has allowed a $10 meal to lose me and my family as customers, along with everyone that I know in the neighborhood.

It takes more than half way decent food to survive in a competitive restaurant market (especially in Alpharetta/Johns Creek area) and I guess by the time this establishment gets the Memo, it will be too late.

Signed,

Never...

GF and I had dinner here for Taco Tuesday, and we ordered 3 pork tacos, 1 steak taco, and 1 pork burrito. We waited 30 minutes for the order to come out wrong, and they gave 2 steak tacos and 2 pork tacos. We advised the lady at the front that the order was wrong, and she reluctantly returned to the kitchen to return the extra steak taco and gave us the pork taco they forgot earlier.

GF and I each took a single bite from the first two pork tacos, and ended up spitting out the food because we quickly discovered the pork was extremely burnt and crispy. GF advised the lady the pork was extremely burnt, but the lady stated that’s how the pork is normally made. However, the quality of the pork in these two tacos were obviously different from the pork in the third pork taco and pork burrito. The lady stated that because we took a bite out of our food, she could do nothing.

After the lady saw us taking pictures of the burnt pork, she attempted to serve 2 new pork tacos to us. Then, a drunk patron next to us became upset because we took photos of the food and angrily asked us, “how much free food do you need”. We declined the tacos and quickly left due to the known drunk becoming increasingly agitated.

I’ve been coming here for the past 7 years, and the quality and service has never ever been this bad before. The lady and staff are usually very nice, and things could’ve easily been...