Penelope's Vegan Taqueria Andersonville — Restaurant in Lake View Township

Cute and colorful exterior pops out while driving on Clark St. Interior is modern and comfortable. Staff are friendly and attentive. I ordered the Horchata, Quesabirria, Soy Al Pastor, and Carnitas taco. The horchata was $7 for a medium sized cup and while I would say it’s pricey for a drink I’m used to being relatively cheaper, it was very well made and satisfied my craving. Both tacos were also delicious and stuffed making it worth the price. I also dowse them in habanero salsa for my preference but I’m sure they’re good too with less spice. Unfortunately I was disappointed with the quesabirria. The quesadillas themselves were decent. The base may have been sliced shiitake but I could be mistaken. I would have expected another type of mushroom for the price though. What really brought it down a star was the birria itself. It was a soup and not the Chile guajillo sauce quesabirria is known for. In all fairness it does state on the menu that it is a vegetable broth and the quesadillas are dipped in guajillo sauce before serving. Seeing quesabirria I assumed it was the authentic dish and didn’t read the description before ordering. As a child the best part about eating quesabirria were the red stains on my fingers that came from dipping the quesadillas in the sauce and then slurping the remainder out of the bowl only containing the sauce, cilantro and onion. Personally I was expected a more authentic experience but regardless decent food and...

My experience wasn’t great. Food: out of 8 tacos, 4 were somewhat inedible due to just being not good. Those were 3 Cauliflower Al Pastor and 1 Baja. The standout tacos seemed to be the Mushroom and Potato tacos. The nachos were decent but the chips tasted a bit stale which is disappointing as they’re the base of a nacho plate. Most of the tacos fell apart during the meal. I’m assuming they know this is an issue because some where double wrapped while others weren’t. Horchata and Dirty Horchata were very good. Service: Unremarkable. Servers never brought out silverware or napkins until we explicitly asked for napkins halfway through the meal (and smuggled some from the restroom.) Nacho appetizer was brought out without any small plates until it was sorta obvious that we needed some. Something that was kinda weird was our tacos were brought out by a guy who stood by our table while photographing the tacos. He then set them down and walked away without explaining or saying anything. The tacos were just mixed together with no explanation of which were which. Annoying. Prices: About $4.50-5.00 per taco which is a bit much but I guess reasonable for a all vegan restaurant. Recommendations: you definitely need to cook the pineapple chunks in the Al pastor tacos. Otherwise, they’re hard, strange chunks that really add nothing to the taco. Use a different Chile in adobo sauce brand because the one used just isn’t good or maybe...

First & foremost, THE ENTIRE MENU IS VEGAN🥰🥰🤩 The presentation of the food & drinks was beautifully done, & it was DELICIOUS!! Mexican food done VEGAN?!? Wow! OMGOODNESS I want to go every weekend. So dang good. Prices are affordable for the area and amount of food given. There was no waiting for a table even though we went on a Saturday afternoon. It is def family friendly, and the atmosphere is pleasant. The only issue we had was the service. It was easy to tell our server did not want to be there. There were no smiles, no conversation. They were nonchalant about everything. The server had to be called on numerous times in order for us to get things we wanted/needed, & the attitude was very "Again? Ugh." with a straight face. They took my boyfriend's drink before he was finished and silverware before he was done eating. They were on the phone often. I asked for a side of chimichanga cheese, melted, & was given unmelted cheese twice. Also, they stood at the table to cash out our check & waited there until we added the tip, watching. Very uncomfortable. There was no thank you or have a nice day. For a place that wasn't busy, the service should have been top notch....