El Jarocho — Restaurant in Manchester

Perfect experience

I like that this place doesn't use waiters so you circumvent all of that nonsense. You place your order at the counter and they give you a number and call you when its done. If you want a beer or drink you go grab it yourself from the cooler.

Food itself was very good.

Tacos are a double corn tortilla which is how street tacos should be made.

It was served with sauces, limes, and there are plenty of napkins in the holders on the table. I shouldn't even have to mention this, but I have been to so many Mexican places that don't serve limes with the tacos, don't give you napkins, and don't have any or enough sauces available. That really makes it difficult to enjoy your meal when you have to request every little thing and wait for the server to bring it when it should already be there in the first place. The Mexican place next door failed on all of this (and more).

Photos: two carnitas on the left, birria in the middle, and two asada on the right. photo of the single taco is carnitas (pork)...

For authentic tacos, there is no place better. This is a small bodega that has a kitchen in the back. You can get Mexican sodas, beers and other items you'd expect to find in a bodega, but the food is OUTSTANDING. The family that runs it also owns the El Nopal restaurant on the opposite end of the strip. They have all the greats for your tacos...Lengua, Al Pastor, Carne Asada, Cactus, chicken, Barbacoa and my favorite.....BIRIA. The tacos are all flat-topped on the la plancha so the base is crispy. They serve the Biria with a cup of consume for dipping. It's amazing. They garnish all the tacos with lots of onion and cilantro so if you are like me and allergic to onions, you need to tell them. Once they are on there there's no getting them off. I have had their breakfast burrito but not their Tortas. They look amazing. When I am there for lunch there's at least one landscaper truck in the parking lot and those guys go for the Tortas.

And the beans....get a side of their black beans. ...

The Mexican vibes you see in most grocery stores and restaurants. There is always Spanish music playing in the background, plenty of murals across walls, and an inviting staff. The reviews begged us to try this place, but we did not find anything spectacular. We were really keen on the birria tacos and they just didn't do it for us neither did the pollo taco that I split with my partner.

We expected them to be crunchy yet soft, more flavor of the beef especially if you're getting the consumme with it. What we got instead was the tacos being very soft, the consumme felt more watered down because it had no seasoning to it. However the green verde was excellent and went very well with the tacos. Also, the pollo taco didn't have a lot of the seasoning we've come to expect from a Mexican restaurant. It was so so.

The service is certainly very quick and the staff is friendly, but that alone won't bring us back. Slightly...