El Huarache Veloz — Restaurant in Marietta

Update (20250621):

In the last weeks of May, my and my SO's experience at the restaurant reached an disappointing and dissatisfying point, after a period of degrading experiences. The kind in which our usual became a bullet train for my SO and my trying a "new" hot sauce was something more than just hot. Because of this, I knocked a star off from the overall, food, and atmosphere rating.

(I'm refraining from speaking to the Experience and how it has influenced the restaurant and staff to behave unfavorable to us, given the tells with our last visit.)

El Huarache Veloz was a random pick from a search of "taco salad near me". Having a penchant for hole-in-the-wall restaurants and eateries, El Huarache proved a good call and was a wonderful discovery. It is an exhibition of doing a lot with a little, which presents an authentic environment that is inviting.

Since it was our (my SO and I) first to time, we dined on taco salads and a couple of asada tacos. After taking a minute to mull over the overhead menu, which offers an even more impressive selections. (They have tripe tacos.) Be forewarned, the menu is in Latin (Spanish), but it does have English translation (in the smaller font).

Also, English is not the primary language of staff; however, the hostess that took our order was versed enough in it to do so. If Spanish is one's second language of study, this would be a great place to practice it. The atmosphere (and food) of El Huarache inspired me to want to learn Spanish. What I appreciated most though, was the kindness of a gentleman taking time from his meal to signal to me (us) that our food was ready, because of our being obliviousness to the language, with being engrossed in conversation. (One has to return to the counter to retrieve their order, after ordering.) Surely, if either us spoke the language, I would have rated the service higher with this review.

Our taco salads were made to order, from scratch, and fresh. I forewent the dressing packet offered and dressing mine with salsa from the salsa bar, which adds a communal hospitality to the restaurant. Granted, I'm unsure why the spicy salsa I favored had changed or had been refilled by the time I went back for more (for my SO's salad); it changed from its authentic nature to appearing manufactured, from a jar?

Conversely, I was less enthused about the one taco asada my SO ordered; it had gotten cold and the corn flour tortilla is not ideal for me. However, the freshness of the beef was unmistakable, and made it palatable. Surely, if it were warm, it would have been as enjoyable as the taco salad.

Given the time of day, though, it was good we had arrived before it became too busy. El Huarache seems to be a popular place.

All in all, El Huarache Veloz has opened my eyes to the fact that authentic Latin food does exist, even here in The South....

Im tired of the standard Mexican within east cobb and the surrounding area. This is an order at the counter and seat yourself place. I dont know if its truly authentic but there's no doubt they offer options that are different than all other standard Mexican restaurants. As an example they offer cuitlacoche (corn that has fungus). I had the flautas one steak and other chicken. They were much bigger than i expected. About the size of large flour tortilla (of course they use corn tortillas). They come with lettuce, tomato, avacado, and some shredded or crumbled cheese. Very simple. I also had a chorizo taco. All the tacos come with the bare minimum. They were both great on their own but what helps make even better is the salsa and misc bar. Probably 8 -10 different types of salsa and sauces. A couple were creamy. They also had other items like pico, fresh pickled onions, cucumber, sliced japelanos and surprisingly yams and macaroni salad. I was told a lot of regulars put the macaroni on their tacos and i tried the yams with my beef flauta. I was surprised that it worked. Most are spicy but i personally didnt find any of them to be extreme. With the exception of the mexican soap opera playing a bit too loud near our table atomosphere was nice. It was very clean and in general pleasant to be dining in. Next time ill try something im not familiar with like the...

I used to love this place! But my experience today was very disappointing. I got there really excited to have my son try one of his favorite things, a quesadilla, from here. Well my order was wrong and when I got back to have it recooked they still got it wrong. The carne asada on my quesadilla was burnt to a crisp. I mean so hard that some of it was crunching between my teeth. I asked instead for a chicken quesadilla but when they finished cooking my order the second time it was exactly the same order that I had placed initially that I no longer wanted. When I called up there after realizing this I was told that no one there spoke English although I had just explained my entire situation to an employee in English to make sure that my order was correct as I had initially ordered in Spanish. It was still wrong and there didn't seem to be much sympathy with respect to getting it right. The point of ordering food for me as a mom is to save time but this has wasted my entire afternoon doing return trips to this place and trying to get my order sorted out that was as simple as two chicken...