Monica's Taqueria — Restaurant in Muscatine

Ms T and I have spent a considerable number of nights back in Muscatine lately and finally had a chance to eat at a few of the local restaurants that we had not been able to try before. I had three meals at El Olmito and found here an excellent homestyle taqueria. Muscatine has at least four credible restaurants; El Olmito, El Allende, Las Lomas and Guadalajara. I have tried them all and rank them in the order given, but all are OK. I have not tried Restaurant Izalco. El Olmito is the real deal.

I ate lunch here twice and both times had tacos. The lengua is excellent. It is actually shredded, rather than the usual cubed. Twice I had chorizo and egg tacos. They have a little tomato and chile in the eggs. Perfect. I also had one barbacoa (cheek) and it was delicious, tender and flavorful. Top your tacos with one of two very good homemade sauces. The red version is dry toasted red chile and surprisingly is not vinegar based. The green has decent heat and consists of tomatillos and chiles jalapenos. Both are so good that I never know which to use on the tacos. I just wrote a less than glowing review for hugely popular and overrated Mission Taco Joint in St Louis. All I can say is, "They wish". Popularity and following the herd are no guarantee that you will find something good.

For my one dinner here, I had a dinner of barbacoa (cheek). It is very rich and good but you can't let a little grease scare you. It came with shredded lettuce and rice. The serving was huge and I took a big serving home.

So here is the deal on El Olmito. It is a little grocery with a few tables. Don't let any of that deter you. You won't get better, more honest and authentic tacos for hundreds of miles. This is comida casera. When we lived in Muscatine we bought groceries here and I don't think they had the menu and tables that they now have. We frequented El Zarape until Paul and Gloria sold it and then we were regulars at Imelda's. Both are long gone but we had a lot of good meals there with our kids. If I lived here again, I would be pretty happy with the selection of Mexican food and would try to rotate through El Allende, Las Lomas, Guadalajara and probably Izalco (Need to try it). I would reserve a special place on my lunch schedule to get tacos at El Olmito. I hope Muscatine appreciates these places. I am saying this place deserves one of the five star ratings that I reserve mostly for special...

Not one to write reviews or really complain about restaurants at all, but I am definitely upset with the way I was treated. I came in after work, ordered a burrito with very clear instructions of what I wanted and didn’t want on it, the lady who took my order assured me it would be made correctly. I leave with my order, get home and my burrito literally only had meat, lettuce, and a couple chunks of avacado. So I call and tell them it was made incorrectly and what it was missing, the lady say I can get one remade. So as I’m about to leave my house to go back and get the correct order I realize I have a missed call from them. I call back and they offer to just give me a side of rice to add to my burrito, well first off rice wasn’t the only thing missing from it. Why would I want just rice to add to my burrito that is now cold and will only be colder by the time I’m back home. No I want a fresh burrito made correctly after I paid $15.00 and a tip. I told them they are more than welcome to have the incorrect burrito back they say “yes bring it back”. I arrived back to get my order the owner gave me a side eye dirty look, looked at the incorrect burrito put it back in the bag with my fresh burrito and that was it. I felt like they took offense to the fact they messed up, truly disappointing with how they acted, considering I have been here many times, I have never complained about their mess ups as this isn’t the first time they have messed up things, or forgot to give me things...

got birra taco combo and something I can't remember the name of, it was like a quesadilla with a very small amount of flavorful but very chewy steak. Aside from that steak and very bland and mushy rice, everything else was delicious and made up for the rice. I will try a different meat next time. Price was very reasonable and there was some Mexicana rap or something playing. It all sounded like pitbull although I'm certain it was different eses sing talking. ...