Condado Tacos — Restaurant in North Carolina

I happened to drive by this place the other day and since I had never noticed it before I wanted to make sure to come back and try it out. So tonight 10/13/23 I went with my wife and we stopped in to dine.

We were seated immediately on the patio and the weather was perfect for a nice evening having a meal outdoors. Our server was great about explaining to us newbies to this establishment everything on the menu and making suggestions and answering any questions we had.

We had the queso dip with Chili's which was delicious. The chips were only so so. They were too thick for my preference, needed a dash of salt, and they were cold. Speaking of cold, that would be a recurring theme during our dinner tonight.

Having spent many years in the southwest I can tell you that chips need to be served warm.

We both ordered the flights of margaritas. I had the muddled jalapeno, the pineapple, and the strawberry. They were all delicious and served on the rocks which is how I prefer them. What's surprised me was no salt on the rims of the glasses nor were we asked when we ordered them if we wanted salt on the rims. Maybe that is not an option there I don't know. They use small mason jars for the flight of margaritas served on a nice board that holds the glasses securely.

Then came the biggest disappointment of the evening for us. That was when we received our main order. I will admit that the flavors were definitely a five and there's no question it was delicious as far as taste.

However once again the cold theme cropped up again as our food was cold. I could understand the toppings being cold as some of them are fresh vegetables, and nobody wants wilted lettuce, cabbage, or tomatoes on their tacos. That said. The rest of the taco was cold. I don't know any other way to say it except that the meat was also cold and the flour tortillas needed to be steamed or heated in some manner. Tortillas, especially flower tortillas need to be warmed. A cold tough and chewy flour tortilla is never appetizing.

My wife ordered the non-meat tacos and hers were cold as well. That is the reason for the poor two-star rating on the food. Food should be served hot, or at least warm.

I have done quite a bit of restaurant work in the the past where I worked in the kitchen. I know unless there is difficulty in the kitchen with faulty equipment or poorly trained cooks, I know that when orders are set out for the waitress to pick up. The food is always hot and ready to go.

So I don't know if the restaurant was having problems with their steam tables tonight while we were there, or if our order set there so long that it became cold before it was brought out.

I do know that it was a different employee who brought our tacos to the table and not the waitress we ordered from I don't know if that had anything to do with the reason the food was cold or not.

To be honest we should have returned our tacos because they were almost stone cold. However, we had to pick our daughter up when she got off work and could not afford to wait for another order to be served.

As I looked at the other reviews for this restaurant I don't see people complaining about cold food so I'm leaning towards something happening like what I mentioned above.

I'm sure if I would have brought the matter of the cold food to the restaurant's attention they would have gladly replaced the meal, but sometimes circumstances don't permit you to have the time to do that and this was one of those times.

The cold food is the reason for my three-star overall rating of the establishment and my two-star rating for the food. Had the food been served hot like it should have been this would be a five-star experience all the way around.

That said. I realize that thing sometimes do happen . So we will go back again and see if things are different next time. I certainly hope it will be a better experience next time. Because if not. It's guaranteed there won't be...

First the margaritas and queso were both very good. The margaritas were a bit on the small size for the price. The chips that come with the queso dip are way too thick. They seem like they are using left over flour tortillas and deep frying (too long) them as not to throw them out but they are just way too thick and really kind of unpleasant. They also don't fit in the bowl after about 3 or 4 dips. You then have to play tetris with the chip and break it to make it smaller to keep dipping.

This IS NOT a MEXICAN restaurant. This is an American Taco joint that saw a taco and thought they could put anything between a shell.

This is a pot heads take on what they think Mexican should be when you are hungry from being stoned and just pick the most random things from the fridge. The tacos are over complicated and filled with flavors that make it very muddy when eating. They were also really cold for what should have been warm. There was also too many sweet flavors in them which is odd for tacos. With all those extra flavors you also introduce water and there seems to be way too much wet moisture in some of the tacos from all the added flavors that make it very muddy and wet.

You can't taste anything in particular just the textures along with the water. In fact they are so confused flavor wise it's hard to tell many of them apart. If you have ever been to Mexico to have tacos you know that they are simple and the flavors don't overpower each other. Most tacos have 3 flavors in them and that's it. They are all in sync and support each other.

The menu is very hard to understand and when the menu is complicated it's going to point to over complicated food that works or does not work...in this case I don't think it works.

The mixing of the shells feels like I am paying way too much for a Taco Bell fad. Again those textures and flavors all get very muddy when you put so many in one taco.

It's rather disappointing since they seem to have spent all the money on the murals about weed and none on a head chef that knows how to not over do things. The food needs a revamp and to keep calling it Mexican is misguided.

2 People, 2 margs, Chips/Queso and 4...

We decided to dine at Condado because I absolutely love the story of how it came to be. Love the interior as well. Our server Dede was amazing. It was our first time there and she was so patient with us and the questions we had about the menu.

We ordered steak nachos as an appetizer. I can’t eat anything spicy so I was certain to let her know that everything that was spicy to put on the side. When it came out it looked good. When we started to eat the steak, rice and the tortilla chips were cold. I made sure to push all the toppings out of the way since they are supposed to be cold and gave it another try. Everything that was supposed to be hot was stone cold!!! Very disappointing especially since it was our first time there and the worst thing was that they put a topping that was super spicy. We sent it back and another was brought out. This one was good. What was supposed to be warm was and the spicy sauce wasn’t even brought out on the side for the others to enjoy.

Next we ordered tacos and bowls. I ordered the rice and bean bowl with the chicken. None of it is supposed to be spicy. My husband ordered the chorizo tacos which again wasn’t supposed to be spicy. When it came out and I took a bite it was so spicy my mouth was on fire! I don’t understand people that eat such spicy foods. When it burns that much the food can not be enjoyed. I couldn’t eat it at all. My stomach was upset for two days after I ate at Condado because of the heat they put into the food. They need to be honest with their customers, if it’s spicy let people know. My husband’s chorizo tacos were also super spicy. He couldn’t eat them either.

Even though I love the Condado story we will not be returning. I don’t enjoy going out to dinner and getting sick from it especially when I made sure to let our server know that I could not eat anything spicy.

To close, not a single manager came out to apologize. I get the concept, hire anyone regardless of their look, age so on; however, Condado should have management that cares about the guest. We left upset and felt that we had just thrown away $80 excluding tip for a dinner we couldn’t even eat. Truly...