Rico Rico Vegano — Restaurant in Oakland

Overall a solid choice for vegan Mexican food. Quality for some items not good. Last week had the sopes combo plate with vegan pollo, a carne asada 🌮 taco, a shrimp 🌮 taco, and a tinga shredded oyster mushroom 🌮 taco. Today tried the potato flautas, soy chorizo taco and mushroom hongos taco 🌮.

Sopes - good, nice crispy texture on the outside, very filling Potato flautas - nice and crunchy, made with small flour tortillas, very filling

Pollo vegan chicken - bland, could use more seasoning Shrimp camarones - breaded and fried, generous portion with three in one taco, bland and could use some seasoning Tinga - good seasoning, but the oyster mushroom texture was rubbery and got stuck in my teeth; maybe a finer shred would be better. Mushroom hongos - too salty, lacked spices/flavor otherwise Soy chorizo - this was the worst filling. Most of it not bad, but there were some completely burned black inedible soy crumbles that tasted like rancid oil. They need to change the oil more often and not feed people the old burned bits.

Red smoky salsa - good but strong and can overpower other flavors. Habanero salsa - better, spicy without overpowering other flavors

Soup, vegetable - mostly potatoes, also carrots and corn 🌽, so bland

Pitaya pink tortillas - thick and soft, break apart if not thoroughly cooked

Watermelon radishes - very pretty, refreshing, but absorbed the smell of cleaning chemicals in the air, so they tasted bad.

Napkins and paper bags absorbed cleaning chemical smell also, making them hard...

On 7/26/23 I placed an order through Grubhub that included three tacos all with specific instructions regarding additions/removals of ingredients I wanted and I ordered a kids burrito without beans and and rice. My entire order was wrong! Beans and rice in my burrito, no crema fresca on tacos, salsa and pico de gallo not removed- just a complete disaster. I reached out to GrubHub and apparently GrubHub/Seamless imposes a limit on how many refund/credits a member is allowed. How is it the members fault & why do members have to suffer the consequences of the incompetence of their drivers & restaurants & REPEATED mistakes! No biggie, right- I’ll just reach out to the restaurant and have them make this right? WRONG! Reached out that same day, explained the situation and a manager I spoke with said, “no problem, we’ll issue you a refund.” Eight days go by so today I decided to go to Rico Rico Vegano in person as I still haven’t gotten my refund to which I spoke with the owner, Ricardo on the phone and he not only refused to make good on the refund I was initially promised, he was a surly, indignant, crass individual refusing to accept responsibility and then had the nerve to say he’d have my review removed from yelp should I submit this review detailing my experience. I would not in good faith recommend this restaurant as not only was the customer service by management deplorable the little pieces of mushrooms I picked out of my orders lacked any authenticity and flavor to ever be...

I’m almost tearing up at how perfect this place is. I had only one day to spend in the east bay during my trip to California and had a seriously hard time narrowing down where to eat. Oakland and Berkeley seemed to have a great number of Asian vegan food options, but after glancing at the gorgeous photos of the tacos, bowls, and quesadillas at Rico Rico Vegano, I knew this was the right choice. Their magenta tacos (that owe their color to dragonfruit!) won me over immediately. The more closely I looked at the menu, the more excited I became. They have ELEVEN different types of vegan tacos that include a great mix of healthy veggies (calabacitas, nopal, mushrooms), crispy fried options (konjac camarones, cauliflower), and fake meats (carne asada made from seitan, soyrizo, soy chicken). I opted for the carne asada and the soyrizo, and both were popping with flavor and insanely fresh. I appreciated the simple garnishes of cilantro and onion since I prefer to avoid fake cheese (though many of their tacos do come with fake cheese and honestly it looks great). I got the 2-taco combo with beans and rice but actually requested double beans instead of rice, because how often do you get to have vegan pinto beans? The plate came with pickled carrots and radishes, a nice little touch. Their homemade salsas are delicious (red and green). I’m basically obsessed with this place. The food tastes as good as it looks. Don’t miss the chance...