El Mecatero — Restaurant in Richmond

This food truck sits in the parking lot of a gas station, so the parking is very limited. Regardless, I was very excited to try this place since they have a similar ordeal as the Flavor Hive truck from Alexandria, where you can bring your own bag of chips to get loaded up, except these flavors are South American.

I brought a bag of Spicy Sweet Chilli Doritos, and had it loaded up with all meats (+ extra meats) and veggies (no rice), cheese, and all sauces. This was, honestly, dangerously addicting for both my wife and I, and there was easily enough food for both of us. It was just one of the most unique and flavorful dishes we've had in a long time. Definitely coming back just to have this.

Also ordered a rice bowl with both cilantro lime rice and veggie fried rice, with all meats (+ extra meats) and toppings (except cilantro), with the crema and Sweet Chilli sauces. This dish was very good, but I would not skip out on the Pineapple Cilantro sauce next time, and the veggie fried rice was okay, but not worth getting.

All in all, I highly recommend this place, but I really hope they add some sort of spicy sauce to the menu, as that is really needed for this type of food!

Lastly, the menu doesn't show the word "Halal" next to the Ribeye, but the owner assured me that...

Y’all. If you’ve been following Flavor Hive in NOVA, you know that BYOB walking tacos are the thing right now. El Mecatero did NOTTT disappoint! Pictured is a Nacho Cheese Dorito bag loaded with halal chicken, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, cheese, crema, and a sweet chili sauce. It is absolutely delicious - the meat is perfectly seasoned and the chili sauce adds a nice flavor profile. You can easily share a regular size chip bag between two people. The only thing I wish they had was hot sauce (or a hot salsa - basically anything with heat). With that said, you can bring spicier chips if that’s your vibe! Highly recommend checking them out.

As a note, their menu is up on their insta and was current as...

Food was decent could’ve been more seasoned and they charge extra “add ons” for literally everything, cilantro, rice, cheese, steak ect. so the 11$ your paying ends up being more like 18$ then they’re false advertising on instagram saying buy 2 get one free. I brought 3 regular bags of chips and walked away paying 43$ so i went back and tried to see why i was charged so much and didnt receive my “free bag” he made no sense whatsoever so he refunded me 10$ after seeing i was clearly upset. defiantly wont be coming back too overpriced not...