Taqueria El Buen Gusto — Restaurant in Saint Paul

So... let's start off with my most RECENT visit (7/11/23). Entering the place, the atmosphere was pretty dead. Due to the lack of customers, the cooks weren't really doing much. The smell of food was also lacking. 3 red flags already.

Anyway, I was seriously hungry so I went ahead and ordered two ground beef taco plates with rice and beans. The person at the register was nice, but he seemed a bit uneasy. Another red flag. After paying for the food, I sat down and waited for my order. I noticed the cooks weren't really cooking anything. Just conversating and reheating the beans & ground beef. The only thing they cooked fresh were the tortillas. Don't want to bore you with anything else so let's move onto the food.

When I arrived home and opened my plates, the only thing I was able to smell were the onions, cilantro, and the rice. The rice and the tortillas were the ONLY redeeming thing in this meal. The pinto beans were quite dark (a sign that the beans were old) with low viscosity. Almost like tomato soup with a slight soft beany grit. On top of that, they had very little smell/taste. The Spanish rice was standard. The ground beef? A mess. Overly seasoned with an excessive amount of smoked paprika added in. Never have I ever eaten a taco with that type of seasoning. My only guess is that the cooks wanted to imitate a smokey grill/char flavor which COULD have been achieved if they made the meat FRESH on a HOT flat table stove and use steam to add that extra "UMPH" to it. Tacos also fell apart upon grabbing it. Now, onto my final review/words.

After eating the food, my stomach flipped out, losing my appetite and almost everything I just ate. It gave me a bloated, sour stomach for 2 whole days. Eating at this restaurant is pretty much a mystery wheel. Some days, you'll have GOOD food, and most days, you'll never know what you get. On two different occasions, they borrowed the same rice that was used at the Great Dragon Chinese restaurant which blew me. Sometimes the food is bland, sometimes it's alright. The pandemic didn't do it any justice either. The place gets worse and worse. Inconsistency at its finest.

I wouldn't recommend going here unless you want to play Russian roulette with your gut. Go to Los Ocampos. It's literally a few blocks down. Sure you may spend a bit more money, but at least EVERYTHING will be made fresh. Plus they're consistent each and every time. This is my first time leaving a ranting review but I've just about had it with El Buen Gusto. I'm...

I was pretty stoked to try this place out, but I wasn't very impressed. In fact, I left still hungry. Perhaps my expectations weren't properly adjusted, but when the menu for tacos lists all of the meat options I thought I would have a chance to add other extras like pico, cheese, lettuce, etc. Instead, I received three tacos with just meat - that's it. Later, I asked if other things were supposed to come with the taco since nothing else was offered when I ordered - they told me that I was supposed to be offered raw onion and cilantro with my taco, but that's all that they have. Maybe I'm just ignorant to how tacos are traditionally served, but it was incredibly plain tasting and not filling even after adding onion/cilantro and salsa.

My wife ordered vegetarian tacos and all she got was a two slices of sautéed peppers and two more slices of onions. I thought mine weren't filling, but my wife's portions were straight up paltry.

Finally, my kids got chicken burritos from the kids menu. Again, the menu didn't explain what was inside them nor did the person who took our order ask if the usual additions would be okay. My kids portions were the exact opposite. Not only were their portions gigantic, but it had a bunch of things included that weren't on the menu! I was expecting just rice and chicken with fries, but it also had sour cream (or some sort of dressing - I couldn't tell), cilantro, beans, rice. One of them didn't even have any chicken (lol) and if we had known there was sour cream I would've asked them to skip it cause my kid is lactose intolerant.

My problem was that the menu wasn't clear. The tacos just showed a list of meat and I incorrectly assumed that there would be more. My mistake for not clarifying I guess and it only came with meat. Then the kids burritos only showed a few choices with meat, but came with a bunch of ingredients that weren't on the menu at all nor did the staff...

So sad to have such a terrible experience for our first time here. We were super estactic about the tacos. We ordered 12 tacos and waited about 30 minutes. At first I was okay waiting and hoping that our orders will be done by then, but it’s started to get passed 30 minutes. I was getting impatient. We asked the cashier lady multiple times how long it will take for the food to be ready, in a calm demeaner, as we’ve been waiting for 30+ minutes. We were constantly told that it was close to getting ready and the cooker said that they were working on it. Then, 40 minutes passed, the cashier lady said to us that the cookers were making tacos for someone else. She asked if we can wait another 20 minutes for the food. God that’ll be an hour of waiting for our order. Which doesn’t make sense because there were barely anyone there. I was really disappointed. The cashier lady was super nice and polite. She apologized for the long wait and asked if we wanted a refund. We agreed to get a refund. I don’t plan on going back. If you don’t like waiting,...