Del Taco — Restaurant in San Diego

I decided to try Del Taco's "Carne Asada Street Taco" recently and was surprised to find that it is not inedible. Featuring dual white corn tortillas, each little piece of "steak" is suspiciously coated in a sludgy gravy-like substance where the predominant flavorings include an intense amount of cumin accompanied by extremely high salinity. The "steak" itself is quite tender. In fact, too tender. I questioned if I was actually eating beef, as it didn't taste much like beef, and definitely did not have the texture of steak. I wondered if these beef-like nuggets were perhaps meat scraps glued together with transglutaminase (aka "Moo Gloo") or something even more sinister. It is probably best to not think about which industrialized chemical process they're putting this meat through, but the end-result really isn't as terrible as what I was expecting, despite tasting like it is probably carcinogenic.

The classic hard-shelled "Del Taco," on the other hand, with its salty ground beef, is rubbish. It features a weaker version of the Taco Bell ground beef filling, more lightly seasoned, which should not be surprising since Del Taco's founder Ed Hackbarth once worked directly for Taco Bell founder Glen Bell, and obviously attempted to rip off the recipe that Mr. Bell attempted to rip off from Mitla Café. The Del Taco is primarily distinguished in the wild by being larger and having more cheese packed into a slightly taller corn tortilla shell than a Taco Bell taco. In fact, it has so much shredded cheddar cheese that it fills half the taco, providing empty calories galore without a lot of benefit, since calling this stuff cheese is like referring to poop as fertilizer.

With 564 stores across 15 states in the western half of the U.S., Del Taco (supposedly short for DELicious Taco) is the sixth largest "Mexican" chain restaurant in the country, behind Taco Bell, Chipotle, Chili's, Qdoba, and Moe's. Personally, I see them as Burger King to Taco Bell's McDonald's -- an alternative, not an...

I wish I can give 0 stars. I’ve never been to del taco before and had a coupon for a free variety box so I figured I’d try it out. It was a terrible experience. I showed up and presented my coupon and they refused to honor the coupon at all. When I asked to speak to the manager, they refused to let me speak to them and all of the workers came and told me that they would not accept the coupon. There was no explanation and the workers refused to talk to me and chose to ignore me. There was one young worker who seemed nice and sorry but the rest of the workers were incredibly rude and unhelpful. I hope it’s just this location and I hope that no one goes to this location and that this was a one time thing, but I know I will never be going to this del taco again. The owner should be ashamed of themselves and the workers should be ashamed as well. If they don’t accept a coupon, that’s fine I get it. But they need to take the time to explain to me why and not chose to ignore me and not answer my questions. If the owner chooses to not accept coupons, they should be readily available to answer why and explain to their customers. Until this gets resolved, don’t come here. Not worth it and they won’t be seeing me at a del taco ever. The franchise should punish this location and hope that I’m the only one who has had an...

Been here at least a hundred times over the last forty years, used to be so fast you barely slowed down, now not so much. Also got rid of the Macho Nacho and small nachos with yellow cheese for some sort of white sauce. Probably not fair to knock a star off as I've never gotten sick and I can't remember ever having to go inside for an incorrect order. I swear there's some sort of full cup ice policy because I don't care the employee or time of day, you're getting a full cup of ice, no big deal just saying.

Edit 9-24-17: see picture of sixteen (some were still on street) soft tacos in one small paper bag after being dropped while getting out of car. My fault but very fragile and was too full. Smart enough not to order a cup-o-ice today. Also noticed there's no french fries despite ordering and paying for them, minus two stars for you. Not sure why the dark forces of the universe don't want me to have fries lately but I'm done with fast food around here for a while, two local restaurants have flat out stolen fries from me three times in the last month!!!

Edit 10-13-17: McDonald's down the street just stole my fries, ordered three got two (obviously dad don't get his) so I now feel obligated to give Del Taco one star back. Best buck fifty I ever spent! I need the occasional reenforcement to...