Lotería Taco Bar — Restaurant in San Jose

This knocks another one off the San Pedro Square list of restaurants to review. I don't often read the reviews from other people before I write my own, but this time was an exception. My experience here left me sitting on the fence about the restaurant, thus the three star review .

I've seen other people discuss how they appreciate the speed of service, and I won't lie, the speed at which they delivered my chicken nachos were spectacular. The downside is the quality of food isn't always that great.

Previous reviews have mentioned how they felt like their carne asada was refried, or reused, but I ordered the chicken, and it was fine. I really can't make this a rule of thumb, but at least for reviews, it's always safest to order the chicken. The bad news is the additional chicken on my nachos cost me $5, making the price point of the nacho delight a little bit too high for me to recommend.

The nachos already costing $12, plus adding meat as an additional $5, meant that there were high expectations on nachos for which I just paid $17. The nachos were good, probably $12 good, and not $17 good. The chips we crunchy in some places, soggy in others. The overall plate was warm in some places, and cold in others. The amount of toppings seemed appropriate, but it just wasn't anything exceptional.

It was like exactly half of the nacho plate met my expectations, so I figure I probably should have paid half the price. Considering the other restaurants in this space, ones providing similar speed of service, with a better consistency of food, I don't think I can recommend Loteria Taco bar.

I typically try not to name drop other restaurants in competitive reviews, but when the other restaurant is also in San Pedro Square, I make a bit of an exception. Suerte, is a much better bang...

There were some good reviews for this taco bar but this isn’t one. Nachos - how do you mess up nachos? We were looking forward to the Loteria Nachos with carne asada. The carne asada was so disappointing. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was old carne asada refried on the grill as it was burnt & extremely crunchy. The chips were stale and combined with the pico, cheese, jalapeños & crispy burnt meat made for an unappetizing order of nachos. The two pieces of normal looking carne asada were bland. The carne asada taco had the same crispy burnt meat & the tortilla was the only edible part. We should’ve returned both but the gal who took our order wasn’t the most pleasant and I didn’t want to deal with her again. Needless to say, we will not...

Shockingly inconsistent. I came last week: some of the best tacos I've ever had. I come this week: absolutely horrible. The tortillas didn't even touch the grill and the meat was hard, chewy, and cold, like they cooked it yesterday, left it out overnight, and didn't even bother to rewarm it before serving. The tortillas chips were also undercooked. However this 2nd time they served me much faster. I'd rather wait longer for better food, please don't sacrifice quality for speed! The place wasn't even busy at the time I came by, so being swamped with orders can't...