Lito's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

With its massive tacos and toddler-sized burritos, Lito's is the Cheesecake Factory of Santa Barbara taco shops. Unfortunately, bigger is not always better.

On my sole lunch-time visit with a colleague, I ordered three tacos, all of which were served with two grilled white corn tortillas each, and were quite large. Any single one of the tacos I ordered could have been an entire lunch meal by itself.

The meat in my Lengua Taco was a lot drier than I expect lengua to be. The meat was under-seasoned and plain. It was a chore to eat this, honestly. The Fish Taco was decent -- and Lito's fish taco features grilled fish. Although it also needed a touch more seasoning, it was clean-tasting, cooked alright, and generally decent. But one of the things that living in San Diego has done is raise my bar for fish tacos to a level where if you're not doing something special with your tacos, you're wasting my time. In that sense, this was a waste of time. My third taco, the Adobada Taco, was my favorite since it had something the other two didn't: an identity. Yes, well-seasoned, marinated pork is hard to screw up -- but so is lengua, so I credit Lito's for making a decently juicy, tasty Adobada Taco, even if I must confess it would not pass muster in L.A. or San Diego.

Each taco comes with tomatoes, lime, and lettuce on the side. The Adobada Taco and Lengua Taco also are served with onions and cilantro. I had to ask for "squeeze bottle" hot sauces -- and it turned out that Lito's does not really have them. Instead, they give you salsa in a small bowl. Chips and salsa are also provided complimentary when you order.

My colleague ordered a chicken burrito that looked bigger than his upper arm. Unlike me, he doesn't live in Southern California -- and as a Floridian who has been exposed to nothing but bad Mexican most of his life, he thought his burrito experience at Lito's was "take it or leave it," which is not the type of reaction one expects to hear when an east-coaster eats a burrito in California for the first time.

Sorry Lito's, but the flavors, charm, and "duende" I expect in a good taco shop I did not find in yours. Yes, San Diego has spoiled me but, even by Santa Barbara standards, I think this place is average or below -- especially after having excellent tacos at El Pollo Rico in nearby Goleta. Also the taco size here is way too big, and much larger here than 99.9% of others I've had in Mexico or southern California. At the risk of sounding meaner than I want this to come across (because I don't HATE Lito's, I merely think they're mediocre), smaller tacos allow you to sample more variety while paying for less product and presumably throwing away less...

I've been wanting to visit Lito's since my co workers seem to love it here. Maybe just their lunch is good but seriously the worst sandwich i have ever eaten. First of all, they didn't have all the breads that they have written on the sign by the register because i guess their bread guy is from ventura. Why not cross out what you don't have rather than have me wait 5 minutes and then tell me that you don't have the bread that you said you did have. Cross it out or go to smart and final and buy the bread. And can i say that i was disgusted because the cashier was ringing people up, touching things here and there, and then wrapping customers burritos in plain daylight with NO GLOVES. She even grabbed our tortilla chips with her bare hands. Thankfully the cook had my stuff packaged already before it got to her. But seriously, that is DISGUSTING. All in all, my food was just thrown in the box and it looked unsatisfying as i opened the box. I couldn't even eat it all because it was that disgusting. Cold "home fries", burnt bread, burnt sausage.. All around horrible!! and to think that this restaurant aired on Guy...

My expectations were high because it was listed under Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

If you're used to really good Mexican food, because you're Mexican or you live in an area (like Los Angeles) where Mexican restaurants are all over the place, then this place isn't for you.

I tried two dishes, the Pozolé and Green Enchiladas with chicken plate.

To start the right and beans didn't have much flavor, but were cooked well. The rice was fluffy and had the right orange color you expect, but the flavor wasn't there.

Refried beans? They had ZERO flavor, nothing, I was kinda of shocked. I drowned them in salsa to add flavor.

The enchilada sauce was mild and tangy, but still lacking tomatillo flavor. Otherwise, the chicken was moist and cooked well. (Two Stars)

The pozole, well, it was tasteless too. To be fair, a lot of places make it that way, so you can garnish it yourself. After that, it was...