Tacos Las Californias — Restaurant in Tampa

I've been meaning to try Tacos Las California's for quite some time now. Especially, since it was mentioned to me by a few people that I must try. I was able to, since I was in the area recently.

I stopped by and got a variety of tacos as well as their well known Quesabirria Tacos, on an early Sunday evening. To my delight, seeing 30 people in the parking lot either waiting to order or for their order got me a little excited. 😀

It was discouraging that they did not have three types of meats that I wanted to order. I settled with the typical four steak, four chicken, four (regular) birria tacos and an order of three Quesabirria Tacos with consommé.

Steak itself lacked seasoning or charring. Chicken was lightly seasoned bland and dry. Birria was better and a little more flavor and savory. The Quesabirria Tacos were the better of all the tacos, however, the biggest guest of the party was a let down. The consommé was too thin and watery. When I think of consommé de birria, I think and taste an ultimate thick juicy broth almost pasty but still noticeably broth. Maybe a couple more Chile Guajillo would bring more flavor and consistency. Ideally charred before blending together.

All in all, I love tacos and grew up eating homemade tacos a couple times on the weekly. Benefits of having a mother that is passionate about Mexican food. As always, I will be giving Tacos Las California's another round or two just to make sure it wasn't an off day for them. I really like that the community appreciates this...

Funny how this place doesn’t allow reviews on their social media so I’ll just leave one on every other platform if I have to, we ordered for the first time today from these people and they were out of an item that we ordered (the street corn). The lady told my husband that they were out (we placed an order online) so he said ok thinking that they would refund us the money back, so he went to leave and turned around to ask the lady if they were going to refund us then since we’re not getting an item we already paid for, she told him no she can’t refund us but she could give us another item. First of all, you do not allow phone orders and you only accept online or walk up and you shouldn’t be allowing online orders if one, you’re sold out of an item then it should be marked “sold out online” and two, you shouldn’t be allowing online orders if you have no intent on refunding customers for items they paid for. She was just going to let my husband leave without offering anything or refunding until my husband went back and asked them, that’s TERRIBLE customer service. YOU DO NOT KEEP PEOPLES MONEY!! Had my husband had not asked you would have stolen his money instead of refunding or offering us another item. We should NOT HAVE to ask about the money YOU OWE US! We ended up being stuck with another item that we didn’t want. We would have preferred our money back. Not to mention the food wasn’t even great so another reason we will not be coming back. Stay away from...

Unfortunately, with the food being SO good upon first bite, I completely forgot to take a photo lol! It just means I'll be going back to get the photos ;)

I read rave reviews of this place and was still taken aback by how delicious everything was. I've been disappointed many times by previous Mexican eatery in Florida, but not this one. I tried the California burrito with birria meat and the birria ramen. The burrito was large and super packed, great ratio of meat and french fries. Super tasty, I would've preferred a bit more guac but I'm also a guac-aholic so don't mind me. Dip it with some consume sauce and you got yourself a burrito for life.

Now for the birria ramen...chefs kiss..perfection! First bite caught me by surprise, I was expecting it to be a bit bland but it is definitely not that in the least. Full beefy flavored broth and soft noodles, for $9 of a side order, you get your money's worth. The side was huge! I honestly would go back every day if I could, Just for that ramen! Wow!

Be aware that this place gets packed, and for good reason! They are currently a bit short staffed, so the wait in line to order was long. And parking is a bit cramped. However, I got my food in less than 10 min, so that made up for it in the beginning. Highly, highly recommend trying this place if you haven't! I grew up on great Mexican food in California and this place brought me back to those good ol' days....