Taqueria La Mexicana — Restaurant in Tracy

If you know me, I’m a big fan of tacos, especially tacos de puerco (pork) and tacos de lengua (cow tongue) — and the salsa that comes with it. While my experience at this La Mexicana location was decent enough to want me to come back, there left quite a bit of disappointment and things that they could improve. Here’s my experience at this one right by Valpico and Tracy Blvd:

Food: 3/5

The food in itself was honestly pretty good — quesadillas and tacos make a really good match. While the quesadillas were really cheesy and a lot of fillings, the tacos were a whole other story. While I appreciated that they made corn tortillas to the best of their extent, the corn tortillas with lenguas made the taco shell too wet and too soggy. In addition, they put a little bit too much lengua — which left an aftertaste that I did not like at all. In addition, I had asked them to put the chile verde on the side, since I knew Chile verde was saucy yet spicy at the same time. Instead, they put a lot of that on there (a little bit too much), and I couldn’t feel the lengua in my mouth.

The grilled fish taco was good, but the seasoning of the grilled fish could’ve have been better despite the fact I put a LOT of lemon on both two tacos. Thankfully, cabbage and other toppings came to the rescue, because I would have not been able to change it up more than what was needed.

Service: 4/5

The service was okay — I would say that it wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t too good either. Just some subpar service and regularly seen at a taqueria. I will say that they were responsive even if they were busy with dual orders (in-house and Doordash/Uber Eats orders) being dropped at the same time.

Atmosphere: 3.5/5

The atmosphere was honestly mid — there wasn’t a lot to comment on this about. The rest of the patrons there seemed to mind their own business, so there’s really not that much to comment about either on this specific topic.

I’d like to come and try again, for a more thorough experience — but coming in here rushed makes me think twice about what I’m gonna order and where I will sit at this...

I've got to say this is my favorite Taqueria in all of California. It's not very close to my house but I'll gladly make a drive just so I can get a good plate of food for dinner. I've never sat and eaten inside the restaurant, mainly because I'm normally picking up food from my family and I haven't had the pleasure of ordering ahead of time, as my family normally doesn't know exactly what they want until I get there. But even from just driving up, ordering the food, and leaving, I can say that I've never been inside this restaurant for longer than possibly 20 minutes. My last time going to The Taqueria was on a Wednesday afternoon. Did not expect for it to be so busy, but it was, I think I saw at least seven people in line and all of us had rather large orders. Even with that, in the full restaurant being seated with people also waiting for their food, I can say I was in and out of the restaurant in less than 20 minutes. If anything. If a spot had not opened up in front of me right as I was driving in, I would suspect that parking would have taken me longer than...

My favorite Mexican restaurant in Tracy - I am attempting to try more but this place is great, been going for years and the EL Pastor crispy tacos are my favorite and always taste great. The food comes fast and they have a great staff!

The minor negatives:

They over charge for fountain soda to boost profits like most restaurants.

They did change the spice level of the salsa lowering it, I wish they had a super spicy version for the public.

They can be slow to clear the tables after a rush, and they don't do a great job of cleaning consistently.

Only other really dumb complaint I have is they give you free chips and salsa which is critical in my opinion I give them a full 2 starts+ for this, but they only have tiny little paper holders for the chips so I end up using 2 of them to get enough chips if you do take out you get bigger bag for the chips so its like the dine in folks sort of take a hit here but it...