Mezquite Tacos & Fuego — Restaurant in Tustin

Holy smokes! Mezquite tacos are so incredibly good! You know how I know? I've been down the Baja peninsula more times than I can count and the tacos at Mezquite & Fuego are JUST LIKE the ones at the local corner taco joints with the red plastic chairs! Their chicken, al pastor, and carne asada are all cooked over mesquite charcoal so they all have a very distinct, bold smokey flavor. I got my tacos with lots of guacamole and even one taco with some crunchy chicharrón. I like that they serve tacos with blue heirloom corn tortillas--something I've always enjoyed for the novelty. I've never had pineapple and spinach agua fresca before and it was delicious and refreshing! They also have Mexican coke made with real cane sugar available. All of the staff are really friendly and seemed genuinely interested in knowing what I thought of the food. Seriously thrilled to have a new local place for my weekly taco fix. Heads up, they're closed on Sundays. Definitely...

Got a bunch of asada tacos, pastor tacos, the mad potato and carne asada nachos. the tacos were ok, but for the price.... meh. carne asada was solid, but they cut the meat up SO small (is this ground beef... gerber's carne asada...? 😐) Al pastor was a little dry, flavor was ok - tasted a little old. 😖 salsas were good, so that made up for it... i guess... and the mesquite flavor? good, but not so great that it makes up for everything. potato was disappointing. they make it like scalloped potatoes without the cheese and they throw some toppings on there. if you like soft cut potatoes covered with some sour cream and taco meat, this is your jam. me, not so much. nachos were the most disappointing - major bust. chips were chewy, not crisp; toppings were sparse (what was this supposed to come with...? 👀). overall, the most disappointing item. i would try it again, but with wayyyy lower...

Skip this place unless you like Miguel's Jr style Mexican food. There are better Mexican places around the same area that are probably open too.

A big hint that something is wrong: their tortilla chips aren't made of tortilla. They're the fake corn stuff you'd find in Vons.

The meat is well seasoned, but it's smothered in sauce and other stuff. I had their poblano pepper cheese thing with asada and a house pastor taco. Side of chips and guac. The guac is half guac sauce half guac, pretty bland overall. The asada was decently seasoned but was really gristly. Pastor was good once I took everything else off.

The carrots are bland, the jalapeno had no heat, and the salsa had no heat or real flavors.

Overall seems like the kind of place you go to if you're afraid of actual Mexican food. But then, Miguel's Jr is a better bet if...