Pelea Mexicana

For another happy hour gathering recently, my friend Cookie suggested this place she’d heard of that did all you can eat tacos from 5-7pm, Pelea Mexicana.  I rounded up the usual suspects and we rolled into the joint seven deep.  Yeah, I said “rolled into the joint seven deep” – problem?!  😛 

While we were browsing the menu, three types of salsa and a basket of crisp tortilla chips were placed in front of us.  The chips were not stale – a recent pet peeve of mine when munching on this sort of snack – and the salsas ranged in heat level, and were clearly homemade.  Not bad. 

Happy hour beer specials included Modelo for $5, so I said, eh, when in Rome, why not?  Don’t ask me how it was.  I wasn’t a fan, but I didn’t expect to be. 

But we went onwards with ordering copious taco platters.  Here’s the thing.  They didn’t limit us, and our server was absolutely fantastic.  She kept coming back to ask us if we wanted more, if we wanted more beer, if we needed anything else.  Awesome.  The deal: $15 for all you can eat tacos, and you choose the protein.  Fish, pork, chicken, vegetarian (which were portobello mushrooms, I believe).  Each platter comes with 3 tacos.  We had to order by the platter, but we could order as many as we liked at a time.  For example: my first order was one fish and one pork.  This was separate from everyone else’s orders, which ranged from “one of each, please” to “vegetarian only”. 

The first to arrive for all of us were the fish tacos. 

Little nuggets of lightly fried fish on a corn tortilla, dressed with a bit of a spicy sauce, some lettuce, and cotija cheese: these were good fish tacos.  The spicy drizzle actually was just the slightest bit too much for me, but you know, I dealt with it.  I would have liked some sauce on the side for me to put as much or as little as I liked, and maybe more tomato… and cilantro.  Love cilantro. 

I took a quick pic of Cookie’s vegetarian tacos, but I didn’t hear from her how they were. 

Next to come out were the pork tacos. 

Pork shredded, again dressed similarly.  I thought this was okay, slightly dry, not quite juicy enough.  Again, I wanted something extra to it, but t’was not to be. 

Last and sort of least was the chicken.  I didn’t actually order any, because I don’t generally like to order chicken from restaurants. 

I was glad when I heard the general consensus was that the chicken tacos were awfully dry, and the least favorite. 

We ordered a few more rounds – my next order was a single platter of fish tacos, since I’d liked those best.  And by the end of the night, the numbers went like this:

Goats: 20
TC: 19
BeerBoor: 18
Cheese & Yasmine: 10 each
Yvo: 8
Cookie: 4

Then I posed the kicker of a question to the super awesome waitress: “So, if we came in and it wasn’t happy hour, how many tacos come to an order?”  I’d already checked the regular menu, and it was $15 – 17 per order, depending on what protein you chose.  She looked at me, smiled, and said “Three.  Just like what you just got.”  So… yep, each order we got normally goes for $15, and we each had at least two orders.  Nice!  (And there was no suggestion that if we didn’t finish a taco, we’d have to pay for it individually.  I’m sure if you waste a lot of food, they’ll do something about it, but I’m just saying they don’t go into it trying to stop you from ordering as much as you like.)

GREAT DEAL. 

Yvo says: Seriously, were you not reading?  The tacos – particularly the fish tacos – were quite tasty, and for the happy hour price of $15 all you can eat, a total steal.  I would totally recommend the happy hour – and there are other things on the happy hour menu, but we were very focused on getting all the tacos we could eat.  Yum! 
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