Tag: Downtown San Jose

La Victoria Taqueria at 140 East San Carlos Street, San Jose, CA 95112

San Jose has a locally well known thing; orange sauce. Orange sauce is a delicious hot sauce that I have not heard of being a deal anywhere else. No two are the same and you will find many San Jose taquerias with an orange sauce. There is, of course, some argument over who invented the first San Jose orange sauce. The answer, by several authorities, is La Victoria. This does not mean that one should not enjoy all of the orange sauces or that only the first is best. No, the world is wonderful for its variations and innovations and accumulated complications and experiences. However, it is true, that La Victoria has a fantastically delicious orange sauce and one should definitely sample it. In our house it is a special treat to come home with a bottle of the orange sauce from La Vic (the common nick name for La Victoria) and then to eat it on everything from eggs to pizza and burritos to tacos.

This is a post in the series of our impossible quest to try all of the tacos in San Jose. We just can’t talk about this San Jose icon of a taqueria without discussing the orange sauce. It is highly recommended and delicious. Ok, now on to the tacos!

The tacos were delicious and were enjoyed by all. Tacos ordered today included veggie tacos and asada tacos ordered as they come and ordered as plain meat and cheese. There were four of us sitting in the old victorian house turned restaurant next to San Jose State University. To my knowledge, this is the original location and the first place to bring San Jose orange sauce to the public.

Notes from todays tasting included:
– So delicious. Veggie tacos were loaded. Like big, full, a bit sloppy. The orange sauce on top was great and we got an extra bottle to take home.
– Pretty good but bigger than I thought they’d be
– Good tacos, good meat. Very big tacos. One taco would have been enough. Agua fresca was soooo delicious. The orange sauce is also great. Food is good and everything about the place is good. We bought a bottle of orange sauce to take home. Yum!
– Good tacos.

Combined taco score for La Victoria = 🌮🌮🌮🌮

(Taco scale info link)

Las Cazuelas Restaurant at 55 Race St., San Jose , CA 95126

Two children and two adults tried tacos including vegetarian, plain carne asada, and al pastor.

We were with several friends for this adventure who all chose burritos for their meals so they did not get to chime in on the taco score. This restaurant is near many murals and art studios and we had a great day exploring and listening to live music on The Alameda for this Second Saturday. Second Saturday is a movement on The Alameda to open up the art galleries and host artist talks, musicians, and hands on art opportunities for all who come. We had a great time trying our hands at several art and poetry projects, listening to Mighty Mike McGee, famous local poet, be interviewed in the School of Visual Philosophy. Then we walked around the wonderful Recycle Bookstore before walking over to Las Cazuelas restaurant.

I have to say that the patio and friends as part of a great day went superbly with my tacos that came out great. An excellent day of living.

Taco notes included:
– Outdoor patio so nice and comfortable. Tacos are delicious!
– It was good.
– Ehhhhh😐
– Our friend joined us and loved his veggie burrito, adding hot salsa, saying “Sauce is so good, it’s so hot, I’m dying.”

Combined taco score for Las Cazuelas = 🌮🌮🌮

(Taco scale info link)

In our impossible goal to sample all of the tacos available in San Jose, my family has begun tracking our taco tastings. This is the first in our series of taco tasting adventures and the first use of our new taco rating system.

🌮🌮🌮🌮 = We like these tacos and we want to come back soon
🌮🌮🌮 = We like these tacos and will happily eat them again
🌮🌮 = We would eat these tacos if we were hungry at a party
🌮 = We are not going to eat these tacos again

Our taco score will be a composite of our individual scores for the tacos we ate during that visit, though we are each eating different tacos and not necessarily the same kinds from restaurant to restaurant. In other words, this is very unscientific, not necessarily representative of what any one of us actually thought of our own tacos on a particular visit, not necessarily representative of the restaurant in general, and not a good indicator for comparisons.

Basically, we are looking for a fun taco adventure and you should go and try them all yourself. We just decided to make up this whole system to go along with our experience.

So here we go- Tacos!:

Mezcal restaurant at 25 W San Fernando St, San Jose, CA 95113

Mezcal restaurant is a perfect example of how our scale system is not likely to help you decide if you should try a restaurant or not. Mezcal is not a taqueria; it is a fancy dining restaurant with art everywhere and a cool vibe. There are very few tacos on the menu and a lot of other great looking items. What I mean to say is, if you were trying to judge this restaurant, you probably wouldn’t have only had a couple of tacos. However, that is what we were there for. Tacos!

What you see here are vegetarian tacos and tacos filled with asada and cheese. On this day there were two adults and two children recording their taco thoughts that included:
–Salsa and beans are very delightful😁
-I didn’t like the cheese here, the meat was good but the cheese wasn’t.
-Pickled onion delicious. Salsa & chips amazing. Avocado salsa & green salsa amazing. Mezcalrita for drink was new, interesting, good flavor.
-Good salsa, tasty black beans. I imagine lots of the food here is very good. The pickled onion and salsitas for the tacos were very good. Overall, an upscale place where the tacos are not the main thing. I would like to come back to try more items.

Combined taco score for Mezcal = 🌮🌮🌮