Mextiza

July 2, 2012, 9:33 pm
Filed under: Mexican, North Portland

2103 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217

503 289 3709

Geez, this was one of those days where we were looking for something to eat. The following facts make choosing a restaurant sometimes overwhelming and frustrating; 1 – we write a food blog and know most places NOT to go and 2 – the number of times we’ve been disappointed by a new (to us) restaurant’s meat portions. Sometimes it all just turns into a vicious circle of not knowing where to eat…but I’m sure you all can identify.

Anywho, we passed Mextiza as we were going to a different restaurant where we thought we could use a coupon. That unsaid restaurant had a coupon only valid at one of its other locations across town, where we had just come from. Ack! So from this horrible customer service experience of being fed mis-information, we decided to go to the nearest restaurant; Mextiza!

This was a huge gamble for us as we knew nothing about it, but by this time we just wanted to eat somewhere nearby. We even saw the words “Small Plates” on an outdoor sign of theirs, and thought, “uh-oh, does that mean tapas?” You all know how we fear tapas places, small quantity, high cost.

But for some reason, we walked in and it was kind of a miracle that we tried it. I guess the lords of Mextiza meant for us to come here. Much to our surprise, it was…..well, I’ll let you read…

What we ordered: Guacamole and Chips, Tacos de Costilla (Beef rib meat taco w/ cilantro, red onions and refried pinto beans), Cabrito (Slow roasted goat with potatoes pinto beans and chile vinegar sauce)

How we ordered it: Everything was as is.

What we received:

Guac and chips

Cabrito (goat, bowl of beans)

Tacos de Costilla (3 tacos and side of refried beans)

Cost: Guacamole and chips – $7, Cabrito – $18, Tacos de Costilla – $12

Quanitity: So we were really hungry and we had a lot of guac and chips. Their fresh fried chips and smooth guac was excellent by the way.

There was a lot o’ goat! We couldn’t finish the goat dish, maybe it was because of the chips? oops! Still, it was a substantial amount. The tacos looked small at first, but the meat was piled up really high and they ended up being very fulfilling. (It’s tough sometimes when one of the Meat-O-Meter’s kryptonite are guac and chips. We had to try it. Don’t judge, it was delicious )

Quality: Holy crap! Words cannot express the tastiness of the meat in these dishes. I normally am not a huge fan of goat because of its strong goaty-ness flavor. However, these were not that bad at all!! The gamey-ness (sp? I need better adjectives) of the goat meat was not strong at all, it was just faint enough that you could tell it was goat meat. It was fabulous!

The 3 tacos were A.MA.ZING! The first bite was a perfect mixture of juicy meat, fatty goodness and great tasty spices. I just couldn’t believe it. They were so delicious, I licked my fingers, the plate and then the Meat-O-Meter’s fingers, jk, he licked them already. It was so crazy good!

Meat-O-Meter says!

It’s the sign of the Phoenix rising from the ashes…or something like that. This place was the surprise of our year! Every bite was so delicious. This place is a bit expensive, but I guess it depends on how you look at it. We’ve heard in Chicago that awesome tacos from a cart are about $4 each. So for our plate to be $12 for 3 tacos, I guess it depends how you look at it. These tacos are awesome!

The meat here is cooked perfectly. There’s a well balance of flavor, tenderness and juiciness. We will for sure come back here.

They just opened in Thanksgiving of 2011, so they are fairly new, but they are doing very well for themselves. They’ve also got a gajillion tequilas. They are a legit Mexican restaurant. There’s no hole in the walls here.

Wow, I think listening to Rodrigo y Gabriela, really inspired me in this blog post.

We are now recalibrating our Meat-O-Meter rating for Cha Taqueria. Standards keep getting higher the more restaurants we go to. It’s getting spicy up in here!

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