Michael R.
Yelp
Wow, this place has sure got popular.. and to be honest it's not a bad taco place. I wanted to sing it's praises too and say that it's a great place to visit but my biggest issue with it is its claim to fame, the birria.
I'll start with the good, because I really feel they do lot of things right. For example, the consistency of the food, taste and overall presentation is always the same. This might seem like a trivial thing to some but there is nothing worse than going to a restaurant, trying a dish and then coming back another time for the same dish only to realize that it doesn't taste same. Tacos Juarez truly excels at that.
Their lines are always long, which is ok because they are organized and go through your order fairly quickly. Now that they use two trucks the wait times have improved.
As far as the taste of the food, the tortillas are good, fresh made you can't really beat that. The Pastor is just another run of the mill "Oxnard" pastor, nothing special here. The Cabeza is pretty good, it reminds me of a place in TJ that serves great Cabeza tacos. The other meats like Asada are again, just ok nothing to scream about.
Now onto my biggest issue.. the birria. Not sure that people of praise this place have ever had great birria and therefore can't really compare so I take that into consideration. But, because the majority of their menu relies ok this ingredient it kinda puts the whole place into perspective. i mean the birria does not taste bad, it just lacks the real flavor that makes the dish so popular in Mexico. I feel the birria at Juarez Tacos just tastes like plain old beef soup. I mean I can't taste the notes of cinnamon or the pungent aromatics of the bay leaf.. it's just missing something which makes the overall flavor pretty lackluster.
And yes, I know tons of people will disagree with me, but keep in mind that most of the people going to this place are just lemmings that follow trends online (Trendi Eats) and like to say something is good because others say so. I mean have you ever tried the Tapatio ramen by itself?? it is gross!!
Anyways, in the three times that I've visited this place, I have always been happy with their consistency and they do serve some good Cabeza tacos. So for that reason I will still visit them once in a while but, it will unfortunately not be for the birria.