LA ILUSION AL CARBON

Had the quessabirrias and fresh guacamole and bean dip. Both were amazing and the tacos were full of meat!! The salsa they brought out was fresh and let you choose three salsas to try with chips. Employees were great and menu was full of pictures. This is my new favorite Mexican restaurant!!

Unassuming exterior, but pleasant atmosphere on the inside. The food was the best we’ve had in a long while, and the portions were great . Fortunately, Martha, our wonderful server who was extremely helpful and friendly, brought us the perfect containers to bring leftovers home for another whole meal. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for some very good authentic Mexican at a reasonable price. 5 stars!

If you are into bland, Americanized, Mexican food, you should pass. Meanwhile, if you are looking for authentic food with an authentic ambiance, come here! The food was incredible and they had salsa options that were actually spicy. My wife and I have not enjoyed a Mexican restaurant this much since we were in Mexico City a few years back. Do not miss this place! The food, the staff, and the ambiance were delightful!!

This place has authentic Mexican food. I would say that is hard to find in WA State. I've lived here since the age of 4 and have only found a handful of authentic Mexican restaurants and this is one of them. The staff was very kind and attentive and the food was delicious. I highly recommend this place.

Dear goodness this place is good, I had 4 diferent tacos and all of them where delicious. After ordering I was offered chips and a choice of salsa (I declined the salsa and chips) All 4 meats , Al pastor, Asada , Carnitas. And Chorizo where all delicious, I don't have any complaints besides not being able to eat more. All 4 meats where delicious and tasty

Unassuming spot in a strip mall by the plasma center. Very kind staff, salsa menu and authentic dishes. We will be back!

Very welcoming atmosphere and incredibly generous people. I’d recommend this restaurant to anyone who wants to try genuine authentic Mexican food and and reasonable prices. My Mother tried Their food for her first time today and had nothing but all good things to say about the food she had. 10/10 overall taste and service!!

Amazing Mexican restaurant. Wow, one of my favorite so far in Washington state. Food and garnish are the best . And Laura, the server, take care of me and my wife like family. Amazing atmosphere. A+++

We love everything on the menu! Always receive a warm greeting. Once seated they hand you a card with salsa options. You pick 3 and they return with chips and your selections. If ever you need more, you just ask and they will happily replenish. Very cute decor, family friendly with a small sectioned off bar area. Tonight we decided on sharing the Mini Carbonada. The meats are flavorful and cooked to perfection. The beans were fresh, rice not too salty or watery and there were just the right amount of onions, peppers, corn and cactus. We got both flour and corn tortillas. Washed it down with Mexican Coke. It really is an awesome platter to share when you are feeling like a little bit of everything. We have come on Tuesdays for their tacos. Great value, they are not stingy at all with the meat. If you are in the area, make it a point to try them out. You will not be disappointed!

It's hard to describe how authentic the flavors and environment are at Al Carbon, as someone who's traveled, it's hard to get this kind of thing in Washington. Which makes it a diamond worth seeking out. Two major highlights worth trying are the queso Birria tacos and Al Pastor served up in a charred pineapple, they are absolutely incredible.

this place is okay, but not my #1 spot to go for mexican food. my fiancée loves this place for their drinks and carne asada tacos. as for me, i only eat chicken and i dont love their chicken tacos. it seems like its just grilled chicken, no marinating so i feel like the chicken tends to be dry. the rice and beans are okay, the beans were a tad bit watery in my opinion & they make them kind of spicy? the rice had vegetables in it which i found strange for mexican style rice

We had such a good dinner there. Very authentic. The staff was very friendly and helpful. Very cozy place.

Chicken enchiladas were delicious. Beans and rice were perfect. Will stop by again. Definitely will try the rest of the menu.

Everything was ok. We had take out so I can't comment on the service. The ambiance is ok

Amazing food, amazing service. Don't sleep on this place, try it out. The wife and I found our new stop, that is for sure.

Great spot for amazing Mexican food. Tried the asada and birria and looking forward to trying their other dishes.

The service is horrible , probably due to language barrier . They messed up my order and told me they could not replace it because the food they made me would now be trash if I didn't take it . They just apologized and said they would not give all my money back just enough to compensate for the mistake. The food is bland , not worth the prices.

The food is so fresh and great, the authenticity is there even with the plating. Absolutely love the customer service when ordering and drinks (they have a bar sit in). The ambiance is peaceful and authentic. The margaritas and tacos 10/10 as well as the guacamole!

For a fraction of the cost and none of the wait that you get at Moctezumas I can eat here!!! Sooo delicious. Nothing fancy on the inside, but who cares when the food tastes as good as it does. Great happy hour as well. Their guacamole is SOOO GOOD!!! The first word out of my mouth after biting into my taco, while chewing, yes I know i clearly have no manners, was OMG YOU MUST TASTE THIS.

Llegamos durante Happy Hour y ordenamos una Paloma (Squirt Soda y Tequila) Las Paloma's y la comida estaban riquisimas. Buen sabor!

The nopales asado are the best! I am lucky to live so close to an authentic place like this one! Trust me it's a can't miss! A relaxing place to wind down, and we all need to wind down sometimes with one of 8 different margaritas! Don't change! Love this place!

This is the one guys! This is the one! Authentic delicious Mexican food! We decided to stop by on cinco de Mayo as my usual Mexican place had a 3 hour wait. I'm so shocked at how underrated this restaurant is. Service: the workers were so kind and friendly! They were constantly moving and checking in on customers. Drinks: we ordered the corona margarita and they weren't anything special but good nonetheless. Food: The grilled elote was amazing,don't forget to ask for limes with it. The Chile Relleno was the best restaurant Chile relleno we've ever had! So flavorful and juicy. The Carna asada Gordita was perfectly made! The rice and beans were to die for! Overall, we will be back weekly! I'm so impressed by this hole in the wall Mexican spot. Hands down some of the best in Tacoma.

The food was great, the chile renello was not too greasy or loaded with sauce which I enjoyed. The service was first rate. When we ordered our drinks (about 8 of them, including my mango blended tequila slushie) they came very quickly. The whole table was surprised. The Victoria beer I ordered next was quick and cold as well and the appetizer of tacos a la braza was good. The only improvement for myself is to have a wider desert selection, although they did have a slice of birthday cake for my homie Esteban.

Everything was amazing. We ordered the platter for 2 And it was plenty of food Could possibly feed 3. The shrimp in particular was our favorite It was nice and flavourful seasoned perfectly , You can add on the shrimp to your platter for $10, elote was good, I would ask tajin next time, or drinks were great, service was friendly, I truly believe this a gem in the dirt. Location is in a kind of a low-key spot if this was more In a city center it would be more lf a hot spot, it was that good.

Review from Tejana W., you might not of liked the corn,but just being honest, they've sold over 100,000 ears of corn. I know. Also food is better quality here than moctuzuma, smaller batches at la illusion., not saying moctuzuma is bad, I'm just a customer,

This place serves great Authentic Mexican food, I also enjoy the cups and plates they serve the food in . I Didn't give it 5 stars because of costumer service the lady kinda has a attitude but the food is good so I still go there. Being said if you're looking for good Food try them out.

Most outstanding meal i have had in a long time, had shirmp cooked in a pineapple, excellent tamales. Will be going back.

Bone marrow, bone marrow, bone marrow. I believe this is the only place in the Tacoma area that serves bone marrow and I'm so glad they serve it well! I honestly have to order one order for myself, it's that good. One order comes with two pieces of bone marrow with cute little cheese quesadillas to eat it with. Pair it with an iced cold coronarita, YUM. I also enjoy their elotes and complimentary chips and salsa. I've had their al pastor tacos which were good, but a little on the dry side. I also had their shrimp tacos, but they were on the tough side. They have other meals that I'm wanting to try, so I'm hopeful that I will find a favorite entree. Service is hit or miss, depends on who you get. Some servers are more attentive than others. Parking is nice as its right in front of the restaurant. They even have dedicated stalls for their restaurant. Although I haven't found my go-to entree yet, I'll definitely come back for the bone marrow and coronaritas.

Who said authentic Mexican in WA doesn't exists? This spot hits hard with flavors of Mexico!

My bff and I were looking for a quick yet good food. Came to this place and we were able to dine in. Drinks were okay. I was having a hard time with chunks of ice and hardly get at least a good slurp without choking on chunky ice. I couldn't finish as it was also slimy. Food came and posole verde was good. I would order that again and the size can feed up to three people. I didn't like the pineapple al pastor. There was no Mexican authenticity taste.

Refer to my previous review for details. I felt like I needed to review again because this place deserves to be busy and have lots of customers! We just left taco tuesday, combined with Happy Hour 2PM-4PM and I am SO FULL and HAPPY. They have unlimited tacos on Tuesdays and if you go during happy hour, you can grab some sides and drinks for a great price too! I still love this place, it is hands down one of the best Mexican spots in this area/town/city. They have changed things a few times trying to get customers in, but the food and service are always outstanding! Please don't assume anything from the outside. I did and it took me awhile to check it out, but I have no regrets and will shout to the ends of the Earth, how good this place is!

My family and I visited this place for dinner and we all got sick, the water was dirty and tasted disgusting, the food wasn't good. Customer service was okay.

I really loved the shrimp tacos and the customer service was great. Although my friend did not like her carne asada tacos. I will be back again.

The best part about this place was that dag gone roasted corn with everything on it....man we had to get one to go! Hubby wanted to try a new spot and this one popped up. This is a very casual spot in a little strip mall area, next door to AM/PM basically. The set up is pretty basic, chairs and tables with some booths sprinkled in. I had a jalapeno margarita, and the carne asada torta. Husband had a carne asada burrito. We shared a corn. We were a little surprised that nothing came with our entree... (no rice and beans or chips and salsa before your meal here). We both enjoyed our food a lot though. P.S. We also got churros to go and yasssss what a great decision! They were warm and soft and filled with some sort of custard magic!

We tried this restaurant when they first opened, we really liked the food but they had no bar yet, year later kind of want to give it another try (new owners) food was okay, but drinks not good at all. A Cadillac, and a strawberry margarita where not good prepared, and not from scratch. . Service was good, no ambiance. My fav were the salsas with the crunchy tortillas. Thats about it. Hope the make it better and hope they clean it better. Not sure ill give another try. We had to go somewhere else for a real drink.

Received exceptional service and it was such a clean establishment. The food was delicious and the complimentary chips were enjoyable. And I was happy about the options on the kid's menu. It had perfect portions and had such good amount of variety for children. It was my son's first time trying tacos and he loved it. Would be back for sure.

Woah! BEST mexican food in WA. Hidden gem. -Elotes appetizer, DIY messy n hot -4 Street Tacos, carne asada and al pastor were bomb.com -Torta Al Carbon (not pictured) amazing cheesy mexican philly Chips n salsa included. Get the Corona-Margarita, you deserve one.

One of the most promising restaurants i have been to in a while; great service, beautiful interior decor and their food is good! After passing through Tacoma and beeing hu gry searching for a new spot we found "La ilucion" their sign by the street is very small and you almost cant see it but being mexican when i saw the words "Al Carbon" i knew we needed to stop. We stopped at approximately 1pm with Mom and my Daugther. We were greeted and shown to our table. They had just received their alcohol permit so they can now sell the good drinks ;-) We chose to start with 2 appetizers the stuffed Jalapeños and the guacamole. We loved the jalapeños but were greatly dissapointed with the guac.. In an attempt to distance themselves from the usual they created an awfully disgusting guac and it does not work. We then order la carbonada which comes with all the meats (see pics) and the flavors were spot on. They were able to redeem themselves from that awful first start. The meats were seasoned really nicely and what we got exceeded the price we paid.. We were satisfied. Why a three star... The restaurant has not been open for very long i believe our waiter stated 3 weeks when we went. The reataurant wasnt busy and between the guac and lack of drinks it needs time to grow.. We will be back to update our review.

Looking in Yelp for something new. Found this jem. Soooooo good. Best michalada ever. Mexican corn, posole, tacos everything was delicious. Different from the typical Mexican food. It is hidden in a strip mall. Don't miss it.

Just a strip mall location in Lakewood but the food was oh so good! Wonderful service and great drinks! 3 of us split the carne asada platter. We also had an elote and esquites corn on the cob and corn in a cup. Delicious. Very affordable and worth the drive. We will be back for sure even though it's about 45 minutes away. A new little favorite for me!

My husband and I stopped by on our way down to Portland and so glad we did. We were meant by a very cheery woman who placed us at our table and we ordered our food and it delivered very quickly. We had seasoned corn, chips and salsa and the nopales steak. All were incredible and the portions were very big. We will be back next time we go through this lovely city.

We went to dinner with friends. I had a strawberry margarita and my husband got a cantarito. Our food was great. I got the chicken quesadilla. I was happily surprised because it was not greasy or oily. It stayed together and was crunchy. Strawberry margarita was good, but I believe it was just a regular margarita with strawberry syrup, wasn't as fresh as I was hoping. Everybody in our party loved their food and we even took home leftovers.

Unfortunately I cannot give them less than one star. Big warning: If you think this is still the same little cozy gourmet Mexican food restaurant that it was before COVID with their higher end yummy dishes, it is definitely not anymore! This place is terrible even by the usual lousy Washington State restaurant standard which is something. The chips and salsa served were literally Doritos and salsa straight out of a jar, I kid you not. The rice and beans tasted like dish soap, inedible. Mediocre corn tortillas and mediocre tasteless Carne Asada, I do not even know what flavor they used in the Al Pastor, I barely tasted it and that was enough. The fact that in their Taco Tuesday we were the only ones in the restaurant and the decor all over the place after their supposed post COVID "renovation" (a fish tank with turtles, chairs straight out of a cheap all you can eat Chinese buffet, etc..) should have been a clue. I wonder how long they will stay open, a Mexican joint like that would not last 3 days in Cali or in Texas. These people have no business in running a restaurant. The name is appropriate, I'll give them that...the "illusion" that you are going to get actual decent food!!

Let me begin this review with a huge Gracias to the wonderful waitress who served us on an extremely hot day. We ordered the Ilucion Carbonara mini (for 2) however unless you are very hungry this can serve at least 3. We added Shrimp 2 skewers came in addition to all the gloriously flavored meats. They have elotes that is so very fresh and delicious. Even though we were absolutely stuffed we still ordered chocolate cake and horchata. If you love the authentic vanilla flavor then you will melt with this chocolate cake. I normally can critique a restaurant on some area and this has nothing I would even come close to a negative critique. The horchata and all drinks are made fresh In house and so smooth and creamy, none of that powdered stuff. They have reserved tables I imagine for premier guests and we for sure will become one of those. Can not wait to come back .

This place is so bad, I no longer use Yelp to refer restaurants. The food was subpar, had a strange flavor and the drink was terrible, I first ordered a margarita, but refused to drink it, because it was so awful. I watch the lady poor a shot of apple crown in my crown and Coke (they didn't have coke) and when I told her she said it's, regular crown! It was not. I got so sick the next day I'm not sure it was here but seems to be what was coming up. Go here at your own risk! The new owners have no business in service or food.

We stopped in, weren't initially sure about authenticity or quality in a strip-mall type building and at a bit of an odd location for an actual restaurant. We circled the parking lot twice, then went in and gave it a shot. We shared their signature dish for two. EVERYTHING was absolutely terrific.

Ive had they're burrito yesterday and i loved it, i also eat the pepper on it and it was the hottest thing i have had in my life . The burrito is called something like burro lacomde

Great place, salsa is awesome. The staff were super nice and helpful. Guacamole rocked too.

Ok waited an hour for some food. 4 people. Order of two items. Got nothing in an hour. Let me go into more detail. 6:50 we sat down, happy hour till 7. We order drinks but icee machine broken. Ok so we ordered beers. Who brings a corona to someone with the cap still on? Ok fine. We are ok with this for now. We order food I order two items a sandwich plus tamales. My friends order a chicken dish appetizer with a torta sandwich etc. 30 minutes later pass two out of 4 have food. And the waiter comes back with we don't have tamales with your request. Ok so order the ones with chicken. 3rd person gets their order.....I have not seen anything of the two items I ordered. So everyone is done at the table eating and the waiter comes back with we are out of everything you ordered. Wtf. Couldn't you have told me 50 minutes ago? So my dinner was a bud light. I will never step into this restaurant again. I can't rate the food because I never got any. Where was my torta sandwich with carne asada? Zero zilch nada. Yay my bud light was good. Cause I'm could twist off the top. I do not review restaurants. But this sucked I had to stop at McDonald's to get something to eat. Cause after an hour I had no food. Everyone had eaten. And the excuse I got was we were busy? Two tables and us in the bar were too much apparently

I'm totally fired from writing a review of this place! I saw this place on facebook one of my friends came here so we decided to check it out (pre Corona) and I will say the food was amazing and so was the service . my boyfriend order the all you can eat tacos and he tried them all he said they were really good . and our waiter brought out some of this house made salsa and chips to try . The I realize my original post that I wrote I didnt finish. opps . I can't wait to come back !! highly recommend the real authentic mexican food .

For the prices I expected an awesome monstrosity out of My Torta. It was cheap bread and frail meat. Presentation is cute but FEED ME. I'm Hispanic so I was very unimpressed, although being served on what looked like a personal cutting board you could've served it to me on a bull skin plate it wouldn't have swayed my opinion any which way that they needed more in the food. My husbands tacos were unimpressive, he's actually Mexican so I felt really bad making him try this place. Never again. Lo siento my love!

Food was really good but the service is what really topped it off for me. My wife and I went yesterday evening for happy hour. They have a great selection of happy hour drinks for $3. I ordered their jalapeño margarita and my wife ordered their sangria, both were delicious but the spicy margarita was the real winner, it was really spicy and just perfect! We also ordered the molletes with al pastor (OMG delicious) chicken street tacos as well as a grilled nopal with pastor and asada. It was quite a bit of food for great price too. Everything tasted fresh and cooked just like we would back home in Mexico (Mexican bbq style). Zero complaints. Our waiter was very friendly, attentive and just all around amazing! Highly recommend this place!

I am so sorry we didn't try this place sooner! I read about it on FB with the Dining in Tacoma group and it is only a few blocks from our house. Four of us went this evening for dinner and the food was excellent. Between us we had the pazole verde, street taceos, a pork dish served in a pineapple (sorry I can't remember the name of it) and the taco Carmelo. Not typical Mexican food for this area. Higher class of food but the prices were reasonable. The sauces that came with our dishes were a little spicy but very tasty. Service was very good and quick. No special lunch menu. If you are at all adventuresome go to Al Carbon. You will not be disappointed. I don't know why some of the other reviews aren't 5 stars. Perhaps they were expecting the usual Mexican fare and chips and salsa. None of that here.

Had high hopes for this place based on the pictures and great reviews. Menu is pretty much the same as another asadero place in Kent that has excellent food. Came in on a Sunday afternoon, the place wasn't too busy. We sat at the bar and were promptly greeted by a shy waitress who took our drink orders and gave us menus. We ordered elote asado, tacos al carbon and street tacos with asada and pastor. The pastor tacos have chunks of pineapple, I don't like it so I had to pick the pineapple out. The carne asada didn't have much flavor and tasted gamey. The red salsa was decent but the green one was bland. Maybe we came in on an off night, we wanted to like it but everything was bland and just ok.

Absolutely disgusting, food was completely microwaved, ants crawling on the floor. I would never come back, I took a bite and threw the food away.

First time here had the corn on the cob!! Amazing had the chicken lettuce tacos came with an avocado and spicy salsa to add!! Wow this is my favorite!! Great service!!

Wonderful service and delicious fresh dishes! Definitely recommend their guacamole and queso fondido