Cali-Mex

I ve spent three years living in California and visited the Bay Area frequently thereafter and ate many many different sorts of tacos — from construction site food trucks to fine dine restaurants. To me, this is terrible taco… Nothing like what you will find California. I am actually quite pissed they are shamelessly calling themselves Californian style mexican food! It s like blasphemy!!!
Even Taco Bell tastes better. I ordered a steak taco… Too little meat and salsa. Meat not marinated long enough. Or maybe their seasoning s just not right. The tortilla is kind of luke warm /​borderline cold. Salsa s bland with no character.
Just read an article about their aggressive roll out plans and their management complaining about macau stealing away top talents from Hong Kong. I find it puzzling because you don’t really need top chefs to make good tacos!!! It’s an everyday food and you just need to get the recipe right and use fresh ingredients!!!
Anyways, what can I say — good luck to all Cali Mex investors!
(Ps. I think the best taqueria (in a relative sense) in Hong Kong is Tacochaca in Kennedy town)

As a self-​proclaimed taco connoisseur (I lived in LA for 7 years, enough said), Cali-​mex is 2.5 stars at best. However, when I review, I take into consideration of local competitions, I am also comparing it against with Chipotle, America’s top cali mex restaurant. And I give Cali-​mex a 3.5
It must be noted that everyone’s taco preference are different. I personally like my flour tacos soft (hard tacos are NOT authentic, but whatever floats your boat), al pastor or carne asada, from a grimey mexican food truck with a lot of cilantro, salsa and lime.
I ordered 3 BEEF TACOS for $ 78, you can pay more for higher quality meat and I believe it was $ 98 for ANGUS STEAK CUBES. The food came somewhat quickly but there was no line.
The tacos are HUGE. prepared to be STUFFED from 3 tacos. personally I think 2 is the perfect number for ones this size (authentic al pastor I usually get 4) So you may want to share instead of devouring it all for lunch. I also did not like how you had to order all 3 of the same meat. How difficult is it to scoop another meat? It’s a bloody assembly line!
I can tell the flour was not commercial ready made, it was fresh, however, it can do wonders heating up the tortilla first. I don’t understand WHY this simple step is missed. It literally takes 5 seconds but makes it taste infinitely better.
There were also no onion/​coriander and cilantro (or very minimal) but they give a scooping of vegetables and some shredded cheese. They also ran out of medium salsa which was my first choice. I asked for light sour cream as I don’t normally get my tacos with it, but I suppose that’s how Tex-​Mex does it (as does Chipotle)
Note that it is $ 18 for guac, I don’t normally get guac with my tacos so I skipped on that. Chipotle in LA charged $ 2.85usd for guac so I suppose this isn’t ridiculous.
***
Tips: HUGE tacos, share if you can.
Favourites: The salsa, the hottest one was quite similar to el taurino/​king taco in LA, which is hard to come by!
Meh: Forced to get 3 of the same tacos. Could not adjust portions. It ain’t cheap.
Last words: I’ve had brick house (superior but also very different) mr taco truck, (inferior). This is in all honesty a solid mexican joint in Hong Kong. BUT if you ever have a chance to head to seoul, Gusto tacos there is a definite 5. I heard they may explore HK, so watch out taco joints. Takeaway ONLY