Jaclyn’s Pick:

Los Tapatios
3905 Twin Creek Dr, Bellevue
Fare: Mexican
Cost: $100 for three drinks, one appetizer, two a la carte, three entrees and three desserts.
Reservations: Recommended

Happy Halloween, eaters and readers!

As I was browsing for eateries in Bellevue, since I’d be meeting Martha and Becca in that part of town, I remembered a coworker told me about a new Mexican joint she frequents.

Open since late summer, Los Tapatios took over the former Ixtapa restaurant in Twin Creek Plaza. We walked in to a packed restaurant at 7 p.m. and were told it’d be a ten-minute wait. So I hopped up on their oversized chair and we chatted till they called us, as promised, ten minutes later.

Like any good Mexican place, Los Tapatios offers daily margarita specials. So we obliged with their Friday jumbo lime. What can we say? For the price and how strong they were, they went down easy.

We ordered a bowl of cheese dip to compliment our chips and salsa, which we all happily munched on. It was a thinner dip, not the kind that congeals after five minutes — we liked that. Eventually, each of us discovered that mixing it in with the salsa made it even better.

Becca loves a good tamale, so she ordered one for each of us to try along with her. Smothered in red sauce and cheese, these were decent. No working around a husk, although sometimes that’s half the fun of eating them. Martha and I agreed the masa texture isn’t our favorite, but the flavors were good. And compared to other tamales she’s had, Becca thought Tapatios’ version was pretty good.

Becca couldn’t pass up the chance to add a carne asada taco from the a la carte menu and while it was good, in hindsight, she said it wasn’t amazing enough to order again. She’d rather save her dollars for a more authentic street taco.

Almost always, Becca enjoys herself a delicious chimichanga when she has the chance — so our evening out was no different. Opting for chicken, she really enjoyed her entire plate.

Wanting to order something she was familiar with so she could compare, Martha ordered enchilada suizas con pollo. She’s had different versions — some with more cheese sauce than a green verde sauce — but this plate was as yummy as anything she’s had. There was enough queso left to drizzle on top if she wanted. She felt a little underwhelmed by the rice; it could have had more flavor. But overall, with hot food and good flavors, she could see herself coming back to try other dishes. And explore more margarita flavors.

Last to the table, my fish tacos arrived crispy and warm. Topped with cheese and pico de gallo, it was only missing one thing: sauce. The menu indicated “special sauce” as part of the dish, but no such sauce was found. I was a tad disappointed, but since service was few and far between, it wasn’t worth asking about.

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The dessert options were aplenty, so we each got the one that spoke to us. For me, it was the tres leches cake. But what I got … was definitely not that. Tres leches is a incredibly moist cake, but this was dry cake with ice cream in between. Even so, it wasn’t good.

Martha took the opportunity to order chimichanga cheesecake and throughly enjoyed it – until she hit the still very frozen center of the whole thing. Warm and crispy and the outside and drizzled with delicious honey and chocolate – it was good, but she’d rather take a plain ‘ol slice of regular cheesecake.

Becca’s flan was okay, and it was actually flan (compared to my imposter tres leches), but she said she’d rather have another margarita for dessert.

Final Bites

Well, Los Tapatios, we tried a little bit of everything and for every right and flavorful step – there was a bit of a stumble somewhere else. We’re all open to a return visit – but we’ll probably try new things because nothing from our first visit changed the landscape of our tastebuds.

For me, nothing I ate was out of this world. Is there something else on the menu I’d like better? Probably. But I won’t likely be chomping at the bit to get back for round two.

Becca gives it a fork up – but wants to make it clear the slow service almost turned hers sideways.

For Martha and I, it’s a tepid fork sideways. If someone wanted to check it out, we’d join them. But we have other favorite Mexican haunts we’d rather recommend.

Cheers!
Martha, Jaclyn and Becca

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