Critic's Review
Tortilleria Mexicana is the kind of place where us English-speaking folk can really feel out of place. This place is a combination grocery store, lunch counter and cafeteria. There's no English spoken here. Virtually all of the patrons are Mexican. They have a counter with a few stools and some folding tables and chairs on one side of the room.
The menus are in Spanish. They sort of snicker at Gringos like me. My first time here, I just ordered a couple of tacos; at the time I was in search of some authentic tacos and this place was on the list.
No, that's not a monster lime; they're just really small tacos. The chorizo taco was good; its difficult to find authentic mexican chorizo and this is it. The chicken was pretty boring however. No seasoning to the chicken and without sauce it was just like Zona Fresca; plain chicken and onions on a shell. They gave me some very hot tomalito sauce that I didn't care for. I ended up using some salsa I had to give it some flavor.
Recently a couple of friends were ranting about this place, and they convinced me to go back and try the tongue. It has to be a pretty serious recommendation to get me to order tongue. I ordered a tongue taco and a Cubano Torte. Mexican versions of the Cubano are pretty unpredictable.
The cubano was surprising; a BIG sandwich with grilled pork, sliced hot dogs and what looked like chicken; the white stuff turned out to be cheese (the kind that doesn't melt easily. Let me tell you, this was a very tasty sandwich. I'm not sure how I feel about the hot dogs, but the grilled pork and cheese was good together; the bread was sort of grilled and very good as well.
As for the tongue taco, it was pretty good. The meat was cut up into small pieces and there was a lot of cilantro.
It was a good mini-taco, but it wasn't as spectacular as I'd been told. I guess my expectations were just too high.