Rancho Grande Cantina (Parkville, KC)

At the end of March, I had the opportunity to have a meal at Racho Grande Cantina in the Parkville area. I had been once before for a work-related gathering, but it had been a while and I wanted to try the tacos. I went in with high hopes because I remembered having a fairly positive experience the first time I'd gone, and let's be honest, I had been having DREAMS about their deep-fried avocado since that fateful night. Thankfully, the avocado was just as amazing as I remembered it because, well, the rest of the experience stunk...

  

To give you some background, Rancho Grande has been around for a while. They have 3 locations [Blue Springs, Liberty, and Parkville]. They run daily specials and even have a special Friday menu for Lent, which I thought was pretty cool for those who observe "no meat" Friday's. I went to visit the restaurant on a Sunday, right after having seen the new Beauty and The Beast, and was looking forward to having my socks knocked off --

 

As I mentioned, I ordered the deep fried avocado [$6.39]. I also ordered the #11 dinner special, the Mariachi. This included two soft or puffy tacos with your choice of ground beef, chicken,  pork, chorizo, or shredded beef. Served with beans and rice [$9.99]. You could also "up order" for Carne Asada or Shrimp for $1.50 per taco.

• The deep fried avocado was AMAZING if you're into that sort of thing
• Beans were almost sweet, but weirdly also lacked flavor
• Rice was clumpy, but the flavor was there
• They got my order wrong-- I ordered a deep fried chorizo taco and a deep fried shredded beef taco. I got chorizo and shrimp
• Chorizo had an interesting slow heat, not the most flavorful during the bite, but had an after spice
• Shrimp was great-- good taste and cooked well
• When they brought my shredded beef taco, it was cooked with onion but had hardly any seasoning and was very greasy
• The waitress then tried to charge me for the shrimp taco that she mistakenly brought me, AND tried to up-charge me for the chorizo even though the menu said nothing about an up-charge for it. It was corrected

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with my visit. I'm not sure if it was because my expectations were set higher or what, but I was disappointed in the experience.

Rating (out of 5):

SIDE BAR INFO:

• I have now officially decided that deep-fried tacos are not my jam. In theory, they're a great idea and I always WANT them, but I've had them at three different restaurants now and they always end up making my tummy hurt [probably from the grease]. Sad day in the taco world.