Lunch Out @ La Mexicana

A quick review to go with a quick lunch.  La Mexicana has some of the best true Mexican tacos around, and thankfully, the service was great too!  Oh, and if you are looking for a market with authentic ingredients, they've got a small grocery in the back.

The Food: Quality chips and a tasty salsa greet you quickly when you come for lunch at La Mexicana.  The green salsa has chiles and avocado - not very spicy at all.  You can see the menu below in the slideshow.  I've had a few things, but the only items I've found worth writing home about are the tacos.

I got 3 tacos - al pastor, carne asada, and barbacoa.  All the tacos come in 2 tortillas with cilantro, onion, and lime on the side - as you can see in the photo on the left.  The carne asada - which I knew to be good - is lively with plenty of salt and seasoning.  The barbacoa was a bit dry for my taste, and the flavor didn't jump out at me, but wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination.  And the al pastor - which Ryan had 3 of - was somewhere in the middle in terms of my preference.  The al pastor is pork shoulder cooked with guajillo sauce - the waitress called it chorizo when she brought it - and had a smoky flavor something akin to chipotle.  They bring you a green and a red salsa/hot sauce to put on top of the tacos.  Every time I go the sauces have different levels of spiciness, which tells me they're using fresh ingredients to make them, which is a plus.

All 3 tacos could use a bit more meat to really stand out and pack a punch, but all 3 were still as good as any tacos I've had in town.

The Ingredients: Nothing to note here unfortunately.  They have a lot of different kinds of meats - from brains to tongue - if you're into that sort of thing.

The Story, Setting, & Service: La Mexicana was a go to spot for me as a pickup lunch option a year or two ago.  But, salty service led me to let them go.  Amateur Foodies co-founder Ryan and I were planning to hit Riverside Korean (I've still never been) for lunch, but when we arrived to realize they aren't open Mondays, La Mexicana was the quick, close option.  It was also a good time to note that I need to have some more Northern Kentucky options in my list of possibilities.  The place was full when we arrived a little after 12:30, but was empty by the time we left.