32. Tacos Por Favor

Tacos Por Favor, to me, is like the Tijuana of Mexican food places: big, dirty, and full of white people. I'm not sure when and how it happened, but Tacos Por Favor has become the entertainment industry's hub for Mexican lunch.  I think there must be a lot of production and post-production studios in the area, because when you walk into Tacos Por Favor you'll feel like you stepped off a plane that accidentally landed in Sweden.

You can immediately tell that the customers here work in TV because they all have the exact same attire. For guys, it's the short cropped hair, ironic/"vintage" T shirt, jeans, and bright colored running shoes as of yet to be used for running. The girls, if not dressed exactly like the guys, are close to it with the exception of possibly thick glasses and horribly unkempt hair. Everyone in line is discussing "Oh...so what's good here?" Like they've never ate a burrito in their fucking life, and once they're finally seated, everyone yammers on about things like "dailies" and TiVo'ing "The Wire."

A tried-and-true method of determining the quality of food at a restaurant is to take the genre of the food (we'll say Chinese for example) scour the place and tally how many people of said ethnicity (Chinese) are in the restaurant eating. If there is a sizable amount, anywhere above 30%, then odds our you've found an authentic place to eat and refer friends to.

Tacos, anyone?

Well... Tacos Por Favor has literally 0% Mexican people. In fact, it has literally 0% ANYTHING besides white people. This indicates two things to me: 1) It's expensive, and 2) It's trendy. Both are true. Tacos Por Favor is in no way a bank-breaker, as an average lunch will cost under $10. The problem is that it's damn near impossible to spend under $7. The higher-up's at Tacos Por Favor know that white people have an unflappable aversion to a la carte items. A normal Mexican dude has no problem buying two tacos and calling it lunch. He's full  and will usually be set back around $2. Good deal. But if you try and buy any a la carte item at Tacos Por Favor, it will be at least $3 per item. Meaning, a two taco lunch at Tacos Por Favor will run you at least $7 after tax. The mexican's say No!

The white people say Si! They don't know any better. And the owners of Tacos Por Favor know that if there's a whitey nomming away at his lunch, he's undoubtedly spent at least $7. The food isn't bad but certainly nothing to write home about. The burritos are small and mediocre. The tacos are pretty decent, but like I said, cost $3 each. Also, since there's literally 50,000 white people both in line and eating, you need to wait for a long time to get your food.

I won't hate on the quality of food, it certainly isn't terrible, but it isn't great. Also, when eating ethnic food, I feel the ambiance has a lot to do with the overall experience. And when you eat at Tacos Por Favor, you feel like you're in a shitty bar in Tijuana filled with white people from San Diego who are trying to find out where to score some Xanax.

"Yo brah, we're totes here for some, like, menudo."

Name: Tacos Por Favor
Genre: Mexican
Value: Reasonable for Whiteys
What You'll Need to Enjoy Your Meal: A sweet pair of Asics and a thorough knowledge of "How I Met Your Mother".
Rating: 3 / 5