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- Houston, TX
- Chicago, IL
- Los Angeles, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Diego, CA
- New York, NY
- San Francisco, CA
- San Antonio, TX
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Alcohol:
No Alcohol Served |
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Smoking:
Not Permitted |
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Reservations:
Not Accepted |
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Accepts:
Cash
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A taqueria with counter service and several tables. There are also a couple of tables on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. The menu includes burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and Mexican plates, with a choice of fillings.
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Found 1 review.
Showing: 1 to 1
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Oct 4th, 2005 |
Tango Mango bills itself as "A Taqueria Like No Other." One step inside, and anyone who has been to any other area Taqueria - especially Anna's or Boca Grande - will have major questions about this claim. Of course, they may have meant that their cutesy name sets them apart. (Someone might want to tell them that the tango isn't a Mexican or even Tex-Mex dance. It's from South America.)
The menu is familiar, down to the choice of two sizes of burrito (one with cheese and one without), the fillings (e.g. carnitas, chile verde, vegetarian), and even the "extras" that can be added on. Heck, even the squirt bottle of green not-so-hot sauce, and the spatulas for adding guacamole should be well-known to regulars at other burrito spots.
Anna's patrons should also feel right at home with the "assembly line" style of ordering. What they won't feel at home with is the lack of efficiency (it takes about twice as long) and communication (you end up giving your order twice, to two different people just to get your food, and then to another person when you pay).
The space is a bit cramped, especially when ordering. The aisle isn't particularly wide; people waiting for burritos are jammed in with people walking past them to order and seats at a narrow counter area. Otherwise, it is clean and fairly plain - about what one expects at a no-frills burrito joint.
While one can't expect much service at a place like this, one can expect the interactions with the staff to be pleasant - or at least not insulting. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. The person working the register (seemed to be the owner) was overmatched by a relatively small spate of orders. She couldn't keep the orders straight, and to make matters worse, she was rude. She asked me if I had any extras (guacamole, sour cream) on my burrito. I said, "No." She looked at me for a moment, and then turned back to the person who was making the burritos and asked him if I had guacamole or sour cream. He agreed that I didn't, and she was satisfied.
Why ask the customer if you aren't going to believe them? By asking me and then asking someone else, she was basically calling me a liar. That's not a good way to get repeat business. Either trust the customer, and swallow the few losses by those who are cheap and petty enough to cheat, or just get a more efficient process so you don't have to ask. It's not as though the owner is inventing this format from scratch; she could just travel down the road to Brookline to see how four successful burrito spots have mastered the process.
Good food could make up for these deficiencies, though. So how did Tango Mango stack up against the competition? Comparing to the larger and most similar burrito joints in town (Anna's and Boca Grande), Tango Mango loses on price - their prices are higher than either of their competitors. They lose on value - their burritos are the smallest, with significantly less filling than either Anna's or Boca Grande.
Where do they stack up on flavor? Again, at the bottom of the pack. The carnitas was dry (Just how does one manage to do that to carnitas?), mushy, and bland. The salsa was flavorless - why is it so hard for people in Massachusetts to make decent salsa? There wasn't enough hot sauce even to taste. The rice was ok, and the few beans seemed to be cooked decently. The cheese seemed to be the same one used by both Anna's and Boca Grande. The tortilla suffered from over steaming and the lack of filling - there were many layers of gummy tortilla, and not enough other flavors to overcome them. Overall, the burrito was lacking in flavor, texture, and size compared to those found elsewhere.
So, for all the similarities to the other burrito joints, I guess they did make good on their claim of being like no other. They're worse. |
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Found 1 review.
Showing: 1 to 1
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