Taco Con Chile

The food here is blah. I had beef tacos with rice and beans. Everything was lacking flavor. Really is it that hard to make proper rice, beans, and tacos? This city is really lacking quality authentic mexician food.

Not sure what happened, but this used to be a decent place for a quick taco fix. I used to get a couple of mini tacos with chicken, topped with cilantro and onions and there used to be a few fresh salsa choices.
I went there a couple of weeks ago and the chicken wasn’t plain shredded chicken (perfectly cooked with onions), but it was overcooked and in a «tinga» sauce that definitely clashed with the different salsas (verde y chipotle) that were slopped on top. They were far too spicy for comfort (and I like spice), and disappointingly broke apart and ran all over the place when I tried to pick them up.
On the plus side, the place is still spanking clean, and staff has changed but just as friendly as the previous staff. Hey, somebody tell me when they’ve gone back to the original recipe, por favor?

This is by far my favorite cheap/​quick Mexican place in Vancouver.
I like the burritos and love the enchiladas. They are prepared in lots of great tomatillo salsa and, as you would expect, can be customized, but they’re quite good and well balanced to begin with. The meats are all good (haven’t tried lengua, but the other reviewer liked it…) and have really distinct flavors from eachother, making three enchiladas with three meats a great choice.
They are topped with lots of sauce, lettuce, purple pickled onions (which I love), crema, cheese, and if you order it hot, habañero salsa*. He also has good corn and onion/​cilantro mixes, and great pickled jalapeños. The rice and beans are good, but are just rice and beans. Mine have never had frozen veggies, and if the beans are from a can, I’d love to know the brand so I can cook with them!
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I’m from Colorado and both a spicy and mexican food nut. Growing up I got lots of great Mexican food prepared by people from Mexico and I can tell you that this place is authentic! I prefer a slightly different regional food (he’s from Monterrey, I believe), but this is quite good and prepared with loads of care… Having bemoaned the lack of good Mexican food in Vancouver for too long, I went on a quest to try all the little places I knew of and this is the one I keep coming back to.
*A note on the habañero salsa: it’s amazing-​I wish I could make a salsa this good. The thing with habañeros is while they’re obviously quite spicy, they’re PACKED with amazing flavor. The challenge is harnessing this spice so it’s tolerable and pairing it with things that hilight the flavors, rather than the heat. This salsa does so fantastically and, in my book, is the mark of a good Mexican chef.

* The quest continues *
On my continuing quest for excellent Mexican food in Vancouver (I don’t give up easily!) I tried Taco Con Chile today. Very friendly Spanish speaking staff behind the counter, but my guess is that he is not from Mexico — call it a hunch.
Got the lunch special which includes 2 tacos, rice, and beans for $ 7.
The stewed pork taco was decent, and I really enjoyed the lengua (beef tongue) one. Both tacos were really over-​filled with a generous amount of meat and toppings. The toppings included two types of salsa (a red and a green) that had a nice combined kick to them, some pickled onions (crunchy), cilantro, and some pico de gallo. The lengua was nicely prepared in tender little cubes. The tortillas themselves were the store bought kind, and were quickly heated up which softened them a bit. But I really am still craving a place where you see them using the tortilla press and making them fresh as you order (a guy can dream!) like you find in many good Mexican places in other locales.
The rice was studded with frozen veggies (meh!) and the beans tasted very much like they came straight from a can (meh!).
So bonus points for the lengua, pickled onions (nice touch!) and the salsas on the tacos, and minus points for the rice, tortillas, and beans leading to a grand total of «ok.»