Tucked away in a tiny shop in Old Juffair, just past Juffair Dome (not to be confused with Dôme Cafe in Juffair) you’ll find a little taco shop.

I first heard about this place on Facebook and I immediately left the house to score some breakfast burritos. I picked up an egg/potato/cheese burrito for myself and a machaca burrito for Jaina. They took ages to make (30-40 min?), but they were worth the wait, and pretty good value.

The second time was around Christmas 2014. My brothers were in town and we decided to order delivery. This turned out to be a huge mistake. The food arrived after an hour and a half. I remembered I ordered chilaquiles, and what I got was essentially nachos. Cold nachos. In fact, out of the 5 dishes we ordered, one was hot and the rest varied from warmish to cold. On top of that, the food just wasn’t very good. Nevertheless, we chalked this up to ‘just don’t order delivery’ and ventured out recently for the third visit. Would this be the meal that turned things around? Or would it be our last?

If you’ve seen our Instagram post on this meal, you probably already know the answer to that question. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. The menu is reminiscent of the little taco shops littered around the Southwest in the US. We started out with chips and salsa (I don’t remember how much these cost, but I do remember we had to pay for it) and guacamole (500 fils). Jaina ordered a carne asada taco and I ordered cheese enchiladas and an horchata – a drink made from rice milk, cinnamon, and other flavours.

The horchata came first. It was tasty and refreshing, but could definitely be run through cheesecloth or at least a sieve, as it was VERY grainy – to the point of being unpleasant. Our chips and salsa came out next. The salsa was great, and the chips were fried in-house, which is fantastic… in theory. Unfortunately, they were greasy and not very crisp, like they had been fried in oil that wasn’t hot enough. The tablespoon or so of guacamole we received was ok.

Main course. I’m not going to talk much about Jaina’s taco. She said it was ok, nothing special, so we’ll leave it at that. Mine, however, was spectacular. Spectacularly bad. I cannot remember the last time I ate, or at least attempted to eat, something so absolutely vile. Let’s talk basics: cheese enchiladas. Tortillas, dipped in sauce, stuffed with cheese, and baked until melty. How do you ruin that so comprehensively? I’ll tell you how. Use a tortilla that has absolutely no flavour, dip it in a sauce that may or may not have flavour, but make sure to have so little on there it’s impossible to discern aside from the faint reddish-orange colour. Then fill with cheddar cheese, roll it, top it with more cheddar cheese, then bake – and this is important – just enough to dry out what very little sauce was on the tortilla and to split the grease from the cheddar, but not enough to actually melt all of the cheddar, leaving a greasy, half-melted cheese brick inside of a soggy (because of the grease from the cheese) tortilla. Serve with rice and beans (which were pretty good, actually). I still don’t know why I attempted to eat it. Maybe out of politeness? Eventually I gave up, ate the rice and beans, paid, and left.

Sombrero Taco Shop’s Vital Statistics

Phone: +973 3303 4800

+973 3303 4800 Credit cards accepted: Yes

Yes Hours: Monday – Thursday & Saturday – Sunday: 09:00-21:00, Friday: 16:00-21:00

Monday – Thursday & Saturday – Sunday: 09:00-21:00, Friday: 16:00-21:00 Website

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