Nico's Taco Bar on Como

Highpoints: Attractive tacos; good tomatillo salsa and chips

Lowpoints: Accuracy of order, execution in kitchen, service

We've driven by Nico's Taco Bar in the old Muffeletta on Como several times.  Today's the day!

Lots of places have Taco Tuesday (mostly fast food), so we were pleasantly surprised that a higher end taco place offered Taco Tuesday, too.

The Taco Tuesday deal is buy 2, get 1 free.  The tacos range in price from $3.50 to around $6...which is a bit spendy for a traditional taco with onion, cilantro & lime plus choice of salsa and protein.

Nico's offers 7 kinds of salsa--and you can get a specific kind of salsa with each taco that you order.  The range is from mild at the bottom of the 'salsa column' to hot at the top.

The Taco's at Nico's

We ordered 6 tacos so that we could try a wide

variety of tacos and salsas.   These included carnitas, pastor, chorizo, pork verde, barbacoa and veggie.   We ordered 6 different salsas, too.   You could add a variety of cheeses to your tacos, crema, jalapenos, guacamole or nopales for an additional charge of 65 cents, according to the menu.  

Here's where things started to break down.   I told the server that I would like to add nopal to one of the tacos and asked for his suggestion as to which of my 3 tacos would be the best choice.  He immediately said "You can't do that."   After pointing it out on the menu, he responded "Oh, I didn't even know that," recovered, and suggested adding it to the veggie taco.  So far, so good.

Then, since there was one more salsa option on the menu, we ordered chips and salsa...with the tomatillo salsa.

The chips arrived quickly with the salsa in an attractive square bowl.  The chips were warm and tasty...light and crunchy...perhaps a bit over-salted.   The tomatillo salsa had great texture/consistency with the citrus note derived from the tomatillos---not hot, not too tart...a nice complement to the chips.

Shortly, our order arrived.  Both plates looked great.   The server pointed out which salsa was which and identified the tacos.   It became clear shortly that there was either a mixup, or they were out of the pork verde that I really wanted to try or pastor (we're not sure--so that's a problem).   Since the server wasn't anywhere close by, we decided to just go with what was delivered.

The nopales was piled high on my veggie taco...almost too much.  So, I moved half of it onto the plate to see which other taco it might pair with, creating another flavor harmony.  

Unfortunately, that left me with a veggie taco that, while not as bad as a roasted veggie sandwich ordered at the Exchange (which they removed from their menu shortly after our visit), but this was nearly as bad.    

The veggies were so far gone that there was no texture or taste left.   Really, the nopales ended up being what was in the taco...a big pile of cactus covering up a tiny pile or mushy veggies.   I was hoping to have a blend of the veggie textures and flavors contrasted with the slightly salty cactus.   The veggie taco was a disappointment.

John and I both ended up with the same taco...but frankly, we don't know what it was.   The pork verde was supposed to be cooked in green sauce with potato...what we received was meat (maybe pork) that was distinctly orange, but contained the potatoes that were supposed to be in the pork verde.   We thought it was the pastor, but that should have contained pineapple and had an ancho flavor...but it didn't.   Whatever it was, it was unpleasant in texture.   When you roast meat, it's typical to let it rest so that the juices redistribute and it becomes tender and juicy.   This meat was stiff as a board - all I can think of is meat where rigor had set in.....just stiff, I mean really stiff,  and quite dry.    The potatoes mixed with the meat were actually quite tasty and well cooked--far superior to the meat.

Similarly, John has a chorizo taco...which was supposed to be composed of spicy sausage and potato.   It seemed like more potato than sausage, but did have a pleasing chorizo flavor, but not enough flavor.   The potatoes were nicely cooked but there just needed to be a higher ratio of sausage to potato.

I think the best flavor among the 5 (not 6) tacos that we received was the barbacoa.   The meat itself was quite stringy and dry, but the guajillo, cinnamon and spice flavor came through as quite savory...almost fruity...and very pleasing.   If the meat had been less stringy, this would have been a good taco.   Strangely, while the beef was dry, the taco exploded when I tried to take a bite...dousing me, the table, and the napkin with an extraordinary amount of 'juice'.   

This seems to support the idea that the meat was cooked in such a way that the juices all left the meat and, in this case, must have ended up as a puddle in the bottom of my taco.  In terms of flavor,  I tried a bite with the cactus on this taco and that turned out to be quite pleasing.  The slightly salty cactus with the savory spicing on the beef were a great pair.  If I was ordering again, I'd order this combo on my taco...hoping that perhaps the beef would be more texturally pleasing.

The Salsas at Nico's Taco Bar

Now let's address the salsas.   The tastiest and most creative salsas we've had have been at Catrina's Oakdale location.   We regret that as that chain expanded, the quality has been up and down and all over the board.   They clearly have a creative spark.   

At Nico's, other than the tomatillo salsa served with our chips, we disliked or were uninspired by all of the other salsas.   I tasted one and asked John what he thought (I was thinking...hmm...flavor of tomato soup).  John said..."Oh, it tastes like tomato soup."  So, we were consistent in our opinions.

We recently dined several times at Pancheros, and I've found the salsa verde on the line there quite tasty...a little hot with great flavor.   Nico's  verde serrano didn't have the serrano flavor I expected and really was not as good as the stuff at the Pancheros fast food chain.   The other salsas were unremarkable...and we did not get one of the salsas we ordered---if you asked us what we had and what was missing, it would have been hard to identify which one was missing.  Other than the tomatillo, none of these stood out as something we definitely would order in the future.

Service At Nico's Taco Bar

Our server returned later and inquired about our lunch.  I pointed out that the veggie taco had veggies that were way beyond overcooked.   He said, "OK, I'll tell the kitchen."   So much for that.....

When we received our check, we found that the 65 cent 'option' was $1.25.  Not a big deal...but just another 'miss' in their ability to convey what they're trying to deliver to their customers.

Overall impression from Nico's Taco Bar Visit #1: 

• The menu is somewhat confusing  (apparently even the server was unclear on the options)
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• While there was a good quantity of protein on several of the tacos, that meat wasn't particularly appealing--and at a minimum price of $3.50 per taco, we expected a higher quality experience
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• The veggie taco should not have been served; the veggies were way beyond consumable.  If you offer a veggie taco, it should be able to compete on appeal with the meat/fish tacos beside it on the menu
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• Other than the tomatillo salsa, the other 6 salsas were unremarkable.  Perhaps a smaller selection of really good salsa would be a better offering
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• Getting the order right is a priority; here they missed on the tacos (we received 5 kinds when we ordered 6) and we also had duplicate salsas, even though we ordered each unique kind
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• The price on the menu should be the price you're charged

If we were going to try Nico's again, we might venture to their Mpls location to compare service and food flavor and texture.

Details

Address:    2260 Como Avenue, St. Paul

Phone:       651.450.8848

Website:    https://www.nicostacobar.com/ 

Facebook:  www.facebook.com

Google:     Map for Nico's