Pancho Villa Taqueria, San Mateo

Reviewer: Foodnut.com Pancho Villa Taqueria 365 B Street (Near 4th ave) San Mateo, CA 94401 650-343-4123 Pancho Villa Taqueria Website

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Pancho Villa Taqueria is a long time Mexican restaurant with locations in San Francisco and San Mateo. We have eaten here many times and found the food good and consistent. They have a pretty extensive menu and an assembly line where you can see all the ingredients. We have eaten at the downtown San Mateo location many times.

Pancho Villa has a new promo with one dollar tacos and one dollar Agua Fresca,  Monday to Friday 3-5pm and 8-10pm.

Decor, Vibe – Pancho Villa’s decor has slowly improved with more pictures on the wall and nicer menu. Tables and chairs are pretty basic. Families, locals, and even Hispanics were dining.

Menu Pictures

Classic Mexican restaurant menu with a ton of options, burritos, tacos, dinner plates, etc.

Website Pancho Villa Tacqueria Menu

Full Pancho Villa Image Set

Pancho Villa Picks:
Their salsa is some of the best around. It has won awards at several California State fairs. Get a water cup and load up.

Carne Asada Dinner ($9.95) was a big plate full of beef, black beans, rice, and a small salad. The meat was in good quantity and flavor but thin and greasy. The other items were average.

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Chicken Quesadilla ($7.50) was huge and on a good tortilla with lots of cheese. It could have had more chicken. The carnitas version was solid, but extremely greasy.

Carne Asada Regular Burrito ($7) was long and decent.  Pretty heavy but not a lot of meat.

Tofu Burrito ($5.95) on whole wheat tortilla was huge and full of soft tofu and black beans. Great for vegetarians.

OK:

Chicken Burrito ($5.50 for baby size) was still pretty big but had a ton of rice and beans, yet not much meat.

Al Pastor Burrito ($5.50 for baby size) also had little meat.  The meat was fair, not a lot of flavor like the taco trucks.

Horchata ($3.50 extra large) had good flavor but was too sweet. Dilute it down with some water. It lacked strong cinnamon flavor.

Pineapple Agua Fresca ($3.50 extra large) was average with a good amount of fruit but it too was pretty sweet.

Pans:

Prawn Taco ($4) was smothered in mayo.

Al Pastor Burrito ($5.95) had meat that did not have much flavor or tenderness.  They overloaded this burrito with black beans too.

Pancho Villa Taqueria will bring your order to your table when it is ready. Food comes pretty fast unless you come during peak times. They botched the beans we wanted in our dinner plate even though they have a computerized order system. Pancho Villa started using compostable cups.  The food was solid and tasty, slightly lower rated than the La Cumbre nearby.

In San Francisco, El Farolito is pretty solid. Quantities are on the large side, we were Extremely full afterwards. Pancho Villa has a delivery service. We have no qualms about recommending this place although the mobile roach coaches like El Tonayanse (San Francisco) or Taco Peralta (San Mateo) have better food.  Try Palo Alto’s Oaxacan Kitchen for gourmet Mexican food.

Also at:

Pancho Villa Taqueria
3071 16th Street (Between Mission and Valencia)
San Francisco, CA
415-864-8840
415-864-3484 Fax

El Toro Taqueria
598 Valencia
San Francisco, CA
415-431-3351
415-431-2535 Fax

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