Taqueria El Buen Gusto - St Paul

Love that quesadilla birria taco! Kind of a little different take on the quesa birria Taco and I like

Ordered the chilaquiles with chorizo. BIG MISTAKE! The chilaquiles was soaked in the chorizo oil. The oil also spilled out into the bag. It was disappointing. *Note to self-order the chorizo on the side. Cubana torta was good...not as good as i've had in LA but still better than most in the area.

Before this place got new owners 4 years ago in 2019 it had a slushy machine and a sauce station and lime station and a lot more beverages but when I visited this place in the beginning of 2023 it didn't have none of that back in 2019 but i ordered the birria tacos and some chips but I believe they were little dry and I ordered some queso was watery down and I was gonna go back in there ask the young girl why it was watery but the door was lock and she was sitting behind the Counter she didn't get up wonder why i try to open the door but the young look stuck up young girlI would not recommend this place to anyone

The food took a long time to arrive, and when it did, I only ate half of it. The chicken was greasy and had an excessive amount of cheese, lacking in flavor. I will not be returning to this mediocre restaurant.

So... let 's start off with my most RECENT visit (7/11/23). Entering the place, the atmosphere was pretty dead. Due to the lack of customers, the cooks weren 't really doing much. The smell of food was also lacking. 3 red flags already.Anyway, I was seriously hungry so I went ahead and ordered two ground beef taco plates with rice and beans. The person at the register was nice, but he seemed a bit uneasy. Another red flag. After paying for the food, I sat down and waited for my order. I noticed the cooks weren 't really cooking anything. Just conversating and reheating the beans ground beef. The only thing they cooked fresh were the tortillas. Don 't want to bore you with anything else so let 's move onto the food.When I arrived home and opened my plates, the only thing I was able to smell were the onions, cilantro, and the rice. The rice and the tortillas were the ONLY redeeming thing in this meal. The pinto beans were quite dark (a sign that the beans were old) with low viscosity. Almost like tomato soup with a slight soft beany grit. On top of that, they had very little smell/taste. The Spanish rice was standard. The ground beef? A mess. Overly seasoned with an excessive amount of smoked paprika added in. Never have I ever eaten a taco with that type of seasoning. My only guess is that the cooks wanted to imitate a smokey grill/char flavor which COULD have been achieved if they made the meat FRESH on a HOT flat table stove and use steam to add that extra UMPH to it. Tacos also fell apart upon grabbing it. Now, onto my final review/words.After eating the food, my stomach flipped out, losing my appetite and almost everything I just ate. It gave me a bloated, sour stomach for 2 whole days. Eating at this restaurant is pretty much a mystery wheel. Some days, you 'll have GOOD food, and most days, you 'll never know what you get. On two different occasions, they borrowed the same rice that was used at the Great Dragon Chinese restaurant which blew me. Sometimes the food is bland, sometimes it 's alright. The pandemic didn 't do it any justice either. The place gets worse and worse. Inconsistency at its finest.I wouldn 't recommend going here unless you want to play Russian roulette with your gut. Go to Los Ocampos. It 's literally a few blocks down. Sure you may spend a bit more money, but at least EVERYTHING will be made fresh. Plus they 're consistent each and every time. This is my first time leaving a ranting review but I 've just about had it with El Buen Gusto. I 'm sorry (sorta).