Tacolicious

Tacolicious is a local Mexican chain that I have watched evolve in San Francisco over the past few years.  It started as a stand in 2009 at the weekly Ferry Building Farmer's market, always with such looong lines, and it wasn't long until they opened a brick and mortar.  Flash forward a few years, and now they are a mini chain, with locations throughout the Bay Area, and nationwide distribution of their salsas.

Known primarily for, well, the tacos, which I haven't actually had, but the menu extends into snacks, sides, salads, and of course, my draw: desserts.

Everything I've had has been good, although I haven't sampled much of the menu.

Snacks

The Snacks lineup at Tacolicious includes crowd pleasers like made-to-order guacamole, ceviche, and tostadas, but I zeroed in on one thing: plantains!

Fried Plantains. $11.

"Fried plantains, refried beans, cumin crema."

I adore fried plaintains, but generally go for them in a sweeter form, so I was curious to try them in a more savory fashion.

I liked this.  The plantains were still sweet, fried, slightly caramelized from their own juices.  I loved the balance of the savory spiced cooling crema, and I even liked the smooth creamy refried beans.  Not quite the same as the dessert item I normally have, but quite tasty and interesting.

That said, I got kinda sick of bananas flavor after a couple.  Sometimes I'm fickle.

Sides

In addition to your standard beans (several varieties) and rice, Tacolicious also has several seasonal vegetable side dishes, and everything comes with chips and salsa.

Cauliflower “al pastor”. $7.

This was ... ok.  It is roasted cauliflower, with Mexican flavors, which isn't really the sort of thing I like.  But quite smoky, and flavorful.  I found the lemon garnish a bit odd.

Assorted Salsas: Tomatillo Avocado / Chipotle / Medium / Habanero.

The salsas were all fine, varying degrees of heat.

The green one is the most mild, a tomatillo-avocado salsa.  Next to that, the dark one, a smoky chipotle, quite flavorful.

The yellow looked possibly fruity, but as the most hot: habanero!

It turns out you can buy the salsas at Williams-Sonoma too, if you are really into Tacolicious salsas.

Salsa.

The standard salsa I found quite boring however, very very very mild and tasted like tomato and little else.

Dessert

The tacolicious dessert lineup is small but well curated: churros, coconut flan, and, of course, a fancy chocotaco (made with Three Twins ice cream!)

Traditional Churros con Chocolate. $9.

The churros were great.  Slightly thicker, and definitely doughier than street churros, which made them closer to donuts or fried dough from the state fair, absolutely coated in cinnamon sugar.  Really, excellent churros.

The chocolate dip was a nice touch, not a thick chocolate, but rather a thinner style.  It was nice to have, but not even necessary as those churros were so good on their own.