A restaurant’s name should fit the restaurant and in the case of Orlando’s, Gringos Locos it couldn’t have been more appropriate. Because it is “16 de septiembre”, Mexico’s Independence Day of celebration, I figured I’d continue my search for the best Mexican food restaurant in Orlando. I should have left well enough alone.
I like to eat and because of that I actually like most foods, with the exception of three items that will remain nameless. Because of that, I seldom leave food on my plate. Today was not an exception.
I know, you expected me to write I got up from the table and left my food uneaten. But I was full of hope. Too bad hope isn’t always delivered.
The good thing about Gringos Locos is that they have “Jarritos”, a Mexican soft drink. But that was it.
Gringos Locos must have been opened by a frat boy still getting over his drunken stupor from Puerto Vallarta because that’s what this restaurant is about. The motif screams the worst of Spring Break in Mexico. The food follows closely behind; well it actually leads the way, as unbelievable as it sounds!
In my case, I ordered the “street tacos” made of pork. They looked edible enough until I looked at the tortillas. What the…..!
The “greenie weenies” have infiltrated the good ‘ole taco! Wheat “corn” tortillas! Horror!
There is just something completely wrong with a brown tortilla! It is blasphemous and it should be banned.
To the person, and I use person lightly, who thought making a “corn” tortilla out of wheat was a good idea, you should consider making vegetarian hotdogs for your next project! Oh wait, you’ve done that already!
Worse yet, is the server who actually told me they use corn tortillas! Anyhow, the person who uses wheat for tortillas needs to be strung up at the nearest plaza and have the local kids practice their piñata swings on them! Without blindfolds.
Oh, and the horror did not stop there! Gringos Locos’ idea of Mexican salsa was; wait for it, just wait for it…
Sriracha sauce! Yes, Thai hot sauce in a Mexican restaurant! Who the … does that?
Oh, yea the drunken frat boy looking to reminisce about the good ‘ol days in Puerto Vallarta, who opened this restaurant up, that’s who.
Once I got over the horrors of the look, the fact is that the tacos were edible enough to eat. I had to get past the disgust of the wheat tortillas. And if that wasn’t enough torture, the server actually doubled them up like they do with Tacos al Pastor, but there is a huge difference between a dainty, thin, perfectly prepared corn tortilla lathered up with pork and salsa and a thick, unwieldy wheat tortilla with no salsa!
About the only thing authentic about the experience was the Jarritos soda, it was stamped “hecho en Mexico”, I checked, and the cilantro y cebolla. Ok, maybe the name is appropriate as well. Other than that, the experience has been burned into my brain and chalked up as something to never be spoken of again! Bring it up and I might just go “loco” on you.
Dear taco connoisseur,
With a careful dissection of your current review of Gringos Locos, we came across a few flaws that we would like to clarify for you. Firstly, those 100% natural “brown wheat” tortillas are in fact CORN not wheat. In many “authentic” taquerias white corn tortillas are doubled up to assure the support of slowly cooked succulent meat as seen in the first picture above. These tacos are usually accompanied by onion, cilantro and a wedge of lime to squeeze on top, rarely do these tacos come with only one corn tortilla or with salsa on top. We decided to use 100% natural CORN tortillas because they have a richer, more natural CORN flavor than the traditional white corn that seems to lack flavor. We apologize you had mistaken one of our table condiments for being our “salsa”. The sriracha sauce is a very popular addition to our other table hot sauces and we are a bit perplexed as to how it was confused with something like a salsa. We currently have two types of homemade salsas, one being our salsa verde (green) followed by our most popular, Gringos salsa rojo (red). The two salsas are made from scratch in house and pack a very powerful flavor. We apologize you did not like your Gringos experience that so many have returned and loved daily. Hopefully we have cleared some things up for you today.
with respect
Gringos Locos