About a month or so ago, my son came home and shared a taco with me. He had been at a restaurant in the Salt Lake City area and thought it was fantastic. He wanted me to give it a try. I tried it later in the day. It was hours cold, but it was still quite impressive. I stored it away in my brain until today.
The name of the restaurant is Los Tapatios Taco Grill in Murray.
Since I was going to be driving through SLC today en route to Idaho and it was around lunch time, I decided to stop and give it a try.
I walked in and there was only one other customer in there who was finishing his meal. When you first walk in, you come to the order desk and stare at the menu on the wall. There were no printed menus that I could see.
The tacos are all beef and you have the option of adding cheese. I ordered three of them with cheese and rice and beans on the side.
While waiting on my meal to be prepared, I checked out the salsa and condiment bar. It was totally fresh and looked amazing. They had fresh lime, chopped onions and cilantro combined, fresh cilantro and onions not combined and amazing marinated/pickled onions that were off the chain. They also had three sauces. My favorite was the green avocado sauce.
I put one of everything into the handy little containers and set them on the table.
A few minutes later my food was ready. I grabbed at the counter and took it back to my table. Before eating, I had to take some snaps. It was hard to wait to eat the food because it looked and smelled amazing!
I grabbed my first taco and added the cilantro, onions, lime and green sauce. I took my first bite and my tongue was happy and dancing around in my mouth.
The tacos had a nice combination of crunch, warmth, cheesy gooeyness, and delicious beef flavor. The condiments were perfectly matched. I tried different combinations of things to put in the tacos and they were all terrific.
Because I was taking pictures of everything, I gained the attention of the staff. In fact, the father of the owner, named Jose, came over and sat at my table. He told me the story of the recipes coming from his mother and his mother-in-law and how they combined their family recipes for this restaurant. Los Tapatios is a name given to people from Guadalajara, which is where Jose was from.
He told me that they have another location in Taylorsville and that they will be opening two more locations this year. I begged him to open one in my hometown of Orem. He laughed.
He showed me their Instagram page (@lostapatios_slc) and it has over 15k followers. Jose’s son is a graphic designer and the content on their page is terrific.
Jose invited me to come back to the Taylorsville location because he wants me to try the chilaquiles. I gladly accepted as I LOVE chilaquiles.
He brought me a delicious drink to try. Cucumber and Lime Water. OMG – so freaking good!
I mentioned that when I walked in that there was only one other customer. By the time I left about 40 minutes later, the places was packed with customers. There were a lot of Spanish-speaking people and a lot of National Guardsman there. Jose said that was the case every day.
I can HIGHLY recommend this restaurant. I have eaten at many over the years. I have to ranked this one in the top three. It is really good and I cannot wait to go back.
The Umenum 