Chronic Taco Cantina: Introduction Of A New Menu

Foodology Disclaimer: I was invited to try out their new menu, but I tried to keep the review as unbiased as I could. The review does not guarantee 100% similar service you might normally get from this restaurant.

Chronic Taco Cantina is located in Gastown and has introduced a new menu to better cater to the people in the area. Their new menu has more variety of California-Style Mexican food as well as appetizers. They still serve their signature tacos and burritos.

I came with GastroFork, FoodPunk, PetitFoodie and CandiedZen to try it out.

There are tons of TVs on the walls so it’s easy to catch the game. Also they have some crazy artwork on their walls. Taco life anyone? They have also installed more booth seating!

Coke! The days when I go without tea or coffee, I go with coke!

Chips and Salsa (complementary) I liked the crunchy chips but I wish there was more salsa. The salsa was good and chunky but the container is a bit small to dip the chips into. I would suggest ordering a side of guacamole to go along with this.

Baja Ceviche ($7.49) has wahoo fish, lime, mango, pears & plantain chips. This is not your traditional ceviche, but I did enjoy the hints of fruity and acidic tastes. We did not have enough plantain chips to use with the ceviche, so we started using the chips.

Taco Platter ($8.49-$11.49) comes with your choice of two tacos and side of rice and beans. The price varies depending if you want soft or crispy shell, or vegetarian. I am not a big fan of rice or beans, so I thought they were alright.

You can choose from these tacos:

Carne Asada – marinated grilled steak
Pollo Asado – marinated grilled chicken
Carnitas – slow cooked pork
Al Pastor – spicy marinated pork with pineapple & onions
Fish – wahoo tecate beer battered or spicy baja style
Shrimp – tecate beer battered or grilled

There’s also other types of rice and beans that you can add. The tacos were quite large too.

The tacos that were really good were the beer battered fish and the shrimp.

Al Pastor Taco has the spicy marinated pork with pineapple & onion. It was indeed large and quite spicy. I usually can take spice, but I had to resort to grabbing a glass of water. The pork was nicely spiced and tender.

Carnitas Taco has slow cooked pork and comes with veggies, salsa and guacamole. The meat was a tad dry.

Jalapeno Poppers ($9.49) are breaded jalapeno peppers with cream cheese & a side of baja sauce. It’s a good item to order when watching the game when you need some finger food. Its a bit spicier than usual places, but I did enjoy the amount of heat.

Beer Battered Prawns ($9.49) are drunk prawns with baja sauce & cilantro sauce. I loved this appetizer! The prawns were of good size and tasted good. It had a crunchy exterior and the succulent prawn inside. YUM!

Flank Steak Fajitas ($15) comes on a sizzling hot plate with flank steak, peppers, and onions. There is also rice & pico de gallo that comes with it. You wrap them all up in a flour tortilla.

The steak tastes good when it comes right off the sizzling plate. If you wait too long, the meat isn’t as tender or flavourful.

This is a fun dish since you can do it yourself, but it is a bit expensive. In the end, we didn’t put it together since we were more interested in eating the meat.

Southwest Stuffed Peppers ($15) contains tofu, spinach, rice, jack cheese & mole.

It is a very unique dish and I’ve never had anything like it. You would expect it to be savory, but with the mole, it just tastes like sweet chocolate.

Deep Fried Ice Cream Sandwiches ($6) has 2 ice cream sandwiches battered and deep-fried with caramel drizzle. You definitely want to share this with another person.

The deep-fried ice cream sandwiches had a good fragrant cinnamon taste to it, which I enjoyed. On the downside, it wasn’t cold in the center as the ice cream just melted from the heat. It ended up more mushy than solid.

Churros Con Sorbete ($6) has fresh churros, cinnamon sugar, caramel sauce, and vanilla bean ice cream.

I like the pairing of the 2 items and the cinnamon and sugar is just heavenly. Unfortunately, I felt like the churro was a bit overcooked. It still had the nice crispy exterior and softer center.

Overall, don’t expect Chronic Taco Cantina to serve traditional Mexican food. It’s a bit different. The food is great to go with games and just chilling with friends. They have a very large interior, so they can accommodate large groups.

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