Taqueria Los Panchos

Not a fancy décor but the food makes up for it! Freshly homemade Mexican lunch place.

I love this place! They make the food quickly and it always tastes great. I come here all the time and the service is awesome. My favorite place for Mexican food.

Small Jalisco style taqueria that does the standard repertoire of such things as tacos de carnitas, carne asadas, burritos & tortas/​sandwiches. I have not tried their more specialized Birria, which is roast goat in consommé soup & has a gamey, funky, goaty, meaty taste. Use your fingers to eat the meat and put it in a torilla de maiz/​corn, and your fingers come out smelling like goat. Not that I am complaining. The excellent Birrieria El Parian in Los Angeles comes to mind. Los Panchos also offers Menudo, a soup made with intestines boiled for hours to make it soft and palatable. Both of these are available on weekends only.
I ordered their carne asada/​roasted beef which was rather dry & significantly not particularly well seasoned with such herbs as comino/​cumin, albahaca/​oregano, ajo/​garlic, etc. The Carnitas were a bit better, but still desiccated. The al Pastor was the best of the three, being more moist & with flavours that hinted of being marinated in citrus juice. The tortillas de maiz also were tough & dry adding to the xeric theme which reminded me of the Coachella Valley, a northwestern extension of the great Sonoran Desert upon which Los Panchos rests.
Down home mom/​pop eatery with downhome eats. It was an amateurish attempt at best compared to some better taco eateries in such places as East LA, but that’s almost 120 miles to the west on the traffic clogged I-​10. Food is actually closer to 2 Unilocal stars, but since it is more convenient compared to making a trek to LA and since it still beats Santana with its truly «Taco Bellized», insipid, de-​Mexicanized swill in Cathedral City whose only advantage is that it stays open late into the night which makes it convenient for us late night bar flies & insomniacs, Upgrade to 3– Unilocal stars. Btw, there is no salsa/​condiment bar. Ask them what they have & what to leave out.