El Rey Taqueria

It’s very hard to find fresh, semi-​healthy food from a drive through fast food joint, but El Rey manages it easily. I’ve had both the El Rey Ceviche (white fish salad marinated/​cooked in citrus lime juice with avocado on top and the kale cabbage salad with grilled chicken. Both were very generous portions and made me feel like jumping for joy. I’ve also had the grilled veggies, totally worth the $ 3.99 price tag as they were hot and fresh and not overcooked — JOY! I like knowing I can eat healthy and still get food fast that doesn’t break my tiny bank. Looking forward to trying their other salads.

Great pictures looked promising but was overpriced and terrible no flavor! Ordered summer special and was nothing like what it showed on the menu!

It looks appealing. But I was very unimpressed with the flavor. As in, it had none. I ordered the fajita lunch plate. The fajitas were bland and chewy (over cooked), very flavor-​less. I was even more less impressed with the price. $ 2.25 for a small Pepsi. $ 4.50 for what I thought was a small side of guacamole. Not the case. I have eaten alot of great flavorfull Cuban and Mexican restaurants… this will not on that list of them. Don’t waste your time and money go somewhere else.

Great food. Never disappointed and service great! Salsa is the best around. Make a point to visit every time in Houston.

Call me silly but if I go to a Cuban restaurant and order a Cuban sandwich it should be something flavorful. Not so here. I think they need some fresh pickles in the jar. The ones they are serving are without flavor.

I gave this place two stars because when they get my order right, it’s pretty good. I just ordered ham and egg taco, there is literally 2 small slivers of ham. No bueno.

First time here and the portions are very generous! Tacos were great! As far as the sides, mexican rice and charro beans, I think I’ll skip next time and order something else. They lacked flavor and the rice was a bit hard but overall great food!

Great Mexican food, I ordered the beef torta. The bread I didn’t like too much weird texture and it had more of everything but beef but the beef I did taste was great, well seasoned fresh avocado just enough sour cream & beans. Price was reasonable about 7.50 for a good sized sandwich, overall pretty great just change the bread & don’t be stingy with the meat and 5 stars ! Would come here again to try the tacos.

Food has been great since my last review!!! Always hot and fresh when I order. Extremely happy about this!

This place never fails to do an excellent service. The food tastes great! Plus they get it to you in a timely manner. I personally love the beef fajitas and the cerveza fish. It is spicy but good to my palate.

There’s limited parking here if you want to dine-​in. There’s also a drive-​thru but I wanted to eat in. Anyway ordered a Giant Cuban Burrito with Chicken. Now I was expecting a super size, length wise, Burrito as I’m used to in California but this filled me up pretty good. The fried plantain added some flavor to the burrito and surprisingly wasn’t super greasy.

Some days El Rey is delicious and sometimes not… it’s not consistent but it’s usually good… the ingredients are fresh and they give you a choice of wheat, corn or flour when ordering tacos and I really like that… I love the red hot sauce that they have and the lemonade is the best. …

Love this place. The first one I ever tried was off i10 and Gessner. This location is just as good. I have also recently tried the location in the Heights. None disappoint.

I saw this place the day before, and I noticed that their marquee was in English (and they offered a drive through). This only matters because my Spanish is so bad I might end up ordering a Ferrari instead of a taco. I knew I would only have 30 minutes for lunch on a Saturday, so I decided to give them a try.
Pulling into the drive through, I was impressed to see that the rest of the parking lot was full after 1 PM on a Saturday afternoon. Their menu was very extensive offering tacos, burritos, tortas, platters, and a variety of other intriguing items.
For $ 2.79 I ordered a Cuban taco on a wheat tortilla. The taco came with chicken or beef… I chose beef… plantains, Black beans, & sour cream. I topped it with a green salsa, and the combination of the fresh grilled beef and the plantains really popped. it may truly be the most unique taco I have ever eaten. The tortilla was fresh & tasted handmade. Perhaps «al dente» best describes it.
For $ 8.99, I also ordered the chicken nachos. They came with grilled strips of chicken, refried beans, a nice queso, sour cream, and guacamole. They were served in a very large portion… Enough for 2 to 3 people to share as an appetizer or a full meal for one person.
Service was fast and friendly through the drive-​through. The food was fresh and hot when I got back to my office. The prices were reasonable, and their menu has enough options to satisfy almost anyone who likes either Cuban food or Mexican. In fact it is a nice fusion of the two. The plantains had that elusive sweetness I love in Caribbean food.
I did notice a Cuban sandwich on the menu… Certainly something to try on a future visit. If they can do a Cuban sandwich properly there’s no limit to what they are capable of.

Okay no el rey is as good as the Douchington (Washington) avenue and Shepherd location, period (no kidding). This one however is the best of the runner ups, tacos are dead on the same which is great, ropa vieja is simply amazing, as are all of the tacos, but the real standouts are the cuban, shrimp tempura, fajita, and the aforementioned ropa vieja.
Now the slight downside, the lemonade (limonada) is pretty gross here way way too sugary, the one on Washington is better than chick fil-a’s lemonade, and is heavenly here it’s like over sweetened country time (boo!). Next up the chips and queso (while very much tex mex) could be way better chips were slightly old tasting, queso was excellent though better than the grossly overpriced velveeta you’ll get at places like el tiempo (el mediocre).
So stick to the tacos, just get a coke as the lemonade isn’t great at this location, maybe skip the chips and get a tortilla soup instead. All in all a winner, and close to Oak Forest too. Just little things keeping it from being as consistently great as the Washington avenue location.

I have been hearing about El Rey for awhile. I stopped by for dinner and found a menu full of items that I loved but could not in hurry like at E Rey. I ordered ropa vieja and plantains and horchata. I thought all of it was great. The inside is very generic/​fast food like, but the best part of the meal was the chicken tortilla soup… there was a ton of chicken in it. I am writing this review within the context of a fast-​food joint and rates above the rest. I can’t wait to try a latte there.

An ok experience. Feels a lot more like a chain than the one on Washington.
To go line takes a while, moving the speaker further back might help in getting orders in quicker?
Never completely blown away by the food, but the Ceviche salad is delicious.

I used to go to El Rey off of Katy Freeway a lot. Like A LOT a lot it made me not want to ever go back. But you know you always have one of those days where you’re just craving it and you can’t help yourself from driving to the closest El Rey location? Well this location is it.
Consistent food flavor with other El Rey locations. Friendly cashier. Huge dining area. Bar seating for one (for real), and a TV for whoever sits at the bar to watch. I might be making my way back here more often for lunch.

I’m moving out of state next week and had to get my last El Rey fix in before leaving… I love their tacos but HATE cilantro. So… I ordered several pork carnitas, and I greatly stressed no cilantro. The cashier assured me there wouldn’t be a single spec of cilantro in my order. So… I drive allllllll the way home and open up my tacos to discover EXTRA cilantro! My tacos are literally covered in cilantro, almost as if they were mocking me! I couldn’t eat any of the tacos… and didn’t have time to drive back to El Rey for another order.
BOTTOM LINE: My heavily anticipated and final visit to El Rey was ruined by cilantro.

I’ve tried this spot randomly in the past year or 2 & my most recent stop was yesterday. It was after the lunch rush so I was able to order quickly. I went for the Summer Special: 3 grilled shrimp tacos w/​side of black beans.
I’ll be honest, when I got my order I wasn’t impressed by how it looked. All the components had a fresh taste; shrimp, mango, avocado, but the overall flavor was just ok IMO. The green salsa on the table helped it out a bit. I actually thought the black beans had better flavor than the tacos.
I’ve also tried breakfast tacos & tortas. IMO their menu is overpriced. $ 2.10 for 1 breakfast taco that isn’t made any better or larger than those coming from a food truck? IDK if it’s just all the hype over the years have me expecting more or what, but this place is just OK to me.