Taqueria Azteca

Summary: Quite better than chipotle for about 10 cents extra. Would recommend, especially in the context of University Ave (is that what it’s called? Whatever the long walkable road thingamajig is in front of the entrance to Stanford).
I came here with a very significantly large group of people — an absolutely incredible feat, if your group of friends resemble mine (or, if you happen to be well-​acquainted with a crash of rhinoceros). After a number of verbal disagreements about choice of dining location, and a solid 15 minutes of walking up and down the aforementioned road, I opted to break from the group and hit up Taqueria Azteca with a fellow rogue. For what it’s worth, I don’t know that the place could’ve accommodated us (~15 strong). It shares a space with another restaurant, and while it’s not quite crammed, you might have to do a bit of room engineering to get your desired seating arrangement. Additionally, it’s a slightly more humble interior, both in absolute terms and relative to some of the fancypants places up the block — definitely feels like a great regular spot to be at. Then again, that could be my time in Seattle speaking for me.
Regarding the food, it was pretty solid. The chicken was pretty comparable to mildly better than chipotle’s, and I appreciated the guacamole in my burrito. I don’t think they serve black beans at this establishment, so if you have a sharp predilection between black and pinto, uh, heads up? They do however, have a nondescript, rinky-​dink cooler that provides stuff like BBQ sauce, thousand island, TAPATIOOOOOOOO, and other varied condiments. An improvement I’d appreciate in the future might be that the burritos were a bit larger, but that’s a minor quibble.
I didn’t interact much with the staff (other than the standard things), so no comments there. I will say that price-​wise, TA is a lotttt lower than its neighbors… at ~$ 8.50…oof.
Overall, while I wouldn’t go out of my way to return to TA, it was decent and did the trick. 8/​10, would tell someone to try it out.

The steak nachos were good. Kinda small those considering they are $ 10.33, overall good, but missing a good salsa and more melted cheese… The red sauce was added from the self serve area, it comes in an unlabeled container, but it’s obviously tapatio or Valentina…

Love these guys… authentic, fast, and tasty! I’ve been up and down California Ave for lunch and this is the place I find myself frequenting most often. I’m a big fan of their carnitas, and so are my coworkers. I’m on a low carb diet and Fernando always hooks me up with carnitas and 2x fried eggs with guacamole and pico de gallo. My coworkers saw me eat it enough times that they skip the free lunch at work and follow me over for authentic Mexican a few times per week. The best part is that it’s inside the Nuthouse so you can grab a beer and a plate after work. Fast, convenient, and delicious… my go-​to lunch spot.

connected to antonio nut house. standard steak burrito in a pinch. place is no Nick’s Crispy inside Rouge SF

0 stars for hair in our food. Ordered a burrito to go but ended up finding hair in the food. So disgusting and I’m not inclined to come back, even after being offered a complementary order. May I humbly suggest hairnets?

This business is located inside of Antonio’s Nut House, but they’re a separate entity from Antonios, so as such you have to order food from their side and not from the bar. If you stick to the Mexican food, you will not be disappointed, some of the pub fare is well, fair at best.
They feature a no-​frills approach to their food, it doesn’t have a ton of vegetables or pretense to it, but the food itself is very good. Their chicken tacos are excellent, and the burritos are frigging enormous for the price. Enchiladas are very good, and their chile verde is as good as it can get without actually being green chile. I am a Colorado transplant and the lack of green chile here in the Bay Area and this over-​reliance on chile verde and those foul tomatillos boggles my mind. If this place had green chile it would be a great upgrade to the menu and a much needed addition to California Avenue cusine. Also, one other thing is that in my experience smothering burritios at Taqueria Azteca is foreign concept; they tend to drizzle it on rather pour it on. :)
Staff is very friendly and the food is always good. Great value for the money!

Maybe it’s because I was sober. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Chipotle. But the ingredients at this place are neither very fresh nor varied. Even the super burrito comes with almost a complete lack of vegetables. The burrito itself wasn’t bad, but it was definitely missing some vegetables, sauce, and I would’ve paid anything for an avocado in it at that hour. For drunk food inside Nut House, it probably is worth it. But for me, it was the only place to get a burrito in late night PA. Given the chance, I would go to Sancho’s in a heartbeat.

Love the nachos and chimincha platter

I don’t know about any of their other dishes, but their mole dish is by far one of the best I have had!

We were hungry. The service was good. Big portions. The food was tasty. Probably not a place I’ll go to frequently but we enjoyed it.

Have some time to kill this afternoon. Stopped in to this place. Ordered a steak quesadilla. Pretty good. Service was fast. Bar atmosphere but did not drink. Only soda today have to drive.

Good Friendly people work there and the Food is great. the service is great what more can you ask for.

An ok place to have a burrito. I think that Chipotle wins hands down.

Compared to other bar food, I guess Taqueria Azteca is not bad. But it really pales in comparison to any of the other taquerias around the area. Low quality ingredients, not great flavor, and the fact that they serve burgers and sandwiches at a «taqueria» all contribute to my two star rating.
So sure, if you are hungry at a bar, you could do worse. But please don’t be deceive by the Unilocal ratings into thinking that this is a viable or desired dining location.

Damnnnn, possibly the most cutty, random ass Taqueria I’ve ever been to??? 1^st of all, I look at the menu and notice they serve Burgers, onion rings and sandwiches… Wtf? Then I look behind my back and notice that I’m in a full blown DIVE bar… WTFFFFF??? Despite my disbelief in this «Taqueria», I still decided to go with a super carne asada that didn’t turn out great but not bad either. Ideal 3 star rating for a taqueria. My main complaints from the burrito was the tortilla was not grilled, the carne could use a new marinade and the maker of the burrito needs to toss around the ingredients inside better. 1 of my pet peeves in a burrito for sure. Biting into a burrito that has 1 side filled with meat, then the other side is filled with all guac and sour cream.

Absolutely perfect!
Inexpensive, fun place to be. Staff is some of the friendliest people ever.
Go try it out, you’re gonna love it!

If Taqueria Azteca was a solo business on a random corner of Palo Alto, I’m convinced the rating would suffer. But since it comprises one section of the famous Antonio’s Nut House (an awesome dive bar with miles of character) I suppose it’s been getting an extra bump for location and ambiance.
The term taqueria isn’t quite right. It’s also a burgeria and sandwicheria too. But I stuck with south-​of-​the-​border options on my lunch visits here:
– Taco plate: ($ 9.50) Oddly overpriced; It included two large tacos, beans, and rice. A small basket of homemade chips and salsa were also delivered to the table, both good. The tacos themselves were decent. The carnitas taco was pretty good — Some pieces were crispy and perfect, but others were too dry. The carne asada taco was delicious but had some gristly pieces. Total food rating was 3.5, but the the high price brings that down a notch.
– Regular Carne Asada Burrito: ($ 5.50) A much more normal price, but this time the meat was short on flavor and long on gristle. I’d probably go with the chicken next time.
As I’ve said, it’s location makes it a good spot to drink in the divey vibe as you munch your food. Add a beer in-​hand at a nice window booth, and it’s hard to think of a better spot to spend some time with friends, say on a late afternoon.

Interesting setup they got here. On one side there’s «drinks» at Antonio’s Nut House (hilarious name, immediately had to go in), and on the other is «food» at Taqueria Azteca. The «food» half is composed of booths and tables and on the other «drinks» half there’s pool tables, high tables with stools, and peanut shells EVERYWHERE on the floor.
Anyways, my bf and I were starving after spending a day trying to get to Palo Alto from SFO, so we decided to grab a quick bite and beer at this weird little place. Even though we were at a Taqueria, all I wanted was a good juicy ass burger, so I went with the Jane burger ($ 7) which is a ¼lb-​er with swiss cheese. The burger was prepared a bit more medium than medium rare (my mistake, should have asked) and the chef/​cashier pointed me to the direction of the condiments bar where I was able to fully customize my burger with tomatoes, their own special sauce, mustard, ketchup, and of course pickles!
The burger ended up being alright, but being that hungry, I was able to almost finish the entire thing including the fries on the side. By the way, the fries were standard diner fries: large cut, crispy golden, however, there were a few grease-​soaked pieces that I did not enjoy.
Overall, a pretty non-​outstanding dining experience, but definitely a satisfying one.

closed

Imagine my dismay when I walked in to the Nut House last night and saw the venerable taqueria had been replaced by Kobe beef burgers on artisanal ciabatta rolls with seasoned curly fries. Was it all a bad dream?
Say what you will, but there is no better accompaniment to heavy drinking than burritos and nachos. And I must say, Taqueria Azteca’s burritos and nachos have hit the spot for me enough times that I don’t know what I’ll do now.
The staff was always so friendly and the food was always so filling. They will be missed.