Taco Adobe

This place is now closed. Its a restaurant now called Kourtyard Kafe. The new restaurant is VERY clean and family owned/​operated. A greek man that seems VERY nice. I have eaten here several times for breakfast and their prices are very very reasonable! He told me they still serve menu items from Taco Adobe for lunch, but I have not tried lunch there yet. I recommened breakfast if you want a nice, clean environment to eat in. Doesnt seem like many people have discovered this place yet because its always seems to be empty in the early mornings.

This is a good Mexican food place, but the service is sometimes crappy. I really enjoyed the food and the prices were good, but as I said, service can be an issue here. Either way, I definitely will go back (when I’m not in a rush). Check it out if you have a some time, little money, and a hankering for good Mexican food.

I love taco adobe. The purists scoff at healthy Mexican but that’s what I like. No grease, fresh veggies, and black beans. The vege burrito, no dairy, with red sauce on top is my standard order. Oh and of course a horchata.

In reality… id give it 2 stars, but the waitress was such a sweetheart. the food was OKAY but it was lacking that KICK you look for when eating a mexican restaurant.
Simple Food. Will i come back? maybe. maybe not.

Wow! This place is reeeeeally good! I’ve driven by it numerous times but it took a looksy here on Unilocal for me to realize that it’s a good place to eat at. I got the carnitas plate and a mahi mahi taco, and an iced tea. I must say, the Iced Tea was delicious! The food was good too, but the iced tea, oh my god!
The service was so good I slightly over-​tipped. The food came out fast and hot, and delicious. The area was clean, no smell, and pleasant to look at. All in all, it was so good that I had to write a review on it almost immediately after.

this is by far the best mexican restaurant in orange county. the food is fresh, flavorful and innovative. its also pretty light too
its far different from the standard fare you get (which i also love) but this place is unique
i always end up getting the same thing every time. cheese enchiladas. you can mix things up with their special green sauce as well
the rice is plain white and is unseasoned so don’t be shocked by that when it comes in. it works though
the salsa and chips are great too
they market themselves as new mexican cuisine. really good
can’t wait to go back here for lunch!

I live very close to this place and had wanted to try it for a year, and finally made it. They’re not open for dinner which is the most convenient time I could go, so I had to wait until I had a weekday off to try lunch. This is a former IHOP so you see the traditional shaped sign as well as the A-​frame hut. Everything has been nicely renovated to reflect the new owners and menu. I ordered a wet carnitas burrito and honestly didn’t like it very much — the meat was way too gamey tasting and not seasoned well at all. However, the service was excellent and friendly, and there were quite a few other items on the menu that sounded very good (especially the breakfast offerings) so that is why the high rating. I’ll definitely be back to sample breakfast on a Sunday morning in the near future. Great location if you work in, or need to visit, downtown on a weekday.

There are 3 Mexican food restarants in the area that i know about. If you want good inovative quality but expesive Mexican then do Gabes’ down the street. If you want cheap crappy Mexican food go to jalapenos around the corner. If you want good not so expesive Mexican go to Tacos adobe.

After waking up at 6am to be in Santa Ana for a press conference at the Sheriff-Coroner’s office, I was ready for lunch at 11am! Two of my coworkers told us they found a gem of a place nearby, even though it did not look like it from the exterior.
From the outside, Taco Adobe ‘Mex-​Southwestern Grill’ looks like a typical run-​down Acapulco-​type of Mexican restaurant. The interior doesn’t impress a different idea, either… in fact, it’s quite sparse. But just wait until you sit down.
Before our entire party of 5 had finished scooting our chairs in, the servers had already brought two baskets of chips, and get this — a little ramekin of salsa for each person!!! And the salsa is AWESOME — roasted tomatillos, my fave. I have this theory that you can judge how good a Mexican restaurant is by their house salsa, and this was a very promising beginning.
Well, Taco Adobe held up very well. I ordered their lunch special, the carnitas enchiladas with salsa verde — I have never seen this before, and thought it was so innovative for this little place! It needed a bit more avocado, but it was delicious. They seem to serve all lunch specials with white rice and black beans, which may be the ‘Southwestern’ touch.
My coworkers ordered the other lunch specials — the Aztec Chicken, which was good with a chipotle sauce and covered with spinach and mushrooms, and also the shrimp and calamari tacos (which I didn’t try).
It’s too bad it’s so far from me, because I’d love to try some more of their dishes!

What do you get when you take fresh avocado and spinach, combine that with roasted red and green peppers and onions, throw in some cheese, fold it in a delicious tortilla and grill it?
A tasty vegetable quesadilla… that’s what!
Now…what do you get when you call in an order for 2 blackened mahi burritos, 2 fish tacos and a vegetarian quesadilla?
Ummm…not that. Yep, they screwed the order up.
We didn’t want to drive back and make a big deal out of it at the time. Too damn hungry. We improvised and as usual it was very tasty.
I have eaten at Taco Adobe dozens of times over the past few years and the food and service is always good. I have tried many things on the menu… that is why I am willing to look past this mistake. The owners are very nice and I am sure we will settle up. No big woop!
Salmon Yucateca is my typical dish because the salmon grilled with the peppers, pineapple and squash is a flavor explosion every time. I have never had a bad meal here. It is not your typical mexican fare… sure you can get that, but their seafood plates and specials are a cut above and priced decent.
Check this out: Pescado Guaymas– Grilled mahi sauteed on spinach cilantro garlic and walnut pesto sauce with a touch of serranos. If there is another mexican place in Santa Ana that has this type of food on their menu, please let me know… I have been looking for years now.
Go get all up in that!!!

The restaurant is very cute and pleasant.
The food is fresh and the quantities are generous. The prices are very reasonable — expect a lunch to cost around $ 12 total!
It’s a nice departure from your typical mexican restaurant … you won’t find lard or re-​fried beans here but you will find things like grilled mahi mahi tacos with cabbage and grilled chipotle chicken breast.
It’s a very popular lunch spot so get there early!

4.5 stars!
We were on our way to Mil Jugos but they weren’t open so we came here instead. We’d been here before for breakfast and hubby wanted some Mexican breakfast — I’m not that big on breakfast so it was just as well they offered the lunch menu. The lady who was serving us was absolutely delightful — complying to our wishes for hot salsa, grilled jalapenos… and more.
Hubby had the adobe omelette, I got the camarones mojo de ajo and the young man got the blackened chicken quesadillas on corn tortillas — yes he’s not that into the breakfast stuff either.
I must say, my camarones smelled spectacular when they arrived. There was some rice, black beans, the shrimps (only 8 though) and pico de gallo. The young man’s quesadillas looked great as well.
The quesadillas had a really great seared chicken flavor and the corn tortillas just gave the whole thing great texture. I do not like flour tortillas at all. The garlic shrimp I ordered was fantastic! I would definitely order this again. The shrimps were flavorful, so much so that the young man ate all my rice with the garlic off my plate.
Hubby’s grilled shrimp omelette was also very tasty with queso, avocado — really delicious for an omelette that is, since I’m not an omelette kind of gal!
Service was really nice, the grilled jalapenos were such a great addition to our meal. The lady brought us 2 salsas — one chipotle and one tomatillo. The tomatillo sauce surprisingly was red and not green. Hubby preferred the tomatillo which worked out great since I liked the smokey taste of the chipotle.

This is is really close to my work. It’s reasonably priced and has a pretty wide variety of choices of delicious mexican favorites. I’ve only had this place for lunch, and it was definitely packed with business people having their power lunches.
I tried the grilled mahi burrito, and I have to say it is the best fish burrito I’ve had so far. There were tons of pieces of mahi mahi, (grilled), crisp cabbage, and their fresh pico de gallo. I also added guac which took it to a whole new refreshing level. The burrito was also really pretty huge.
The service was quite quick and the servers were really nice. I especially loved the décor. It was bright and cheery, and it had an altogether happy feel. My coworker had the chicken enchiladas, and he said he really enjoyed them and ate them in a flash (as I quickly gobbled my meal too).
I really love this place, its great for a quick lunch– but it also has great food for reasonable prices. definitely coming back! They supposedly have «world famous» tacos!

[This place is now closed. I would recommend that you go to Pico de Gallo on 17^th street as a better alternative.]
Went here for lunch today. It was my first time here despite the fact that it’s only 5 minutes from my office. I’m not usually that adventurous here in downtown Santa Ana. I tend to stick to the Subways, Quiznos and In-​n-​Outs.
I ordered a Carnitas Torta and Mrs. D had Pollo Burrito. Free chips and salsa came out which is always nice. The torta was good, not the best carnitas I’ve had before, but the overall combination made sense. Servers are very helpful. They’re not zoned like most family restaurants which means you can call on any of them for service (I love that!)
We spent $ 16 including tip for both of us. Not bad considering what we got. I would definitely come back here again, but I’d probably try something new as everything looked good.

First of all, the service was good– this is really an important factor in restaurant experience. The waiter brought the special menu stand by our table for us to look at. I thought it was so funny. We ordered one of the shrimp enchiladas based on his recommendation, chicken burrito and mahi mahi burrito. All of them turned out to be very good. Salsa was really good– a real thing. All drinks were refilled quickly.
I found this place a bit funny and weird: an authentic mexican restaurant decorated with empty tequila bottles and orange color ceiling mixed with wine selection menu, cappuccino machine and mini hagen daz icecreams in the freezer. But who cares? The food was good.

the quality of the food here is quite excellent. There food is as good or better than Gabbi’s, Taco Rosa, Javier’s or whatever high-​end restaurant you want to compare them to. But the prices are more reasonable and you won’t have to wait in line behind all the «cool people».
The salsa is a great roasted, spicy concoction, There enchiladas come coated in a deep red chile sauce that is just about the best around. Burritos and tacos made from chicken or fish have light fresh quality to them, but do not compromise on flavor.
If TASTE is what you care about and not the vibe or trendy factor, then this place will have you coming back time and again.