Hernandez 4.05/5

Hernandez's Homepage

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Pink and Mr. Blue decided to try out a Central American restaurant in Victoria named Hernandez. The restaurant is located on the ground floor to an office building between View and Yates street. Our first impressions on a walk-by was it was a petite eatery with seating on the outside of the establishment. We picked up our own menus and then went up to the cashier to order. We decided to order food such that the both of us could share easily... and that ended up being four different orders of tacos! The bean, pork, and chicken tacos came with 5 tacos per order, whereas the beef tacos came with 3 tacos only. Here are our group reviews below. We'll breakdown what we thought of each taco and then give the score summary at the end.

Beef Taco: uses locally raised beef (from out of Duncan) and was combined with raw onion, cilantro (or maybe flat parsley), and a tomato-like salsa that was very rich with flavour. The beef tasted a little bit gamier than your average beef and was actually quite likable. The meat was springy but not tough or too hard to chew; it definitely was not mushy. Of the four types, this is one of the two that we liked the most.

Bean Taco: uses ground black beans that was combined with cilantro, the tomato-salsa sauce, and a drizzle of sour cream. This was a particularly tasty taco which had a very deep bean flavour and the ingredients meshed well together. Our only complaints about this one was that the texture was one dimensional, it was just a sloppy mash of ground beans without anything else to it. It could've either had some crunch added to it or some whole for added contrast with the textures. Still, this was the second most liked taco.



Chicken or Pork Taco: the chicken or the pork tacos were more or less the same flavour other than the meat content obviously. Both came with a green lime, raw onion, tomato-salsa, cilantro, and a light savoury sauce. The lime chunk was very small, however, gave the right amount of citrus needed when squeezed. The chicken was a bit dry, but not too dry at that since it was soaking in the light savoury sauce. The pork was not dry at all and was very moist. However, because of the light savoury sauce the chicken and pork tacos were the messiest ones to eat and dripped sauce everywhere.

Overall the food was pretty good value. We had 18 tacos for $21 (all orders of tacos were $5 each, and tax on top). We at the whole thing and ended up being pretty full, however, there are better deals to be had still. We can't really say much for service as we ordered at the counter and they brought the food out when ready. The staff did seem friendly, especially when we asked for 4 orders of tacos for 2 people (teehee). Cleanliness, we can't really say much other than the food came out on wax paper instead of plates. The tacos are messy, so just remember to wash your hands before and after eating.

Ratings:

Taste: 1.80/2.00

Value: 0.90/1.00

Atmosphere/cleanliness: 0.75/1.00

Service: 0.60/1.00

Overall: 4.05/5.00