Maui Tacos

Coming down the hill from the Placerville area, I finally got a chance to stop and check out Maui Tacos, located inside the Town Center shopping plaza in El Dorado Hills. On their outdoor patio you'll find tiki umbrellas, and the inside has maps of Hawaii laminated onto the tabletops, and on the walls. And there was a familiar vibe to the place, a if I had just stepped into a tropical version of Rubios, (another Mexician grill).

As indicated clearly on their website everything at Maui Tacos is gluten free except for the flour tortillas and the enchilada sauce. You would of course need to check about other food allergies if you have them, but lucky I am not allergic to corn, dairy, etc., so I was excited to have a huge selection of options. At first their menu seemed a little overwhelming, even though the category headers were familiar: salads, bowls, tacos, and burritos. Morever, instead of just having the options of pork, beef, or chicken, now I also could have shrimp or island fish. In the narrowing down process I decided that I had to try their shrimp, and in the end I ordered a taco salad with shrimp.

I was surprised to be handed such a large salad, but hey it had shrimp in it, seven of them actually. And they were cooked close to perfection. I wish there had been a few more shrimp and a lot less lettuce, but now I know for next time. I knew there were going to be black beans on it, but there were way too many for my taste, and in fact the salad was a little liquidy on the bottom, I think from the beans. The salad was $7.99, which for what I got, I felt was maybe $1 or 2 too high, as it was mainly lettuce.

My husband went with a smaller meal, 2 shrimp tacos, and again the shrimp were delicious, but he did not care for the flour tortillas. The chips were slightly greasy, but obviously fresh, although they could have used slightly more salt. So while we would certainly try this place out again, I won't be planning any special trips just for this place, as out of all the Mexician Grill chains (Rubios, Qdoba, Chiptole, etc.) I think I'm just a Chiptole kind-of-girl.