Taqueria El Carnaval

I do not recommend going on a busy day. Ordered a wet burrito with shrimp. It came out wrapped in foil. I asked the person delivering it and was ignored. Inside the foil the burrito was smashed with finger holes and who knows what. Took it back and was refunded. Disappointing…

Love their reg. Asada taco only $ 2.25 (have a couple!)with a fresh squeezed lime from the free chips and salsa bar. Love their spicy onions in the salsa bar too — so flavorful!

The food used to taste better. Had lunch on 2−12−16 and my usual lunch costs me 30% more. I was told they raised their prices. I think 30% is far too much of an increase. Unfortunately I’ve been hearing from others that they too are not happy with the quality as they once were. Time to head over the freeway, where the prices are better.

The best Mexican restaurant in California, bar none. Staff and food and owner are the best there is. Clean and kept that way all the local law inforcement officers eat there often and some bring in their family members when off duty. The Patio area is great in warmer weather and kept clean also. You must try there large Burrito with red sauce, ummm yummm.

The food is pretty good. When they are busy the line did not work for me. The guy taking orders took a number of people ahead of me. I did not appreciate that at all. The staff are just not very friendly towards me when I go in alone. I keep swearing off the place but my husband likes the food and convenient location for lunch. I have found a much better place on Placerville drive where food and staff are both great.

Loved the food here, very close to home made mexican food. The lengua is made perfect here! Rice and beans are delicious here to! Definitaly recommend this place to friends all The time!

Best Mexican food around. Great prices and an excellent salsa bar. Food is always consistent and good. I have eaten here a couple times a month for the last year and a half and it’s always good. There service isn’t amazing but they’re fast and always get my orders right. At the free salsa bar they have spicy onions that are amazing.
I highly recommend this place.

Best Mexican food around! I love to top my enchiladas with their spicy onions. They will grill you whole jalepenos if you ask. Sooooo delicious!

First time here and the food was GREAT, great salsa bar selection, the girls that work there were awesome, they attended us fast and brought out our food quick, clean place some one was always keeping busy cleaning witch i loved seeing, food was tasty.
will for sure come back here!

It’s true, it’s true. The best Mexican food restaurant in the county, second only to their other place in Folsom. Most of their dishes are perfection in taste and execution– still, a few times they can get sloppy on the basics. (Eggs on chilaquiles are supposed to be over-​medium at the most, not overcooked; beans are canned?; meat sometimes is a bit tough.)
Still, odds are you won’t leave unsatisfied.

As a general rule-​of-​thumb, if the Taqueria is playing Soccer (from a Spanish speaking TV station) and serving menudo on the weekend, chances are you’re going get some tasty offerings. That’s certainly the case here. I’ve been here a couple of times and each time I’ve been very happy with my chicken burrito choice. Fresh over-​the-​fire grilled meat (no microwaved food here) with lots of fresh ingredients. I’ve also had the breakfast burrito which was big enough to share, and very tasty. The salsa bar is exceptional (another good indication you’re in a place that knows what «real» Mexican food is all about), they have radishes, pickled jalapenos and a tasty variety and temperatures to their salsas. Service is friendly and fast and the place is kept spotless. I’m looking forward to trying some of the other selections from the very extensive menu.

Stopped here on out way back home from Tahoe and was not disappointed! Super clean location and great service. Wifey had the pastor tacos and they were very good. I ordered the Molcajate and it came piping hot off the stove! It was soooo good and hit the spot after being stuck on the 50 for 2 ½ hours. Super nice staff even brought me more tortillas. Defiantly making this stop a ritual on all our drives back from Tahoe.

Salsa bar has variety and ingredients are very fresh! I love the carnitas burrito. High quality food and excellent service. Will come back for more!

My family and I go here a lot. I always order either the carnitas burrito or the chorizo burrito. For meats they are awesome here. But… The salsas aren’t very flavorful. I like the spicy one (although it’s really not hot at all) of the ones they have. I usually mix the spicy one with the salsa fresca one to give I flavor.
They should go try the hot salsa at Tijuana Taqueria up the way and see how they flavor theirs. That’s all they are missing at this place is good tasting salsas. The staff is really great here too.

This is the best Mexican in placerville. It’s my favorite place to eat. I love their nachos, tortas, ceviche, and burritos! It’s a very decent price for the food and speed you get plus the salsa and chips included. They also make really good flan and micheladas. Another plus is they have corona on draft! I love this place and would recommend it to anyone. I know it’s not the very best Mexican food ever but the best in town that’s for sure.

This place is very clean and fast.
I ordered the shredded beef taco salad. It was really good, except for the flour tortilla shell that the salad is in. I was looking forward to the delicious taco bowl, but sadly it didn’t meet my expectations. I thought it would because this place is really authentic, but Baja Fresh totally out does them in the taco salad department!
I still love this place and when I’m in Placerville, I won’t hesitate to stop by again. Hopefully they will read this and tweak some things to make the shell more edible.

It was OK. I ordered the steak ranchero and it looked really good when served (in a sizzling cast iron plate); but the more I tasted the steak, the more I noticed that it was simply lacking in flavors. My husband ordered the chile relleno and his comment was that it was preheated in the microwave and not made fresh.
Overall the ambiance was good; the place was packed throughout the time that we were there (11:30-NOONish). Menu board had an abundance of choices, which can be good and bad – hence food coming out within 5 minutes time or so.
Perhaps we’ll give it another chance; after all, they’ve got about 50 other items on the menu! Stay tuned…

As far as taquerias go, this is about as good as it gets. The food delicious and the portions are large. I had a chimichanga w/​carnita meat and was very pleased. The shell was crunchy and the meat was tasty. My wife opted for the cheese enchilada and asada street taco combination. Both were excellent. Each of our plates came with healthy portions of rice and beans. They were very good as well. Free chips and salsa bar are offered. The chips were fresh and crisp. The oil on the chips let us know that the chips were freshly fried and jot poured out of a huge bag. The salsa was a little watery but the heat designations were right.
The friendly staff checked on us three times to make sure everything was good. We live in Folsom by t will make the drive to Placerville for this place.

4.2. This place is yummy, and they provide food at a very cheap rate. They also provide hugs to those who are in need of some TLC (the last part is not true in anyway).
They allow you to buy meat by the pound which is super convenient! Lets be honest what sucks about making tacos? Cooking and cleaning. So purchasing meat is a very effective way of eating here (if you have your own tortillas.
Don’t get me wrong this place has a variety of options to choose from that you would probably like and enjoy, but I have found what I like doing and it saves me a lot of money and a lot of time. The last time my brother bought 2 lbs of al pastor meat which was WAY more than enough for four adults and 2 small children. ½ lbs would probably be enough for two people depending on how you make it.
The meat is yummy, the service is fast, I’m pretty sure the President eats here on occasion… in placerville. Best mexican food you know it.
THE VERDICT: It is cheap delicious food. It is absolutely unnecessary to go to a sit down restaurant and pay obscene amounts of money for very adequate food. This place has really good food that can feed lots of people for reasonable prices. Safe yourself time and money eating at El Carnaval.

Repeat after me: mayonnaise does not belong in guacamole.
Mayonnaise does not belong in guacamole.
Ever.
For committing the cardinal sins of both mayonnaise AND un-​ripe avocados, I do not forgive you. It’s crap like this that makes people think they don’t like guacamole.
But, the restaurant was really clean, the staff was really friendly, the salsa was all fresh and amazing, and the veggie burrito was definitely the best I’ve ever had, even with the sub-​par guacamole (they didn’t put much on the actual burrito, but we had also ordered a side). The vegetables could not have been grilled better, and the red sauce that made the burrito wet was just perfect tomato heaven with a hint of cinnamon.
So my advice is, come here, eat here, but don’t get the guacamole.