Barbacoa de Borrego

As much as I am a fan of the independent taco shop, this place falls short. A group of 8 or so from my office visited for lunch one day. First impression: the windows are covered with opaque film making this place look like a strip club. Upon arrival we find a poorly furnished dining room and open kitchen. No surprise there, I am expecting this. It takes a long time to order because the first three items I request are all out (carnitas, chorizo, and pastor). The guy taking orders is brand new and knows nothing, so an older gentleman cooking (I assume the owner) has to tell him the price for each item even though it is on the board. At this rate it literally takes 45 min for our party to finish ordering lunch, some of the slowest counter ordering I have ever seen. My chips don’t arrive so I have to ask again, I should not have bothered as I received stale chips from a huge bulk bag. Our whole table gets two squeeze bottles of salsa, which are later taken away when two other patrons arrive. I never get the water I asked for and one member of our party never gets his meal and has to go back up and essentially re-​order after a 45 min wait. The tacos were OK, a bit bland and definitely not worth the wait. There are better options nearby.

Rockwood local mexican! This is REAL local latino food.
We were greeted by a very sweet older man at the counter. I ordered: tamale BECAUSE it did NOT have meat! I do not get that option hardly ever. It was vegetarian and green chile. I then ordered the chile rellano because it’s a great taste tester. And, finally the fish taco. With all of my different choices, he got to work on my order. He was the only one there. It was like being in his home. Extremely authenic and homemade. From the cheese melting out of the rellano, to the crispiness of the fried fish taco, to the homemade tamale with the big corn taste, as well as the homemade corn tortilla of the fish taco.
Just opened a few months ago. Hope he succeeds.

Barbacoa de Borrego popped up in the run-​down little strip mall where another Mexican place had died. It’s a bad location, in an area teaming with little four table Latin American eateries offering plenty of good stiff competition. The businesses in the mall wear handmade signs, and the daily specials are written on the windows in soap.
We parked in front of the Mexican Food Mart, and next to the Hispanic Barber shop, and went in through an extruded aluminum and glass front. The five table dinning room was blood red and cool green. An older Hispanic man worked the counter opposite the windows. The menu was a sheet of plywood, hung over the counter, gessoed white, and neatly hand lettered.
The menu was huge — seafood, every kind of tacos or burritos you could imagine, chile rellanos, tamales, fried chicken, and of course, lots of BBQ meats.
I ordered a couple of lingua tacos, and a fish taco. The food arrived on a platter because these were very generous tacos. The old guy pointed to a couple of squeeze bottles full of homemade hot sauces sitting on a table and invited me to have some — I did.
He made his own fresh tortillas and piled them high with slow cooked lingua, onions and cilantro. The fish taco was topped with cabbage and tomatoes. He kept coming out from behind the counter to see if I wanted anything else on my tacos — I didn’t. I honestly think these three tacos where the best tacos I’ve had in a very long time.
Every other restaurant is a Mexican place, and yet good Mexican is hard to find. This is damn good Mexican food!