Culinary Chameleon

Avoid the burritos and tacos, ESPECIALLY THE KOGI 1. When I first saw it, I was like, oh kogi, how much can you mess that up? Ugh. School food isn’t supposed to be great, and UCR doesn’t exactly have a good rep but still.
If you have your swipes it doesn’t really matter, but if you’re spending cash honestly the only decent thing here are the chameleon fries, the salad bowl and the breakfast burritos.
If it’s your first time here, I recommend the chicken salad bowl. It gives a lot of food and I can honestly say it tastes legitimately good. I have to admit it’s 1 of my guilty pleasures. Whenever I visit friends at UCR I make sure to get this item.

It’s not the best Mexican food I have ever had, but for a food truck it was decent. The tortilla could have been warmer with the cheese melted. It was a little heavy on the beans for a carne burrito. Finally the spices could be more ethnic. All in all it hit the spot and I was hungry The guys were super nice and friendly. I would eat there again if the food truck was around but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.

Dollar for dollar nobody screws you over like the culinary chameleon. Ordered a few times here, a burrito & tacos. The worst excuse for food i’ve ever had. The food was given to me cold, seriously like it came out of the fridge. Their sauces are bland. I realize only 2 – 3 people work here at a time but when you only have 2 customers and I still need to wait 15 minutes for a plain tasting cold burrito… never again. Pack your own lunch.

Ordered a Kogi Pork burrito like always and only once has it been acceptable. I recently ordered one and received mostly rice and barely any meat or vegetables. I didn’t pay for a rice burrito… Overall, food is okay. The best thing are the churros.

Sucky tacos, expensive and not filling at all… Don’t waste your time. This is absolutely the worst dining place on campus, I mean not like our options are very great, but this is just the worst. I bought tacos for like $ 6 or $ 7, I was still hungry. they are not generous with their portions at all.
You also have to remember, that the meat that they serve on campus, is not grade A, so that is what you are getting… overpriced, nasty meat… on a burrito that is all tortilla. yuck yuck yuck yuck! Avoid!

I think this is the worst dining option on campus, period.
I must admit however, that I am a little biased for one reason. I’ve never been a big-​fan of food trucks because they run on gas and I don’t like how customers have to wait in line and breadth in all of the CO2 emitted from the exhaust, not to mention if its a rainy or cold day outside. But nevertheless, I tried my best to give this place a fair review by ordering stuff from its menu a couple of times, but left disappointed each and every time.
First, the burritos are not authentic. They’re made from cheap, overnight ingredients from dining. They used the same stuff at Habernos (at the HUB). The burritos are wrapped with way too much beans. They use white rice, instead of Spanish rice. There are no vegetables, few meat, and no flavor at all. I basically had to swallow their burrito bite by bite with a water bottle. This one and a half pound bean wrap doesn’t come with any seasoning such as salsa or any type of sauce. It is the world’s most disappointing burrito.
Now the tacos. OH MY are they salty! I ordered the kogi pork tacos once, and never again! They were nothing compared to the ones from the actual kogi truck. These kogi tacos were not spicy, overwhelmingly salty, and drenched with a thick paste that resembled a spicy bbq sauce. I couldn’t taste the rice, lettuce or beans once the meat was added in. It was like a taco wrapped in a spicy bbq sauce, its taste way too bold for me.
Okay. So what if I tried something else like the churros – it was even worst! You get a 6 inch churro for $ 1.29. Come on, a baby can eat more than a 6 inch churro. How many of you have been to Costco? Probably many. They sell almost a yard-​long churro for just .99 cents! No kidding! Just 99 cents! The Chameleon’s churro is soft, left over-​night in God knows where and sprinkled with cinnamon seasoning right before they leave the truck. It isn’t crunchy or warm like the ones at Costco. Save yourself the dollar for something else.
To wrap this review up (no pun intended), I would just say avoid this truck at all costs. Although this truck is strategically placed in the middle of the physics courtyard which usually attracts a large crowd during lunch hours, save yourself $ 5 and go to Subway or Panda Express nearby and at least get your money’s worth.

Well, the reason they named it the culinary chameleon is cause all the food blends together and you can’t tell it apart from anything else! WAAAAAAAYYY too much refried beans, and the butt end of the lettuce, a tasteless flour tortilla accompanied the salad, wish it had been chips instead! This is just the same food from Habanero’s in the food court, waste of money!!!

The way I see it, there’s two ways to review this place:
First, base it off the fact that IT IS UCR Dining. In this sense, it’s not that bad. You get a pretty hefty and filling burrito for around $ 5. The burrito isn’t the best, but what can you expect from Dining?
The second opinion is unbiased. In this case, the burrito is rubbish. The rice is soggy and mushy, the carne asada is not carne asada, there is barely any meat, and there is no salsa. This is a poor excuse for a burrito and your $ 5 are better spent at Los Jilberto’s or Santana’s.
The idea behind the Culinary CHAMELEON was that the menu would change and adapt to new trends or seasons. However, for the last 2 years, the menu has not changed once! Nice try at making a food truck UCR… not!

Come for the breakfast burritos! Only offered til 11am i believe

Please note that my review is based on their Kogi Pork burrito.
I was really hoping this food truck would be good. However, it was below my expectations. The kogi pork burrito was bland, the pork was dry, the flavor didn’t come together right and white rice was used.
The main thing I didn’t like about the burrito was how they used white rice. Imagine yourself biting one side of the burrito, and all you get is a mouthful of flour tortilla and white rice; how exciting is that?
I don’t think I’m going to try out the other items. Sorry.

Yeah… I recommend that you go to Habanero’s instead because:
1. The food isn’t very good.
2. You won’t have to breathe in the methane gas from waiting beside the truck haha.
It takes forever for them to take your order, especially if the line is long, and it takes a while for the food to be ready too. Like most other places on campus, the food is very pricey for what you get.
My boyfriend got the three tacos with the chicken, beef, and carnitas. None of them were very good. The tacos were pretty small and the meat didn’t have very much flavor.
I, on the other hand, got a kogi pork burrito. I think the it is a pretty unique idea. This is the only place on campus where you can that so that’s why I tried it. I was totally disappointed with it! The burrito is pretty small and it wasn’t very good. The sauce is kinda weird and they add some pickled vegetables or something. I don’t exactly remember, probably from trying to suppress the taste from my mind. If you want some good Kogi-​type food in Riverside, try Red Hot Kitchen down University Ave.
I definitely don’t recommend this place to you. Unless you REALLY wanna try it… it’s still not worth your money.

I really wanted to try this food truck so my boyfriend and I went to look for it at lunch. The truck was parked in the middle of the courtyard outside of physics 2000. Their menu has a good variety. I got the kogi pork salad bowl with chips and salsa and my boyfriend got the chicken salad bowl with chips and salsa also. My salad was so much better because they gave me a lot of pork while my boyfriend’s salad was all lettuce and only a little bit of chicken. Their salsa and chips were decent. Luckily I went when they were sellin the chips and salsa for only $ 0.34. Also the salad was very filling and it also came with a tortilla.

I saw the phrase «chorizo breakfast burrito» I was so excited! I thought back to the days when the Statistics building was still here, which housed Taco Fresco. TF had the cutest old Mexican lady that will ask me, «Quesoooo?» for my buritto. Sadly, Culinary Chameleon’s breakfast burritos do not even come close to the Taco Fresco ones. The burritos were smaller, and not as stuffed as the old ones used to be. They need to bring that lady back because I swear Taco Fresco was using her recipe for chorizo. The chorizo here was gross, it tastes like frozen chorizo that was quickly heated and stuffed into the burrito. Taco Fresco had the fresh chorizo every morning!
Skip it.

This super conspicuous truck (ironic) parks between Physics 2000 and Chemical Sciences Building. It serves burritos, salad bowls, quesadillas, tacos and some breakfast stuff. It’s supposed to have replaced Taco Fresca but it’s doing a poor job. The tacos are bland. And do not come with pico de gallo. Why? That’s like preparing sushi without the rice. It’s crucial for the burritos and they don’t have it on many of them. The chicken is terrible, the kogi pork is even worse, and the prices they’re charging for these things, you’d swear they think they’re authentic Mexican or something. Don’t waste your time standing in line unless you want to throw your money away for a less than deserving meal.

Food truck that appears around UCR. Right now it has menu items from the old Mexican restaurant near the stats building with kogi pork added as a meat choice. Pretty good. Menu is supposed to change with customer feedback, hence the name. Looking good so far.