El Mercadito

Very slow service. Hopefully it’s just an off day for this fella. Good chips and salsa when it finally gets refilled. HUGE platters. Great presentation. Delicious food.

Greatest taco stand in the Midwest. This taco stand is a regular stop on our annual road trip to Minnesota. The tacos are excellent. I highly recommend the taco stand outside of this Mexican grocery store.

I have heard from a friend that there is a truly delicious and authentic taqueria stand in Waterloo that is connected to a mexican grocery market. She was pretty vague about the location of the spot, so on Friday I kidnapped her and had her help me navigate to the location. She didn’t remember the name of the stand, nor did she recall the exact location. After a half hour of roaming through Waterloo, we finally found El Mercadito.
I’m a taco purist since living in Philadelphia and giving a lot of business to Taco Riendo. Since moving back to Iowa I have struggled to find authentic tacos. The only other spot I had found was El Super Burrito on Johnson St. in Cedar Rapids. Their tacos were excellent, but they pale in comparison to El Mercadito.
I ordered one carne asada taco, and one taco al pastor. Upon receiving the tacos, I was relieved to see it was made exactly how I love them. Corn tortillas filled with succulent steak or pork, and accompanied only by chopped onions, tomatoes and cilantro. It also came with a few limes and sides of red salsa and a salsa verde.
The carne asada was delicious. Very tender steak chunks, and the salsa verde and lime was a fine compliment to the delicious and cilantro-​heavy pico di gallo.
The real treat of the meal was the pork taco. It had a spicy marinade, and it was so soft and chewy. Every bite sent me on a trip back to other delicious taquerias in Austin Texas, or my first love Taco Riendo in Philadelphia.
The salsa verde was my favorite. Very spicy tomatillo & lime. The red salsa was also good. It had a smokey flavor that went well, although I could have enjoyed it more had it been slightly spicier.
My only complaint about this eating experience is that the option of dining-​in was a single picnic table next to the stand. This is my new favorite taco in the state of Iowa. Very authentic, the tacos don’t come with the americanized ingredients of sour cream, cheese or anything else you’d find on a «taco» from carlos o’kelly’s or taco bell. This is the real deal. Get a few tacos there and it’ll change your life.