Tito’s Taquitos is hands down the best Mexican food I’ve eaten in Portland.
Tito’s Taquitos has been around as a food cart since 2021 and was named The Oregonian’s Cart of the Year in 2022. But somehow my family had never been. When I saw that owner Anthony La Pietra recently opened two brick-and-mortar locations this spring — in Beaverton and Multnomah Village — I knew my family had to check it out.
My family visited the Multnomah Village location after it had been open for a little over a month. The spacious, table-service restaurant has lots of natural light from windows all along the front. We arrived around 5:30 pm and lots of families were already seated (including littles in high chairs and booster seats), but we were shown to a table right away.
We ordered appetizers first, housemade chips and salsa ($8), and the plato humilde ($12; pictured above) that I was curious about. Our server warned us that the salsas were a little hotter than normal, so we went with the medium verde and hot arbol varieties. While it was extra spicy, the salsa arbol’s flavor was so good, I kept going back for more. The housemade chips had a roasted corn flavor and a less refined texture than typical tortilla chips. The kids gobbled them up. The plato humilde consisted of slabs of sliced, cooked potato and chayote squash drizzled with chile oil and lime, and topped with arugula and queso fresco. The chile oil really kicked up the humble (what humilde translates to), starchy vegetables and made the dish unforgettable. After raving about the plato humilde, my husband said he could not wait for the rest of our meal.
And we did wait a little bit, but we all decided it was worth it. The rib eye tacos (three for $21) topped with crispy onions, guacamole and cilantro might be the best tacos I’ve ever eaten (pictured left). The steak was plentiful and perfect. And the hefty housemade blue corn tortillas were superb. We also ordered the potato-filled taquitos topped with avocado sauce, shredded cabbage, queso fresco, pickled onions, cilantro, radish and chorizo ($15, pictured left). Everything was on point, the crunch, the toppings, and I liked that the chorizo was totally flavorful, but not greasy. Usually my potato-loving older child would be all over the potato taquitos, but they were busy with a massive bowl of fried potato cubes topped with tender, slow-cooked beef, queso fresco and pickled onion called papasotas ($15). Just when we thought beef couldn’t get any better than with the rib eye tacos, the braised beef bowled us over.
My husband also ordered a fish taco ($5) because he wanted to try it and he was worried we hadn’t ordered enough food. The taco was also excellent, and his worries about not having enough were unfounded. And finally, my younger kiddo ordered the crispy, tortilla-wrapped hot dogs ($6) from the kids’ menu and nearly finished the good-sized portion.
Since everything had been so good, we tried the tres leche cake topped with fresh berries ($6; pictured above). The server who brought it out joked that he could bring another one as my kids immediately attacked it with their spoons. I don’t usually like tres leche cake because it can be overly sweet and goopy. But the spongy cake and creamy topping were just right, especially with the fresh, tart berries. We decided we did need another dessert and ordered the Mexican chocolate brownie as well, which did actually taste like the Ibarra chocolate I’ve used to make hot chocolate with since I was a kid.
Being Mexican American and originally hailing from Southern California, I’ve long bemoaned the quality of Mexican food in Portland. I can finally stop complaining. Tito’s Taquitos is hands down the best Mexican food I’ve eaten in Portland. It’s also very reasonably priced for how excellent it is. Yes, we did have a bit of a wait, and, no, we didn’t spy a diaper changing station in the restrooms, but we’ll absolutely come back for legit, mouth-watering Mexican food.
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