Fine Dining - Torchy's Tacos is So Good

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

🌮🔥 Torchy's Tacos Review: Damn Good (Hey! That's Their Slogan!) 🔥🌮 We're back at Torchy's Tacos with my mom Sue Ornelas, and despite forgotten items, cooled-off food, and a few service hiccups, this ended up being a remarkably positive experience. The decor is packed with personality (pitchfork door handles are peak), and the food carries the day. Also, we unpack the long-standing psychological damage Torchy's has done to me assuming guacamole has cheese on it. 🌮 The Threesome: Tomatillo Salsa, Guacamole (with Cotija cheese smh...), and Queso 🌽 Street Corn That Shows Up Ready to Play 🌮 Taco Gauntlet: The Democrat, Green Chile Pork, Brushfire, Wrangler, and Baja Shrimp 🍩 Churros Close Things Out Strong 🧀 Cotija vs. "Cojita": A Full Mandela Effect Crisis 🤦‍♂️ Torchy's Made Me Ask If Guac Has Cheese Everywhere Else 🍴 Service Misfires But at Least They're Nice About It 🏰 Sue's Best & Worst Restaurant Stories: Sleeping Waiters and a Real-Life Wine Castle 💬 COMMENT BELOW: Does great food outweigh bad service, or is that a dealbreaker for you? 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, extended Yelp segments & more): patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, cursed Yelp): discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: youtube.com/channel/UCLbraNhL6KhDPkdSWt2yiuw 🔗 All links: linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 Guest: Sue Ornelas Patreon Producers:Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van Patreon Subscribers:David Ornelas, Kellie Baldwin, Jeremy Horwitz, Herbert Amaya, Simone Davalos, Scott Bennett, Amy Reinhart, Josef Castaneda-Liles, & Travis Langley Free Patreon Followers:Joe Warszalek, Lauren Cummings, Grace Krainak, Keri Estes, Robert Duran, Patrick Elliott, Michelle Elmer, Dave Plummer, Nicholas Volney, Michael Gerard, Tracy Molino, Phuong Duong, Tyler Robinson, Brandon Gully, Mason Cruz, Michael Milito, Mez, Aaron Hubbard, Steff, Robert McLaughlin, Jewell Hermann, Renae Michael, Crystal C. 👉 NEXT WEEK: I cover the restaurant requested by my Septemburger bracket winner, a fried chicken chain called Zaxby's with actor, comedian, and friend Alex Stedman.

Is Torchise Tacos the best taco chain in the country? The green chili pork taco is famous and lives up to the hype, but the amount of items missing from our order could fill a lost and found box. The Texas forward atmosphere made me feel like home, but I did not enjoy finding out I don't know how to pronounce Cotea cheese. The Churros gave me a sugary, out-of-body experience most people would just refer to as the shi. shakes, but country music, yucky. As a Los Angeles resident of almost 14 years, this Texas

boy is conflicted about how I prefer my tacos. Does the Texan approach to street tacos hold a candle to the quote unquote more authentic food trucks of Southern California? Stay tuned. This is the Fine Dining Podcast. Hello, and welcome back to fine dining, the quest to compare all. restaurants to Chili's. I'm your host Michael Ornellis, and this is the first podcast ever to coronate Chili's as the most mediocre restaurant in America and is therefore the perfect litmus test of any other restaurant's quality. By the end of the episode, we will answer the question everyone was wondering when that guy was legally declared dead for 16 minutes and came back

claiming he met Jesus, is Torchee's Tacos better than Chili's? Today, we're going to tell you everything that was good, not good, and just there about our meal at Torchies before we give a score at the end of the episode. And joining me today to discuss Torchies is the owner and operator of arguably the most cramped rental space I've ever lived, as she carried me in her womb for nine months. It's my own mother, Sue Arnellis. Hi, Michael. It's so great to be back and talking about a hometown restaurant today, Torchies. Torchies. Yeah. Because I visited. you and we ate at a Torchise in Austin but I wanted you to record on

my set here. So it's about a month removed from our actual meal. Our memory might be a little bit foggy but we did take notes. Yes, we did. So without further ado, let's just jump into it and talk about everything that we thought was good about eating at Torchie's tacos.

Ordering kiosks being optional will always be good in my opinion. I like being able to order from a person. I agree. Yeah. Technology and I are not good friends. I know. You were trying to take a picture of me recently on your phone. And for as much as you use your phone, I am flabbergasted by how every time you take a picture. How I was challenged. Every time you take a picture, which is often is like the first time you're taking a picture. Aw. It's very special.

Like, I don't think you approach it with a confidence of, like, I know for sure what to do. Seriously? And that's something I think I really know. All right, taking a video, I mean. Yes. Which is functionally the same as taking a picture with just one left swipe. Yeah. The red dot, not good for taking a picture, right?

See? See, this is what I'm talking about. Anyways, so not having to order at the kiosk is great. We ordered with a guy and he was very friendly. Yeah. He was very helpful. Young man. Restaurant wasn't too crowded.

So I felt like we had time. Yeah, yeah. To think about our order. And told him up front, hey, none of these tacos are going to have cheese on them. That's right. And he was like, cool, I'll take care of you. I'll make sure that none of them do. He did forget to take cheese off of one thing, which I,

will get to in the not good. But we ordered a lot. I'm going to say everything we got. Okay. Now, even though not all of it is going to be in the good. We got the threesome, which is awkward. There were three of us. When I'm there with my girlfriend and my mom, I'd be like, we'll get the threesome.

I don't love saying that. But it is basically their chip and dip plate. It comes with a bunch of chips. And the threesome is salsa, guacamole, and queso. The salsa is a tomato, so it's like a green salsa verde type thing. Yep. The chips are like much better Tostitos in terms of they're not too thick, but they hold up strong to the guacamole in terms of like they're not breaking off. Yeah.

When I think Tostitos, I don't think flimsy. I agree. Right. Flavors another. Flavors a different thing. This is a better, but like texture is. Structure is a thing you kind of have to relay when talking about different Mexican restaurants and chips because a lot of them have different philosophies. Some are thicker, some are thinner, some are like wispier and flakier.

Some are like very strong. So just to give a point of comparison, textually, Tostitos, I think is a good comparison. Okay. Comparison. Then we got the Wrangler, which is a breakfast taco. We got the Democrat, which is a beef barbacoa. We got the green chili pork, which was a carnitas based one. We got the street corn without cheese. We got the Baja shrimp taco. And we got the brush fire, which is a Jamaican jerk chicken. But I essentially wanted to get a taco from each protein. category. So the shrimp one, the chicken one, the beef one, the carnitas one, and the breakfast one. Yep. Yeah. So that's everything. What did you like the most? The one thing that I have thought about the most. Yeah, in the week since we ate there. Honestly, it's the street corn. Okay. And I know you had them hold the cheese. So it just would have been even better. But that is the number.

one thing that has been on your mind that you've craved. I guess surprised me since it had been a long time since I had had it. Sure. We could talk about the street corn for a bit. This was like charred. There was like a little bit of like smokiness on it. It was very fiery tasting to me. Not in terms of heat level, but in terms of like flavor.

It tasted smoky. Yes. The aoli on it was really memorable, really good. It was. And I love aoli. But one of, I guess, my favorite flavors across the board, whether it's a beverage or eating, is lime. Oh, uh-huh. So anything that has a squeeze of lime, it's just perfect.

Just better. Which is why some of these tacos we're going to talk about. Scored well or didn't. Scored very well if there was a lime component for me. I actually think for Mexican food, a squeeze of lime enhances everything. Yeah. I really enjoy Mexican food. I am part Mexican.

So even like my dad's flautas, which I have not ever squeezed lime onto, I don't think, I imagine would be so much better. That's a great observation, Michael, because we have never done that. You should do lime carnitas, like with, uh. But I think that's a great idea. Yeah. I went to seven out of ten on the street corn. I really, I did like it. I don't think it was like a great dish, but I think it was a very good dish.

I believe it was one of my highest scores. Because the fact that I have continued to think about it after we left, for me, it's in that nine category. Okay. And I've had a bit of different, you know, they call them, I think. Elote. What does that mean? That's the street corn dish. Is that it?

Yeah. Okay. Which they don't call it that at Torches. At Torches, they call it Streetcorn at Torches. That's what confused me. But it is one of the better ones I've had, like ever. And it's a great compliment to all these different tacos we're going to talk about. Yeah.

And I feel like there was like a, I don't know if it was paprika, but there was some seasoning on it as well that I thought was very good. Okay. I did have the threesome in the good as well. despite the fact that it was salsa, guac, and queso. I'm not touching queso. We know that. We know that about me. The guac also came with cheese on it.

And I did not realize that torches is where I started getting my guac distrust. Oh, interesting. Because I've ordered guac so much. the past few years in California. And every time I'm like, you don't put cheese on it. And everyone is like, why would I put cheese on it? And I'm like, I don't know. But it's been done.

And I could not remember who did it. Who done it? Torchie's done it. Torchie's done it. Torchis is why I'm always hesitant when it comes to guac. I was like, why is their cheese on it? So interesting. And like, and so having that confirmation and realizing that that's where that came from.

The origin of it. Yeah. Yeah. So they brought out another guac and they like supersized it. Yeah. This is not in the, I'm going to say it here because whatever, organization is arbitrary. But I think when you're trying to fix something from a customer service standpoint, I understand the inclination to give a larger portion of the thing that you're fixing. But we got so much food that I didn't view it as a positive. to know that this pool of guac, most of it's going to go to waste. True. Because just from a portion standpoint, I don't have the appetite to eat that extra amount that you're giving me. I would ask if you're thinking about doing it and you think it's a kind gesture, ask the person. And they might be like, that's so kind of you.

I really appreciate it. It's not necessary. Yeah. And then take that as truth. Yeah. Because giving more food that won't be eaten is just food waste. This is true. They could have ordered or offered me a margarita. Or they could have just been like, we'll take one of the things off your bill.

Yeah. You know, I think that's the better way. And by the way, I don't even think we were owed that. Like, I'm not a person. I don't have a problem sending back food. But I never have an entitlement that like you have to make this right because you brought something out wrong. I don't care that you bring it wrong. I do care if it then takes forever to like bring the correct. food. Right. Because I've been there where it's like, oh, my burger had cheese on it. And now it's 25 minutes before my food shows up and everyone's done eating. That I don't like. Yeah. But I will never be mad that you got the order wrong. Or in this case, I didn't even know it would have cheese. So they brought it technically as we had asked. Yeah. You know? Yeah. They did. But it's just an insane way to make it. Yeah. It's to put cheese on it. Yeah. And what kind of cheese? Kotija.

Kotija. I am learning a new word. You and Joyce were just so like, why are you saying Kohita weird? I'm like, it's Kotija. But forever it's been Kohita. No, it hasn't. I know. C-O-T-I-J-A.

Cotea. Cotea. Got it. The chips were good. They're not too thick. They held up to the guac. So I did put the threesome. at an eight out of ten.

Okay. And I love their salsa. By the way, I know you're not touching the queso. Yeah. The queso was great. Was it the green chili queso? Because that's what they're known for. Yes.

Okay, yeah. And I do love queso, but this, and by the way, I make pretty good queso. But this was really good. What I was disappointed with in the threesome. was the chips. Really? Their standard chip, from the texture standpoint you mentioned, yes, if it can pick up a thick casso, that's great.

The flavor to me or the texture, something was a little bit off. Did you want more oil? I wanted it. And not in like a gross way. No, but I did want it crispier. Okay. So your dad makes... Maybe the best chips.

The best chips. Yeah. So I have that bar and I don't expect, I think we only have one restaurant that even comes close. Right. It's not this one. I do think he makes the best tortilla chips I've had. Yeah. They're great.

So this for me in the chip was at best. a five. But the case. So the threesome as a whole package. I was putting at a seven and a half. Okay. Yeah. I like the chips, but I just like chips. Yeah. I love chips. And I think that and I think that's the thing where it's just like, unless they're terrible, I'm probably going to be fooled into being satisfied enough.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you can just add more salsa. Yeah. Exactly. From a decor standpoint. Yeah. I liked being in here. There's a big, like, bulb lettering that says damn good above the soda machines. There's some interesting lights hanging down. Like I mentioned last week, there's a pitchfork for a door handle, which with their little cherubic devil mascot, I think, is really good attention to detail. Everything was clean. Everything was nice and open. This location had a bar.

I will say the TV was like we're out of service until like two weeks from now. Which I believe is why it was so quiet in there. Because that particular bar, and I've been into that location before, it really is the heartbeat of that place. It has a beautiful outdoor patio. One thing I think Torchies is known for is the huge live-volvement. folk that shades the outdoor patios at numerous locations. I think that's kind of one of their things. Yeah.

I like the drift. I think it's driftward paneling on the walls. So it does feel very Texas-like. And a little vintage. Yeah. I think that's kind of the nature of their mascot, too, is because it looks like one of those, it looks like a tattoo design that I would have. with like that 50s like rockabilly look.

Yeah. It's a very distinct fashion choice. I think it's Sailor Jerry is the art style. But yeah, so their mascot looks vintage of that era. Okay. So I think that's a proper observation. I had three tacos in the good. Okay.

I had the Wrangler. It's a breakfast taco with egg, brisket, and tots. Tomatio. the texture of the brisket was crispy in such a nice way. I love that. The edges crispy. It wasn't too soft. Yeah, it was the crispy edges.

And it was just like a nice texture little, not crunchy. It wasn't too much. But it was juicy as well. I have really been getting into a brisket breakfast taco. Yeah. I think brisket and eggs go together so well in a flour tortilla. which this was a flour tortilla. I went eight out of ten on the Wrangler.

Okay. I was pretty close. And the only reason I wasn't at an eight, I was at a 7.6 here, Michael, was we had a lot of items and everything wasn't real hot. Yeah, because we take pictures and video. We do. And I think, you know, eggs are one thing that have to be hot. Yeah. So I think that's what pulled mine down a little bit.

But I think the components of the ingredient or, you know, the taco work great. Yeah. And that brisket, I mean, you're getting brisket in Texas. It's like most, most places do brisket, at least decently in Texas. Yeah. And brisket doesn't have to be hot. Yeah. You know.

Do you have another one of the tacos in good that you want to talk about? The Democrat is my favorite. Yeah. The Democrat is beef barbacoa, avocado, cilantro, onions, to Tomatillo lime on corn tortilla. Yeah. I thought the barbacoa was not as tasty as the smoked brisket, but it was good. I thought it was slightly too tart because of the lime.

Oh, and I like that component. But lime is, like, I like the citrus of lime. I don't always love if it, like, if it, like, warps other things. Because, like, this felt like an especially tart lime. Okay. Because, you know, there's a spectrum that aligns. can be. And this one felt like a little too tart. I love lime on a taco. I thought that this impacted it a little too much for me. I went six and a half out of ten. I'm a solid nine.

Yeah. So we're, you know, this is right up at some of my favorite tacos. Really? Period. Okay. Honestly. Yeah. It's got all the components I love. You know, there are some people who like cilantro and some that don't. I appreciate it. Sure. And I do like salons. Contro, this is one where, like, if I'm not even changing ingredients, just if the dynamics of that lime had been a little differently, this could have gone way further with me. I also just beef barbacoa isn't a go-to for me. Yeah. Like, I would prefer a beef brisket over barbacoa 10 times out of 10. Well, I'm not normally a barbacoa fan, but this particular taco is really strong for me.

And then the other one that I had in good, because I did have the Democrat in good, just because I didn't love it as much as you. Doesn't mean I didn't like it nor doesn't mean I don't recommend it because I do. But the green chili pork. You cannot go wrong with that taco. I remember seeing an article about this taco on the wall framed from, I think, the Austin Chronicle at the Torchies that I would go to on the UT campus. This is the one that I would get in college. was my first rub with carnitas ever. Just everything works so well.

It was cold when we got it and it was still really tender and flavorful. And this one, I thought that the lime went really far. I thought that the lime complimented this one way more than the Democrat. I literally said the lime carried this one. Okay. Not carried it. Yeah. Enhanced it.

And carnitas are just such a tender, juicy meat. I love carnitas. I will never not get carnitas among other options. Yeah. You know? So this one I went eight out of ten. Okay. And I'm right there with you on that one.

Yeah. I think this is a great taco. It is a great taco. And if it had been like hot when we got it, this could have been like nine and a half. And I agree. I think all of these tacos in particular. Get an extra point or so just being hot. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The green chili pork taco. And this wasn't their fault. We just, we had so much food. It wasn't served cold. It was just that we had so much to taste. Yeah, we had a lot to get to. And we're like splitting it, so we're like cutting it.

Yeah. And then the last thing that I have in the good is the churros. Oh, okay. I thought these churros were so delicious. Now, this is one where like a negative becomes a positive. They forgot them. They did. So when we got them, they were piping hot.

I will agree. And we had so much food. They just would have been sitting there that whole time. So I agree that tardiness was a positive for us. So I wrote, these were hot, fresh, crisp exterior, soft inside with a great gooey caramel dip. Nine out of ten. I have such a sweet tooth that like, this went so far. And I'm always so hesitant with churros because they're always stale.

But when they're not, they're so good. So I love the churro. It was a little too thin for me. One thing I like about a churro is when there's a little bit of softness in the middle. I thought, I wrote that I thought this had that. Really? Okay. For me, I only have it as a sift.

Was it like too crispy or something? It was more crisp than, and I don't want to say gooey because I don't want a gooey churo. But I do want almost that little donut feel on the middle. Yeah. And the inside, not fried through. Huh. I feel like you're describing the experience I had. Yeah.

Like the thing you're saying you prefer is what I felt I got. Okay. Okay. But, I mean, that also speaks to consistency across. product, right? You know, not every churro bite is going to be perfect. This is true. We might have had two different churros.

I mean, we definitely did because we didn't like lady in the trampet. We were cutting some things up. Yeah. That I don't. I think Michael decided he gets a whole churro. No. No. That would never happen.

Do you have anything else in the good? I do. Do you have one more taco? I do. All right. None of. my other tacos are in good, but which one for you?

It's the brush fire. Okay, so the brush fire, it's Jamaican jerk chicken, grilled jalapeno, diced mango, cilantro, flour tortilla, diablo sauce. I'll say this. I had it at a six out of ten, which is the cusp between good

and just there. I think, given my flavor profile preferences, I nudge this down to just there. But I can understand how it's good because literally that score is the cusp score for me. So what did you really like about it? So in the same exact reasoning you had, I love sour cream.

Oh, uh-huh. And mango with a spice like the jerk that was in this one was the perfect cooling compliment and sweet compliment. I have it at an eight. You have it at an eight? I do. Gotcha. So I was surprised because having been to Jamaica many years ago, jerk chicken just almost so hot, I couldn't taste it because the heat came through first. Yeah.

This had the cooling elements with it. The mango, the sour cream, I think was a perfect combination. So I was surprised that I had this as high as I did. But I did have it in that category. And you went eight. I did. I'll talk about my opinions on it later. Okay.

All right. Well, that's everything that's good. We're going to jump into everything that was not good about our visit at Torchie's tacos. This is not so good. I'm not quite sure about. It could have done without it. Something brings down the mood. I think it's just matter of fact.

It's not even that I felt emotional about it. But I just have to factually point out how much was. missing from this order is just not good. No. You know? And they were very helpful with getting our things. Yeah. They didn't have an attitude.

They were blaming the kitchen, which I don't like giving me a scapegoat. Right. Be one well-oiled machine, you know, buck stops here kind of thing. I don't like it when it's like, oh, well, it's not my fault. It's this guy's fault. As a customer, I don't really care who's faulted it. I'm not mad about it. I just want the food.

Yeah. I don't I don't really need a reason. Now, the longer it goes, maybe then I would need a reason. But like, I don't know. I just, I'm not mad enough to warrant you telling me like, hey, Mitch doesn't have his shit together or you know, whatever. Like, I don't eat that. Well, again, it was a quiet evening. And I don't know how many people are back in the kitchen.

Yeah. But I always would assume there's two. Yeah. And I know based on there was only a handful of tables in the restaurant of people that were occupied. That were occupied that there should have been one person basically taking care of our order because we ordered so much. Yeah. That I don't think there should have been as many errors as there was. Right. And then there was the cheese on the guac thing, which it's like, again, they were very. very kind. We're like, oh, I overlooked that. I got all of your tacos, no cheese. Let me,

let me get you a guacno cheese and then upgraded, you know, upgraded us in size. So it's like, again, they were helpful. And by the way, there were plenty of workers there. Like, I think I saw seven different people that worked for Torchies there. How many do you think actually are in the kitchen? I don't know. Yeah. I didn't. But our order alone was probably half of the food being prepared in the whole restaurant. At that moment, for sure. Yeah. So, like, I wasn't mad about it.

And honestly, getting stuff later did help with the pacing of some stuff being warmer. Yeah. But it's just objectively, like, them not having it all together. Yeah. And then I know this isn't a negative for you, but like just country music as their playlist. I'm just like, I don't need this. It's Texas. It's Texas.

It's Texas. But I grew up there and I don't like country music. Well, I love it. I know you do. Yeah. Sorry. What did you have in the not good? That's literally all of mine was just the pacing on that.

You know, there was more positives than negatives for sure. Yeah. So I think the pacing of the food was the major hiccup. But that being said, you know, if from the get-go we could have said, you know what, every five minutes or every couple months. But that's a big ask because this isn't this isn't a casual restaurant. This isn't like an outback where it is the waiter's job to pace bringing stuff out. This is fast casual.

You order it all and you get it all. Yeah. That is the structure of this type of dining. Yeah. So pacing is more on us. Should we order two tacos, then go order two more, then go order two more. That would certainly be a hassle. So we didn't.

But it's kind of on you in a fast casual setting to pace your own food. Okay. It would be very presumptuous of us to be like, can you bring it out like this? I agree. No, I get it. You know, as they prepare it, they bring it out. But overall, it would have been really nice to have, you know, hot food. Yeah.

Again, with them forgetting a couple items, it turned out to be a benefit. that, you know, we could pace ourselves. Yeah. So I had that, you know, food came out in waves, which honestly with a lot of restaurants, they bring it out when it's ready. Yeah. But like if there had been any strategy behind the waves that they brought this out in, it would have been nonsensical because like our chips and dips came after our tacos. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is just odd. It's always nice to kind of get your appetizer out first. Yeah. But again, here it's more of a. side dish. Like, appetizer isn't a thing at fast casual. Okay. Well, then that's, that's my bad. Because for whatever reason, you know, so many Tex-Mex, you know, the first thing when you sit down, you get chips and you get your salsa. Yeah. And it is interesting that that was one that they didn't have ready with. Like, if they had at least brought it with our tacos, I'd have been like,

okay, cool. This makes sense. Yeah. The fact that it came after was just like, don't you just usually have these things kind of ready to go. Yeah, ready to go. Yeah. But yeah, okay. Well, that's everything that's not good. Let's talk about everything that's just there. This is a weird one.

I'm not quite sure what to say about it. But the stuff that is just. So for me, the brush fire I mentioned, the heat of the sauce was actually a lot. And I like heat. I do. This kind of overpowered the flavor of other things. things. And we're specifically talking about the brush fire. Yes. The Diablo salsa. Right. So there was sour cream and mango. Did you have both of those? I don't, I don't enjoy sour cream. I did have the mango.

I kind of think that would have made the difference because it's really the creamy cooling element. You almost need to enjoy a jerk taco, period. Well, and I know that, you know, milk, dairy, is what you chase peppers with because you want to, you know, fight against the capsaicin. Yep. So, sure. But I did enjoy the flavor of the Diablo sauce. I just felt it dominated the other flavors too much for me. The chicken was tender.

Jamaican jerk isn't my favorite spice blend in general. Not me either. Yeah. But you add a little mango to that and that little bit of sweetness. I thought it was a great combination. Sure. While I did have this on the custom. between just there and good.

I do have to say your mileage will vary, just depending on how much you like Jamaican jerk, if you like sour cream, you know, whatever it is. Just for my palate, it was, it didn't perform as highly as the other tacos.

That said, I would eat one of these again, and I'm not like, I'm not going to talk someone out of it. Yeah. And then the other taco that we got, I have in just there, and it sounds like you did too,

because you haven't brought it up yet. The Baja shrimp taco. And on the Baja shrimp taco, I actually tasted both the fried shrimp as well as the grilled shrimp. Right. Taco. And I will say my favorite protein is shrimp. Yeah. So I eat shrimp a lot.

Uh-huh. And both of them were just there. Yeah. So the thing I probably was most disappointed across the board. were the shrimp tacos. Yeah, and shrimp taco is very tasty. I do also love like a fried fish taco, which we didn't do. I don't, actually, we have their menu right here.

We can actually check. I don't think they have. They have a seared a hie tuna. They have a cornmeal-crusted catfish taco. That might have been really good, actually. They have a blackened salmon taco. I'm not a blackened seasoning person. Sure.

They do have fish options. Okay. Shrimp sounded good. It sure did. So I was just like, yeah, let's try their shrimp taco. The one that I tried was the grilled shrimp because Joyce got a fried shrimp one and that one had cheese on it. And so you tried that. Cooked cabbage claw, pickled onion, and jalapeno, cilantro, chippole sauce, and lime.

I thought the pickled stuff made it a little too sour for my personal tastes. The shrimp was fresh. I will say that. It wasn't like the best shrimp. I've had by any means. Yeah. But it was, it didn't taste like off or anything. Yeah.

I just thought that the other stuff made it more sour than I wanted. Yeah. I typically don't mind the pickling. I think I'm not a big Chipotle sauce fan. Okay. So that may have a little something to do with it, but I was not overwhelmed with the shrimp. Okay. I only had it at a four.

That was my worst. scoring were with the shrimp. Yeah. I had it at a five and a half. Okay. So not far from four, but I didn't think it was because that's like on the cusp of not good. Yeah. I don't think I finished it. I mean, I truly took a bite and I'm like, oh. And I eat a lot of shrimp. Fair. I was going to say, we also did get a lot of food. So like finishing everything would have been impossible. Is, you know, is a marathon. Yeah. You know. Well, that's everything for me. Is that everything for you? Is there anything else about the dining experience you want to bring up and talk about?

I think that's just about it. When we were talking about the threesome with the sauce, the tomatoa, that was delicious. And I don't think I threw that in there. That scoring wise was up there in the nines. The tomatia? The tomatoa sauce. Yeah, they have a very good. I was very surprised by that where I'd go and just buy the sauce. Torchise is where I learned that I prefer salsa vera to just like a red sauce. Yeah. Red salsa. It was delicious. All right. Well, that's all of the components of our meal at Torchies.

We need to put it together into a rating. And mom, I know you've been on the podcast before. Usually I only have my first time guests calibrate their scales. But you're my mother. I'm just genuinely interested in hearing about the worst and best meals of your life at a restaurant. So we're going to jump into this week's calibration station. Calibration station comparing this meal

to the best to the worst calibration station chugger chugging chugga chugger choo choo something you'd call a zero out of ten experience as a restaurant customer

something you'd call a 10 out of 10 experience as a restaurant customer you can start with whichever one you'd like. Okay. The keyword here is a meal experience correct dining next?

Right. It's not just the food. It's not just the food. So we had some visitors come to Austin and we're excited about sharing one of our favorite burger joint experiences. Sure. We took a ride, a boat ride on the-you-talking about. Yeah. On the Colorado River Lake Austin. And This happened to be the 5th of July. Fifth of July, everyone's hung over. So for us, we had one of those experiences. I know the food. So I knew the food would be good. Yeah.

Our experience, again, wanting to impress someone that came to town. We had a waiter that took a. drink order for us and did not return. You know, it's hot out. Fourth of July in Texas is probably a hundred degree day and did not return. And we had to call someone else over to say, hey, could you know, find our waiter and see if we can get a drink. Right. Well, eventually we got a drink. And I'm not actually 100% sure our waiter delivered our drink. that it might have been another staff member because it's been a few years.

At some point we saw our waiter, we ordered our food. And our food never came. So this was a, I know we've had those moments where dad says, I need to speak with the manager. My dad is the least satisfiable restaurant patron ever.

Well, this was extreme. Because if this is my least favorite. I'm not saying bad experiences haven't happened. And at that point, it like warrants either, you know, saying something or whatever. Yeah. But his barometer for what is a bad experience is off. Well, when you see, you know, his demeanor change into, I need to call the manager, everybody usually goes, oh. Yeah. Here we go.

So, yeah, food did not come. That was definitely, and I'll agree with him, time to ask the manager to come on over. He had to actually go into the parking lot, into the van of the employee that was missing to find him. The manager did or dad did? No, the manager. Okay, I was like, did my dad go to the parking lot and rip through people's cars? It's probably better than he didn't. But yeah, the manager did have to go.

wake up, our waiter, who obviously worked very hard on the 4th of July doing something. So needless to say, in this experience of our visitors meeting us for the first time, and again, someone we wanted to impress, you know, they had to see kind of the worst in temper from my husband to start that experience. So I'm sure at some point we got our food. I don't think it was comped, but we might have got a free drink out of it, which is, you know, we just wanted to have a nice experience, a nice boat ride and enjoy dinner. So not receiving your meal and having to search out your waiter is not, you know, a situation.

Right. So it wasn't about the quality of the food, but it was. the experience that absolutely just hit rock bottom. All right. And then what's your rock top? That's actually an easy one. Okay. On our 25th wedding anniversary, we were at a nice restaurant in the hill country of Texas. And we had a bottle of wine and on that bottle of wine there is this beautiful label of this castle in Italy. Yeah. And it became like, I want to go there. That was, you know, that was the place in the picture.

That was like beautiful. You know, I feel that way about screensavers sometimes. Yeah, I want to be there. We're like, you see something nice. You're like, oh, wow, what would it be like to go? And you went into your computer. You chased into the screensaver. I did. I googled the wine brand to find out they actually have the vineyard actually has a 14-room castle.

Yeah. And a Michelin Star restaurant. Ooh. Yeah. At the time we first went and we've been a couple times. Yeah. We've been very fortunate. It achieved a Michelin Star.

So the experience basically is, you know, a small dining room, full window of a castle lit at night, breathtaking, impeccable service food. You have a wait staff that kind of wait in the shadows and line the walls, you know, like... That sounds too secret society for me. No, no, they're not like you'd have to, you know, they stand and just watch to see, you know, do we need to go fill a glass. But perfect. They are not over-servicing you. They're there at the exact time you need it. And each plate was art as in Europe is typical.

My favorite dish, and there were so many bites, was a shrimp. risotto that they made look like a pizza. So just the way that it was laid out was like, you know, on a plate. Yeah. With with the full shrimp. And it was just beginning to end the experience, the view, the service. I wanted to transport to a meal experience. Costello Bomphi in Tuscany, Italy. Okay. Well, somewhere between living as a Disney princess eating in a castle and Cheech and Chong as your waiter, like a stoner comedy, passed out in his van. Yep.

Lies our experience that we had at Torchie's tacos. We're going to put it to The Chili's Test. Tortes is a scale Is it the worst? It's the best. Let's put it to the Chili's test. Tortise is a place that I've been looking forward to covering for a while.

They are expanding at such a rate to where more people have heard of them now. They're still not in California. They're still not in a lot of places. But 16 states out of 50 is still pretty solid growth for something that started only 20 years ago. So I have a. sense of pride for them being from Austin. I love a place whose origin is a food truck. There's just something romantic about that idea of like someone literally had a dream and bought a trailer to execute it and it has grown to something way more than I'm sure they ever imagined.

And it sounds like from the history, they put in the hard work to do so. They've got really fun branding. They've got really solid tacos. They've got a really good chiro. I liked the experience of being at Torchies. That said, the places that I go for Mexican food are always going to be, for the most part, mom and pop restaurants. To me, that just that experience overshadows what a chain experience can offer most of the time. And the profound amount of things that they like had to like, I had to go up and be like,

hey, this was left out of our order. Hey, this is. Hey, also, we got churros. There were like, you know, three or four trips back up to get our full order. It was brought in an order that was just difficult to consume everything warmly. It was still very solid. It was still what I would call good. It's not the best, but it's very solid. And I don't think any of my listeners would hate trying torches. I genuinely recommend it. I go 6.06. Okay. For torches. How about you? So for torches, much to my experience on the boat at a hamburger restaurant the day after a holiday, I think we went to Torches. Two days after a holiday. Two days after a holiday. So it felt quiet. me, which I think may have contributed to a couple things being a miss during our experience. I gave it

a 7.27 because the strength of so many of those items were really fantastic for me, and the service was secondary in that type of restaurant. And I'll also say the service was still very nice. No one had any problems with us being like, hey, this was left out. Hey, they never rolled their eyes. They never had any attitude about it. Not at all. Nothing tasted like spit. You know? Yeah. So yeah, I'm docking the service almost on the the absolute value of like just objectively. it's not great to leave items out. But they were still so pleasant to deal with and stuff like that. It was a very nice evening.

Yeah. I got to spend it with my son. I almost feel like I want to bump up my rating only because I am finding out for the first time just how popular Torches is by having 100 locations. Like 120-ish. Yeah. So obviously it's very successful. where you refer to prefering the mom and pops. Yeah.

To me, I thought Torchies was a mom and pop. Well, and it started that. I mean, every restaurant starts in that place. But then as it expands, just by nature, things change. But I must have blinked and all of a sudden it's this huge expansion. I remember the trailer. Yeah. So for me, I still associate it with the mom and pop.

and you just tend to love it a little more. Yeah, it's like a band that you saw at a bar once is now becoming big. And you're like, oh, they're that band. I remember when. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So when you put your score together with my score, believe it or not, Torchie's Tacos scores a 6.66666.

It could not be any more the devil. Oh, my gosh. That's. And so I'm going to round up. It is 6.6. Six, seven. Okay. That's actually a little creepy.

Right. So I was actually, I was very tickled when I saw that. Wow. That is damn good, Michael. Damn good. And it means that Torchie's Tacos is officially better than chilis. Better than chilis to be good. All right.

Well, I got to go somewhere. next week. Got to figure out where I want to, where I want to review, where I want to dive into the history on. So I'm going to reach into the You Must Bowl and pull out this piece of paper. Next week, I will be going to. Zaxby's.

Mom, thanks so much for joining me. It was a pleasure. It was so good getting to do another episode with you. It's been too long. And it's nice having you in the new set. Yeah. In this new place. This is great.

Right? Tell people you don't want them to follow you on social media, I assume. I wouldn't be able to find you if I did. Well, you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast. You can go to my Discord and chat with me. I'm super accessible. It's a fun little community there. I also have a Patreon.

If you want to support the show directly, you'd get an exclusive episode every single month. The full extended Yelp from Stranger's segments, occasional tastings and extra reviews and a new segment I'm doing where each of my guests are going to tell me what their restaurant rotation is. In the meantime, that's another one in the books. I will see you all next week with a brand new episode.

Thanks so much for watching. Have a fine day. Well, there's another one in the folks. We judge a service up to the cooks and while we may have gotten a couple of dirty loves. No, the journey can never stop Now from the bottom down to the top We got things on lock

And that's good chillies to Things up on the charge There's another We'll see you next a week And next a week, baby