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Restaurant Ratings

The ratings are based mostly on the degree to which the food excites us, and a little on environment, service, and other considerations. I rate restaurants relative to all other restaurants in the New Orleans area. Here's what the stars mean to me:

starstarstarstarstar
Among the best locally.

starstarstarstar
Excellent and ambitious.

starstarstar
Worth crossing town for.

starstar
Recommended.

*
Acceptable.

No star
Unacceptable.

Cost Ratings
Each dollar sign indicates a ten-dollar range, including a normal meal for the restaurant (dinner, if they serve other meals), not including drinks, or tips. So, for example. . .

1$--$5-15
2$--$15-25
3$--$25-35

. . . and so on, with no upper limit. While this scheme may suggest mathematical precision, know that perception of price varies from diner to diner as much as the star ratings do. So consider this an estimate.

All reviews are based entirely on meals I have personally taken at the restaurant and paid for from my own pocket. I don't take free review meals, nor am I reimbursed by anybody for my restaurant expenditures.

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Felipe's Taqueria

Mexican.
Broadmoor: 6215 S Miro. 504-309-2776. Map.
French Quarter: 301 N Peters 504-267-4406. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously seven days.
Very Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Taqueria-style Mexican cafes were waiting to happen in New Orleans. It's odd that the hurricane triggered their proliferation around the city. Felipe's straddled the divide between the Americanized Tex-Mex restaurants we always had here and the true Mexican taqueria. The latter is to Mexico what the hamburger stand is to America. It certainly has a fast-food aspect, but stops well short of becoming Taco Bell.

WHY IT'S GOOD
Felipe's deceptively small menu offers more possibilities than it seems. Pick a variety of meat, a kind of tortilla, and a salsa or garnish, and it might be the only taco of that kind sold this year. Most of it is pretty good, but since most of it comes up from a steam table, it's doesn't have a sharp edge. But at these prices it's hard to argue. The crowd skews to the young side.

BACKSTORY
The original Felipe's opened in 2004 in Harvard Square in Cambridge. Yes, Boston. That the next location wound up opening in late 2006, on a Broadmoor side street that had six feet of Katrina floodwater just a year before seems odd. The local connection is Elio Todaro, whose wine store next door already brought in a lot of traffic. The New Orleans group opened the second Felipe's in the French Quarter earlier this year, in the former Hooter's.

DINING ROOM
Both locations have simple, self-serve dining rooms. One steps up to a cafeteria-style line to place and pick up orders.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
You choose a tortilla style, a meat, and a topping. Or more than one.
Styles:
Burritos (flour tortilla, beans and salsa).
Quesadilla (grilled flour tortilla, cheese and salsa).
Chimichanga (fried burrito).
Nachos.
Tacos (crisp or soft tortilla, beans, cheese, lettuce).
Tostada (crisp corn tortilla, beans, cheese, lettuce).

Meats:
Grilled chicken.
Carnitas (pulled pork).
Al pastor (pineapple-marinated shaved pork).
Chorizo sausage.
Grilled steak.
Shrimp.
Fish.

Desserts:
Flan.
Churros.

FOR BEST RESULTS
If you're willing to try anything, ask what came out of the kitchen most recently and get that. They cook in small batches, but I've had as much tepid food as hot.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
I'll never get used to eating anything from atop waxed paper in a plastic basket.

FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

This review was updated with new information on 12/14/2009.

 

A list of all 275 full, current reviews is here.