The Place

Like a few well-known food trucks across California, Tacomania started as a San Jose food truck in 2005 and eventually spread to several cities around the Bay Area before opening their first brick-and-mortar storefront in 2012. Coincidentally, the new Mountain View location also happens to be very close to where I work currently.

With it’s hot pink and yellow signage throughout the storefront to excite the customer, it’s dark wood panels and quasi-industrial look throughout, Tacomania certainly stands among the businesses nearby.

The Goods

Carnitas is my go to meat for tacos; I love it when the pork is the right kind of crispy yet tender, and Tacolicious didn’t disappoint. I put a bit of salsa verde (a staple on many Mexican family food tables that’s has a more milder taste with a bit of kick at the end, well, based off of how my grandma makes it)  on my tacos and gave it a go.

I’ll admit that I am not that adventurous when it comes to the meats that I will eat, but knowing that you guys are just as curious and perhaps a bit nervous when trying new stuff I decided to try something new. Since they had it on the menu, I decided to give the buche tacos a try.

For those of you who don’t know, buche is simply pork belly which itself is the fleshy underbelly of the pig right below the stomach area that’s connected to the loin area. It tends to be a bit fatty and is usually seasoned with a heavy hand of salt. If you were thinking this sounds like bacon, that’s because it is… sort of (it only becomes bacon once you smoke the meat). Still, the buche tacos were amazing, both equal parts of greasy, fatty meat and salty, spare rib goodness.

The Details

Tacomania has five locations around the South Bay, this particular location is right on the corner of Old Middlefield Road and Rengstorff Avenue in Mountain View. All locations have various addresses and hours of operations, so call or click ahead before you visit. You can dine in, take out, or go through popular delivery services like: DoorDash, UberEats, Amazon Prime Now, or Waiter.com to get your taco fix. All locations do take cash and card.

Where should we go next? Please let us know in the comments below.

A special shout out to Mary at the MV location, who helped get us set up for this article.

Oops: An earlier edition had named the restaurant “Tacolicious”, instead of “Tacomania”.We regret this error.