Tortilla Heights

(415)346-4531
1750 Divisadero St.
(@ Bush)
San Francisco, CA
(Western Addition district)

Price: $
Rating: 6.5 (Rating & price key)
Last visit: 09/30/06

This casual gringo-mex joint serves up decent fare at reasonable prices. Located in a large'ish open space, Tortilla Heights has a good tequilla selection and two large TVs (and a projector for Monday games). Decor is mostly generic "mexican"-themed advertising from Corona and the like.

It was happy hour (4-6 everyday) when we arrived, so we had Herradura Silver margaritas for $4/ea. Unless you get well margaritas, you must get them on the rocks (their blended margs are from a machine).

We were brought the usual chips and salsa and found the chips to be nicely fresh and thin, but the salsa was weak and devoid of flavor. Sarah had heard that the queso ($4) was good here, so we ordered that as an appetizer. Sure enough, it was a proper midwestern queso dip, tasting, as it should, of velveeta, with a little bit of tomato and spice stirred in. A guilty non-foodie pleasure to be sure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

They have tacos ($3.50 for non-seafood, $4 for seafood) and burritos a la carte, and from that section we ordered 4, Sarah a carne asada and a carnitas and me one fish and one carne asada. Tacos are available either soft or crispy, and we both opted for crispy. Sarah hadn't realized that "crispy" in this case means a crispy shell with a soft shell around it, but pronounced her tacos as pretty good. My fish taco was flavorful and had a generous fillet of white fish, not overcooked, and nicely flaky. The carne asada was bland, however, with little char or meaty flavor. We split a side of black beans with cheese ($2), which tasted alright, but wound up being too much to eat.

Our server Megan came by often, offering more margaritas whenever ours were low, and was friendly and efficient. Our bill after tax, before tip, was $40, including 4 margs. This seems like a decent mellow place to go drinking with a group, or to watch games. I would imagine it gets fuller and louder later in the evening, though. It's the sort of restaurant that could be just about anywhere, and it's certainly not authentic mexican food, but for americanized mex, it was alright, and it's nice to know where to get a good midwestern-style queso dip.