Eating Out: Los Nopales
Tucked into a bend of Old Lexington Road in the Waughtown neighborhood, Los Nopales is in prime Mexican food territory.
So I had high hopes when my friend Dan and I headed to Los Nopales earlier this week. We ordered cheese and chicharron (pork rind) pupusas, a barbacoa gordita and a chicken torta, all washed down with some horchata.
The verdict? You won’t be reading about Los Nopales from me anytime soon (other than here). For one, it’s not a new restaurant that opened with a lot of fanfare in a prominent location. But it’s not exactly worth hunting out, either. I was hoping to bring you a review of the next great little taqueria, and that’s not going to happen, either. There are plenty of better choices across Winston-Salem for truly excellent Mexican food. Los Nopales is not one of them. It’s not a good sign to be sitting at a restaurant, daydreaming about another just up the street. In my case, I picked at my chicken torta with its dry, broken bun, flavorless meat and serious dearth of avocado, thinking all the while of La Perlita and its rotisserie chicken, doused with addictive salsa verde literally about a block away.
In hindsight, I had some doubts about Los Nopales from the moment we walked in. It was lunchtime on a Wednesday, and we were two of four people in the place. The other taquerias nearby are usually packed with local Latinos on their lunch breaks. I didn’t take Los Nopales’ quiet as a good sign (though I did like that the restaurant was staffed by one woman - she did all the order-taking and cooking, but maybe there’s a reason they don’t need more people working).
I’d come here again for the pupusas. But that’s it. Life’s too short to waste on mediocre Mexican.
