Puesto Mexican Street Food, La Jolla, CA

my family at the window bar

Um, we just had THE BEST lunch ever. I was invited to bring in my family to Puesto Mexican Street Food, located in downtown La Jolla. They're an upscale fast-casual eatery that serves real authentic Mexican food made from whole, wonderful ingredients. All meals are made to order at a walk-up griddle in front of us, customer, and are uniquely curated based on the diner’s tastes and desire.

the prep station counter

Puesto is family-owned and operated by brothers, Eric and Alan Adler, native San Diegans and La Jolla High School alumni. They have been open for just 4 months and have rave reviews all around town. I am so glad I was offered to review them because we may have never known of them. We don't get to venture out to La Jolla to eat very often so this was a real treat. We went on a nice Sunday afternoon for lunch. A treat it was too, we have never had tacos SO GOOD. If you want to read more, continue on...

First of all, like with all places I go to, I check them out online, their menu, atmosphere, location, reviews...they seemed pretty cool, casual relaxing style, which we like.

So let me talk about how to order at Puesto. Have a look here first, you're going to either order tacos, rice bowls or salads. Then you choose your Guisados -meats, they have carne asada (steak), pollo al pastor (chicken), pork or camarones (shrimp) and salmon or vegetarian options such as papas con rajas (potatoes and chiles), papas con soy chorizo (potatoes and soy chorizo), huitlacoche (corn truffle), flor de calabaza (zucchini flower) and nopales asados (cactus).

Next you'll chose your toppings such as ting (hibiscus, chipotle onion), grilled pineapple, and jalapeno. They offer sides of black beans, rice, corn, chips and guacamole and tortillas. For the sweeter stuff they have frozen horchata and mexican street cups of fruit and veggie sticks with lime, chili and sea salt. They have lots of drinks to choose from too.

Whew, I hope I haven't lost you. But if you need help deciding, they offer a recommendation menu, which is how I ordered. No decisions to be made except meat or veggie style.

So their prices are fair, you can get 2 tacos for $6.45 or 3 for $8.95, the meat and rice bowl are $6.95 as well as the salads and meat add ins are extra. Everything else is a la carte, but let me tell you, these flavors are worth it.

Their menu cards is how you place your order, circle what you want and how many. Then you walk up to the counter where you can see your order being freshly made right in front of you. This is where I got lost, trying to take pictures of the process, help the kiddos with their orders that I didn't even get to watch mine being made. oops. So would you believe all three of our kiddos wanted salad. This is easier to order, they chose shrimp and carne asada, then you pick what lettuces and other veggies to add, at the counter and they mix it all up for you, and these are big salad bowls you guys.

salad w/shrimp on the side

my shrimp, carne asada and vegetarian tacos

So I ordered from their recommendations menu, shrimp, carne asada and vegetarian tacos. I love that they have different ingredients like cactus, hibiscus and zucchini flower. I think all three of my tacos had some of each in them. Oh and yes they are gluten free friendly. Mr. ordered a carne asada and shrimp taco and something else from his own choosing, but I forget what all he had on them (I meant to take pics of each menu card but felt rushed). I also wanted to try their mexican street cups and frozen horchata but forgot to mention it. Next time.

Mr.s tacos

So, we sat at the counters at the windows (see top photo of my kids and Husband eating), they have the cutest little wooden stools to spin on, I mean sit on. Then we all dug in. Oh. My. Gosh. the oohs and ahhs coming from our full mouths, wow. Every bite was so flavorful, I kept telling Mr. to try this one, try that one...he even agreed, he says they were the best shrimp tacos ever. The kids gobbled up their salads too.
Wow I could go on and on, but I've got lots of photos to share too, this may be my longest post yet. =)

All in all, it was a great lunch, we got there just before a crowd came in, parking was rough, there's plenty of areas to park, but finding a spot in a tourist haven town is crazy. We parked a couple blocks away which gave us a nice walk and I stumbled upon a cupcake shop that serves gluten free cuppies. =)

Your reward for reading through my book, is another book of all my Puesto photos, click here to check them all out.

Please follow along with Puesto on their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp and Blog.

Puesto
1026 Wall Street
La Jolla, CA 92037
phone 858.454.1260
Monday – Sunday 11am – 9pm
http://www.eatpuesto.com

leaving La Jolla

*Disclosure* I wrote this review for "Mommy? I'm Hungry!" about Puesto. The product(s) in this review were provided to me free of cost for the purpose of conducting my review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are not influenced by monetary compensation. Much thanks to Eric and Alan Adler for having us and my PR for inviting us.