Restaurant review - Tijuana Flats in Tampa

One of the greatest things about moving into a new area, or back to a place you loved and left, is the opportunity to visit new places and attractions and try out new restaurants.

My friends in Orlando had mentioned Tijuana Flats to me a few times before we got here.  Having been to and enjoyed places like Moe’s and Chipotle a number of times while in Birmingham and Milwaukee, I wasn’t quite ready to go out of my way to try out another burrito place anytime soon, especially considering the vast number of other restaurant choices that Tampa has to offer.

KC and I stopped in there 2 weeks ago with our youngest daughter in search of some cheap eats in a kid friendly atmosphere. We found that…and then some.  We have since returned 3 more times.  Here is what we found:

 The Good -

The menu is fairly basic with options for standard Mexican fare including quesadillas, chimichangas, tacos and burritos that are assembled with gourmet ingredients to your specifications.  Options for the health conscious include wheat tortilla shells, low cal sour cream and low cal shredded cheese.  For a little extra, you can also choose to have your selection made wet with queso, salsa or chipotle red sauce.

Between 4 and 7 p.m. 12 o.z. draft beers are just $1.   Typically, selections are limited to weak / cheap domestic lagers (Miller Lite, Budweiser, etc.) but TF gets thumbs up for opening their entire draft selection for a buck, including IPAs.

The Bad - 

Not much to say here.  Staff has always been friendly and accommodating and the dining area is about what you would expect for this type of casual establishment.  The Platt St. location that we visited seems to have some parking issues stemming from the building owner behind them, but other than that the experiences we’ve had were what were to have been expected.

The Ugly - 

Some people use hot sauce on occasion with specific foods (like Mexican), generally when what they are eating is overly bland.  Others, like myself, are total hot sauce maniacs who use it on absolutely everything, with a few exceptions, like fruit and breahfast cereal, and like the tattoo junkies who keep going back for more ink because they enjoy the pain…the hot sauce maniac lives for the rush of the heat and the way 300,000+ Scoville Units makes them a little light headed as their face turns red and beads of sweat begin to roll down their faces.

Tijuana Flats features a very kewl hot sauce bar with fixed dispensers (no gross bottles that have been handled by hundreds of previous diners) and varying levels of heat from “Sissy Sauce” to “Death Wish” for about 15 - 20 varieties of hot sauce that they make themselves.  The sauces can be purchased in bottles for home consumption as well. 

As someone who has tried a fairly broad variety of sauces, I can honestly say that when I tried “Endorphin Rush”, I thought that I had experienced the hottest of what is available.  On our first visit, one of their burrito twisters brought me a toothpick with an ever-so-small sampling of  “Blair’s 2 a.m.” (650,000+ Scoville Units).  Needless to say, I was still burning and sweating when we left.

With multiple locations throughout Florida and penetration into select cities throughout Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, I highly recommend giving TF a try.