Morgantown is not lacking in exciting, new restaurants. They come in all kinds and flavors - pizza and Asian and milkshakes and Mexican. While in town a bit ago, I stopped at Rio Jalisco.



The restaurant, located at the University Town Centre, is very similar to the other Mexican restaurants in town. There are a zillion menu options that are various combinations of tacos, burritos, fajitas, etc. You get complimentary chips & salsa. Add margaritas, and you have a solid college kid audience.



That said, nothing was bad. The chips were crisp. The salsa had just a touch of heat and was super thin.



Instead of arroz con pollo, I went with steak: rice, steak and cheese dip. I usually scan the menu for anything doused in cheese dip. But even cheese dip in this case couldn't save the chewy, gristly steak. Now, I don't expect super high end quality meal for the price, but I ended up with chewed up and spit out steak more often than not. 



Grade: C

Taco Spot is a food truck-turned-permanent-spot in Fayetteville. Rather than traveling around, I think they have a solid home on Court Street - next to an ice cream spot. Tacos and ice cream, does it get much better?



The menu isn't huge - a few tacos, nachos, rice and beans. But they also have specials that are always creative and look delicious.



They have beef quesa birria tacos, chicken tinga tacos, and barbecue pork tacos. You can get three tacos with rice and beans, so I did that with one of each kind.



The beans, which I'm not usually a fan of refried beans, were good because they were kinda thick and had cheese on top, so points there. And the rice was not dry, which is another common fatal flaw. 



My favorite taco was the bbq pork. I like the bit of smoky and sweetness. But they were all good - flavorful, moist and creative yet classic. The chopped onions and cilantro make the tacos so fresh. Solid tacos.

Grade: A

A new chef has settled in Charleston, bringing her Mississippi and California roots with her.



Chef Amanda Ivy began arousing excitement when she announced she and her food truck Low Ivy Catering were coming to the Capitol City. She has since pivoted into a different pop-up concept, as well as made-to-order tamales.



Delta Tamalero: Handmade Tamale Orders Serving West Virginia! Chef Amanda was born in Mississippi and Raised in California. Our Tamales are a hybrid of a traditional Mexican Tamale and a Mississippi Delta Style.



She has been offering two different styles per week, with one being vegetarian. You simply can email her and indicate how many dozen you would like. I went with a dozen of the pimento cheese, which I simply warmed up in the microwave and added some sour cream and scallions for a delicious snack. 

Some of the others she's offered include: 
Pulled pork 
Sweet potato masa and collard green
Oaxacan chicken mole
Cheeto and pimento cheese
Black bean
Pork tinga
Flaming hot chicken and pepperjack
Potato and pepperjack

Which have been your favorite?

I've been hearing really good things about Guadalajara Modern Mexican in Nitro, so I was looking over the menu when I discovered the description for their shrimp fajitas: "12 jumbo shrimp caught fresh from the Kanawha River grilled with fajita veggies. Served with rice, beans, cema salad and tortillas."



They ultimately said it was a joke...  At the very least, it turned me off from that item. So I opted to try a different dish instead. I ordered the "Enchilada Supremas," which is ground beef, shredded chicken, tinga chicken, and potato enchiladas. They're topped with a mole sauce, lettuce, crema, tomatoes and cheese. Plus a side of queso.



The space was bright and busy, but super quick with my order. First, I dug into the queso dip, which is much thicker and has more heat than other quesos I've had. You can see bits of pepper and spices, which is often absent from otherwise very thin, cream quesos. I did enjoy this rendition with a bit more kick!



The enchiladas were good, except instead of a potato one, I received a pork one. I was weirdly looking forward to the potato one because it's different. But they were all tasty, and I'm enjoying learning about and trying different types of mole. This dish is beautiful - colorful - and certainly filling. The chicken tinga enchilada was my favorite because it was full of flavor.

Grade: B 

I had never heard of South of the Border before, but when I was driving south I stumbled upon it along the trip.



It's hard to miss really. I saw some giant signs and sculptures from the road so I knew I had to make a stop. It certainly is a tourist trap and has questionable characterization of folks. But I wanted to see what the hubbub was all about.  

South of the Border has been a landmark of the southeast for nearly 70 years, and we see no end in sight! Our trademark has always been a value-oriented service ~ we provide a clean, safe & fun environment for travelers of all types to visit on their way to or from the southeast. Our attitude is our philosophy – take it easy on the road of life! In 1949, Mr. Alan Schafer built a simple 18 x 36 foot beer stand known as South of the Border Beer Depot. As it adjoined the North Carolina counties, which were dry of alcoholic beverages, business boomed. A few years later a 10-seat grill was added and the business was re-named South of the Border Drive-In.

In 1954, Mr. Schafer added 20 motel rooms. Materials for the addition were shipped to “Schafer Project South of the (North Carolina) Border”. Mr. Schafer shortened the name of his business to South of the Border.

Business was steadily expanded with Mexican trinkets and numerous kitsch items imported from Mexico. The site itself also began to expand to include a cocktail lounge, gas station and souvenir shop. In 1962, South of the Border expanded into fireworks sales, potentially capitalizing on the fact fireworks were illegal in North Carolina. In 1964 it was announced that the route for I-95 would pass right by South of the Border, and the facility would be next to two exits and within view of the highway. By the mid-1960s, South of the Border had expanded to include a barber shop, drug store, a variety store, a post office an outdoor go-kart track complete with other outdoor recreational facilities and the 104 feet (32 m) tall image of the mascot, Pedro.One may ask, “How did Pedro come about?” Well, Mr. Schafer went to Mexico to establish import connections and met two young men. He helped them get admitted to the United States, and they went to work at the motel office as bellboys for several years. People started calling them Pedro and Pancho, and eventually just Pedro.

What about those signs? They are all designed by Mr. Schafer himself. Around 175 billboards are north and south from the Virginia/North Carolina state lines to the South Carolina/Georgia state lines. (At one time there were more than 250 different billboards from Philadelphia, PA to Daytona Beach, FL.) Many of these billboards are on I-95. They are also north and south on Highway 301/501, east and west on Highways 9 & 17. There are a few billboards on I-20.



South of the Border has a few different restaurants -  one of them being Pedro's Hot Tamale. They serve breakfast, Tex-Mex food, and even beer. I went with an odd combination of both a cheeseburger and a pork tamale just to try the range of food they had available.



Both of these I actually thought were fine. The cheeseburger had plenty of cheese, which is always my favorite part of the sandwich and the tamale - while I don't know enough to know whether it was traditional or not - it was tasty. So it was a quick easy stop that filled my belly and a check mark off the list.



Grade: B

While I don't get to the mall in Charleston often, I did make a special trip there recently to try out the new "Mexican Grill." 



The counter-service restaurant is located in the food court and has photos of the popular dishes you can order. That's probably helpful for those who aren't familiar with the options - or even for those who don't read well or have another communication issue. More places should do this.



I ordered the Arroz Con Pollo - it's likely one of the items most commonly ordered, so it's a good benchmark. 



First, though, were some fresh chips and salsa. I could tell the chips had just been pulled from the oil - you could see and hear from the kitchen. The salsa was average.



The chicken was plentiful, but the only cheese was mixed in with the rice, and I could've gone for a lot more. Not bad, but not the best version I've had. Next time, I'll ask for more queso on the side.

Grade: B

Sometimes when I visit Weirton, it looks like a whole different world. When I was growing up, there was a Walmart where there is now a whole shopping plaza, which includes Crazy Mexican Restaurant & Grill.



This restaurant describes itself this way: "Authentic Mexican fair, margaritas, beers, main dining, mezzanine seating, patios and party room." 



I placed a big order for a bunch of different things to take back to my family. While I waited inside, I took in how large this place really is. There are colorful decorations criss-crossing the dining room, which drew my attention to the second level of dining. I don't know that I've seen a Mexican restaurant this big! 



I had to wait for quite some time for my order, but once it was finally ready, I was excited to take it home and chow down. First up: These hard tacos with steak. Hard tacos are not my favorite, but my mom enjoyed this slightly elevated take on the classic ground beef taco. 



One of my favorites was the arroz con pollo. Chicken + rice + queso = always tasty. I can only imagine how much better this dish could be if it was peppered with plump, juicy hunks of chicken breast rather than the slivers of chicken that are usually a bit dry.



We also had a burrito California, which is a giant burrito with all the fixins: steak, avocado, onion, rice, beans, etc. Dad was a fan of this with all of the variety. And the barbacoa street tacos - cilantro and white onion on corn tortilla - were tasty, but also a bit dry. 



Chicken chimichangas were topped with lettuce and tomato, and it. all kinda became a bit soggy, but it wasn't bad. I mostly moved those off to the side, because they don't add much flavor, and enjoy the simple chicken chimichanga.



Finally, a taco salad with ground beef. I didn't try this one, but mom enjoyed it. Overall, this place was fairly average - but I did enjoy the extra fanfare.

Grade: B

Casa Nuevo in Athens is a worker-owned restaurant dishing out Mexican-inspired food. 



The fact that it's worker-owned was super interesting to me. What does that mean? 



"A worker-owned co-op is a business where the workers of the cooperative have joined together to produce goods and/or services for sale. The workers, being the only members of the cooperative, elect the Board of Directors and share whatever profits are earned by the business."



They also don't allow tipping - instead, they pay their "Casatrons" a liveable wage (what they call their servers). They just have a very cool, progressive way of running their business - from how they support their employees to how they source their food and everything inbetween. 



Because I visited during the era of COVID19, it was takeout only. So after perusing the menu full of burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and enchiladas, I went with the Albondigas: pork meatballs simmered in the house BBQ salsa and served on a bed of jasmine rice. 



These were really tasty! I was so full from our mini food tour of Athens, but I kept sneaking bites of these meatballs. They were moist and had some sweetness and some spice. And I loved how there was plenty of the salsa to soak into the jasmine rice, which is sometime my most favorite part of a meal. 



Grade: A

Mi Pueblito in Milton is an orange building with a red roof that sticks out a bit on the main drag.



I've spent more time in Milton recently, as my favorite local baker operates there. 



Inside the restaurant, it's bright and colorful with depictions of scenery on booths and tables. 



I placed a call to pick up an order that included chips & salsa, camaron con arroz, and burrito superior.



The chips & salsa were pretty straight forward - standard Mexican restaurant fare. The camaron con arroz - shrimp, rice and cheese - was tasty, but a bit on the dry side. I wouldve loved some more fresh cheese dip to drizzle and mix in to freshen it all up. The burrito - which was more of the same but with chicken instead of shrimp - fared better with some fresh cheese dip and sour cream to perk it up.

Grade: B

Rio Grande is a popular name for a Mexican restaurant - so much so that there are two in Huntington alone.



I recently visited the 4th Avenue location while in the area and in need of a quick bite. I placed an order online and arrived when it was due to be ready. Unfortunately, the woman working informed me there was some error, so they didn't receive it and just started working on it when I arrived.



So, I sat inside and waited some more while the order was delivered to the kitchen and fired. After some time, my dish came out. The waitress went to fill my drink... but kept looking at it... which made me uneasy. Then, she said she thought they mixed up some of the drinks - I said it was fine and to just give me a coke instead. And then, there was no plasticware to go... which made for an interesting way to eat lunch. 



So the burrito California Burrito is a flour tortilla with grilled steak, french fries, pico de gallo and cheese. And, it was okay. The interior needed crispy fries for some texture, but it was instead all mush and all tasted of oil. I dumped cheese dip on it, which can solve all things. But, I think I'll try the other location next time.

Grade: C