Finally, I feel like I’ve been to just about all of the food trucks in LA that I have any desire to visit. Yes, I know I haven’t been to all of them, but I think I’ve been to enough to justify paying a visit to the Border Grill Truck, despite the fact that the Border Grill is already a restaurant I have been to. I guess I just wanted to see how an upscale Mexican restaurant could translate into a truck. People seemed to be enjoying their food outside of the truck, so I went to see if I could partake in their enjoyment.

They were actually running a special that looked quite nice to me. It was Chorizo Hash Taquitos with Chipotle Crema. Sounds perfectly unvegan, right? So I ordered two for five bucks. Just to be sure, I asked if the taquitos came with anything else on them, like vegetables, and was told they didn’t.

So imagine my surprise as the taquitos were handed to me and covered in dreadful pico de gallo. Obviously I had been lied to and I grabbed a fork from the truck to scrape off this awful concoction of tomato and onion. Unfortunately, this also scraped away the chipotle crema, leaving me very little to actually taste for myself. With these vegetables taken care of, I took a bite of the taquitos and discovered even more objectionable vegetables, peppers! And this wasn’t just one bite of anomaly. Interspersed throughout these taquitos were peppers (and not the hot kind, which are tasty) that were nearly impossible to remove because of the closed-off nature of taquitos.

Unfortunately, the edible parts of the taquitos weren’t tasty enough to justify such liberal vegetable use. The chorizo was decent, but hard to taste over the peppers. The chipotle crema on top was also decent, but probably would have been better if I could have eaten more of it. If only they had told me my meal was going to be invaded by veggies, I could have not ordered it. Instead, I was misled, which made things even worse. Sorry, Border Grill Truck, but five bucks is a high price to pay for an okay taquito special filled with lies.

It’s pretty rare, but sometimes it’s good to break free of Mexican fast-food and slow, yet still greasy Mexican food. To make this jump, I went to the Border Grill in Santa Monica and attempted to class-up my Mexican repertoire.

They actually had a surprisingly welcome selection of unvegan options and I was torn between a few of the dishes. The steep prices may have ended up playing a role in my final selection, which was still pretty pricey at $15. This was one of their specials, the Chicken Adobo Quesadilla. Adobo is a great seasoning, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong. It came with manchego, panela and cotija cheeses inside, and mizuna salad, salsa fresca, guacamole and sour cream on the outside. I ordered mine without the mizuna salad and although I’m not entirely sure what “mizuna” means, I know it involved vegetables I didn’t want to eat.

When my quesadilla arrived, I was perturbed by the dilapidated greens resting upon my meal. Usually I can kind of understand that garnishings make foods look prettier, but whatever greens were laying atop my quesadilla made it look wholly unappetizing. I scraped these miscreants from my food and tried to forget about them as I ate my meal.

The quesadilla was quite good, especially topped with guacamole. There was also a nice selection of salsas on the table that I was able to taste with the quesadilla. Unfortunately, it was unable to live up to the $15 price tag. Maybe ten bucks would be doable, but considering all the cheap Mexican food LA has to offer, I won’t be dropping $15 on a quesadilla again anytime soon.