13. Taco Mar

Taco Mar
314 S. High Street
West Chester, PA

It's packed on a recent night with college kids seeking refuge from one more Nor'easter with warm, cheap comfort food. Cheap and warm it was. Good? Not so much.

On the plus side, there is a lot of variety at this step-up from fast food. Hard shell and soft shell tacos. Multiple choices of meat and toppings. An entire corner of the restaurant devoted to sauces and toppings.

But it all looks much better than it tastes at Taco Mar. The Beef Taco on a hard shell corn tortilla arrived cold, although we watched the woman behind the counter assemble it moments earlier. The beef on this one was too finely ground, almost into a mush.

The Chicken Taco was the best choice, with the breast meat cut right off a chicken spinning on a rotisserie. The Baja Taco – a combo of fish and shrimp – was fried in too much batter.

And the Octopus Taco, for which we had high hopes, was a "one-bite-and-done" disappointment. Hey, I love eating octopus, and actually had a great Octopus Taco the other day downtown at Tequilas (to be reviewed soon). But this monstrosity of the sea came soaked in oil, which made the tortilla a dripping mess and left us with an unpleasant aftertaste.

All in all, not a "Clash of the Tacos" contender.

Score: 60/100