Chemas

Cuisine Mexican
Price $ (under 15)
Rating 5/10
Last Visit Dec. 22, 2019
Location Other: Reno
General Notes

Chemas is a Mexican restaurant in Sparks serving up a variety of dishes that you might typically find at a Mexican restaurant. Apparently, they're really well known for their tacos. During my experience, I found the food to be quite average - nothing especially bad nor particularly noteworthy. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though - I came at a pretty dead time (Sunday night); there was only one other party there, and I do believe that their tacos would probably be much better if there were more people and the meats were more freshly prepared. Otherwise, a decent cheap option for a satisfying meal.

Positives

> Free chips/salsa at the start of the meal. The chips are nice, but the salsa is a bit too watery for my taste.
> Absurdly cheap. Tacos are $1.50 each, and there are very few dishes that will run you over $10.
> Great service; the server was really friendly and helpful.

Negatives

> I wouldn't normally point this out, but the bathroom smells really strange, and due to the fact that our table was in somewhat close proximity to the bathroom, the whole table smelled a bit unpleasant.

Dishes Tasted
  • ★★☆☆ Tacos -- I got the al pastor, steak, carne asada, and carnitas. Normally, carnitas are one of my favorite meats, but this time it was quite dry. The others were quite nice. In some sense this is the "real deal", since tacos traditionally come with just the tortilla and meat. But in this case I do think that the other elements, such as a bit of salsa or onion, would have lifted up the dish a lot. As a whole, it was a bit too drying and needed something acidic to brighten the flavor.
  • ★★☆☆ Tostada de Ceviche -- Raw shrimp cooked in lime juice. The shrimp was really tough and didn't have much of a shrimp flavor at all. Aside from that though, it feels like it needs a little something extra to lift the flavor. Okay but could probably be a lot better.