Colima’s Mexican Food

Holy S**t this spot is heaven!!! They’ll make/​customize any order and are fairly quick. Among the best burritos I’ve had in SD!

Best taco shop!!! Always order the Carne Asada fries with nacho cheese and it’s never a disappointment. Highly recommend getting the drive thru fixed. They have the best hot sauce around town!

From the outside the restaurant looks very unassuming and small. Inside the aroma’s are pleasing and the small area for seating does not seem to matter as people come and go rather quickly. Probably on their lunch break.
I order my usual chicken rolled taco’s with guacamole, beans and rice. The guacamole is fresh and the spices taste wonderful, just wish I had more! The beans, cheese and rice are just the standard average like you’d get from El Torito. The rolled taco’s are a bit crunchy, the chicken is good. You can’t beat the price for all the food you get!
Next time I’ll have to try out different menu items. The Posole soup sounds good with pork or chicken, hominy, garlic, and chili. Or maybe a Chimichanga.

This place replaced Rolbertos (by the 15 freeway) after a night of drinking and partying. But you know its really good when I still Colimas during the day! After moving to the bay area I appreciate Mexican food so much more and this place never disappoints whenever I am back in SD.
I feel bad for people who have never had their Surf and Turf fries lol. They are missing out. Their other burritos are also good here. They have 3 that are massive burritos, Surf and Turf (asada and shrimp) Colimas (asada and fish) and Del Mar (shrimp and fish) all around $ 9 – 10 but will take 2 – 3 people to finish for sure.
Haven’t had anything I didn’t like here. I think last time I came back home to visit I came all 3 days. :D

The food is good but when it says you close at 4 am in the morning on Friday to Saturday, close your doors at 4, not 3:11 am. It doesn’t help when an employee is rude and were trying to spend money here. This is my 4^th time eating here this week and if the rude customer service continues I’ll take my business else where.

Thank you fate for moving me 1 block from my new favorite Mexican fast food spot. The only bad thing about this place is with so many good experiences so far, and so much on the menu how does one even decide?!?

These guys are open until the late hours, which is great. Drive thru available, as well as on site parking. Now, moving to the food:
OUR FOOD WAS AMAZING.
I had the surf and turf fries (shrimp and beef), and they were in 1 word: AMAZING.
1 order will definitely will feed 2 hungry stomachs. I will be back soon here.

So far we have tried the Colima burrito (giant, come hungry), the pollo asado fries (again, huge portion. Enough for 2 people), the carne asada burrito and the California burrito. They were all delicious, cooked excellently, and the salsas included added to the taste.
The drive thru microphone can be a little difficult to hear, but that’s not a huge problem.
The only thing that would make this place better would be to increase the lot size so that the drive-​thru line doesn’t curve out onto the street!

This place is LEGIT. Their signature Colimas Burrito looks like a joke burrito. It weighs about 5lbs and is basically the size of a newborn baby. It’s filled with rice, carne asada AND breaded fish along with a bunch of other fillers. A true surf and turf experience. Honestly there is nothing on the menu that is bad, I am glad the cooks know what they are doing. Even there salsa bar is awesome.

Their burritos are HUGE!
— Got the Colima. The length of my forearm. Friend challenged to finish it in 18 minutes. Did it with 10 seconds to spare. First 10 minutes tasted great. Last 7 minutes life was a bit harder. ⁸⁄₁₀ would do it again.

The First History Man: «Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves?»
Mad Max Fury Road
Saturdays I use to bike down this road on my way to Comic Kingdom. It was the furthest I had ever biked but comic books were the obsession of my 8 year old self. I never let myself get distracted on my quest but I remember a Pioneer Chicken and a Food Basket along the way but I don’t remember Colima’s Mexican Food.
Now across the street I see Food Basket is now a bordered up Haagen. I wandered back here in my search for delicious potato tacos. I try 4 potato taquitos for $ 4. My hopes are high eyeing the fat tacquito dripping grease. Taquito has a nice crunchy tortilla shell and generous amount of filling. Ordered plain flavor is mostly plain except this really strong objectional flavor I think is lime. Was only able to eat half a tacquito.
I wander back outside and my search continues.

There is a HUGE piece of hard plastic in my burrito and it scratched the back of my throat… wtf!?

Vegetarian review:
Totally based off of potato tacos (unsure of these are on the menu)
— pretty much mashed potatoes w/​the usual tomatoes, cheese (melty, not crumbly), & shredded lettuce. No ‘wow’ factor, no special sauce on it or anything. Use the salsa they offer.
Pros:
— they have a lot of veggie options, most of them things you’d expect. Enchiladas, veggie burrito, fries, etc.
— sauteed onions & grilled peppers are hanging out in a bowl so you can get them at leisure. So are salsas– mild, medium, hot, avocado.
If you’re a meatasaurus, the place seems to be delicious. Carne asada fries are popular.

I stopped by here for some late night eats. Colima is in north park in a lot just by itself. Parking is not bad since the store has its own lot and private parking. There is a drive through as well. The shop itself looks like your typical Mexican hole in the wall taco shop.
I had the surf and turf fries which was about 10 bux. The dish was whipped up in a timely manner. The portion was huge and filled up two empty stomachs. The fries were not too cripsy. The beef was good but the shrimp was exceptionally tasty. This place doesn’t skimp when it comes to shrimp. They gave a good quantity of ginormous shrimp that was firm and juicy. Tie everything up and this is a 4.5 star dish. I just wasn’t fond with the crispness of the fries.
Service was standard fast food restaurant rype quality but I wasn’t expecting anything more than that. However they do charge a fee for using credit cards. I wasn’t fond of this tactic as there are many other taco shops that do not tack on extra fees for using credit cards regardless of purchase amount.
4.5 stars for the surf and turf and 4 stars for service

This review is in sharp contrast to my original review. I think I’ve been eating here too much — but it has garnered me the experience to now be an authority [chuckle-​chuckle] on their various food items, and ordering experiences. Here goes, unapologetically speaking Colima’s catch phrase should read: «Yo, would you like some Mexican food with that salt?»
Here’s the bullets;
–The Drive thru: ridiculously slow: no, you cannot take my debit card and walk around from car to car with it
–The wait: By the time you get your food– after you succumbed to giving the order-​taker you burrito wish…6 cars back… you can be sure your burrito will be extremely cold when you finally get it
–Mistakes: the last 3 times… in a row it has been mistake after mistake [ it’s always with a smile, as everyone is nice here ] from getting the diablo red-​sauce in the shrimp burrito, to getting a TJ shrimp burrito requesting NO GUAC, but avo-slices…only to get home and the tartar mixed with the GUAC; [ formed a slimy disgusting wet glob of «I hate burritos». Couldn’t believe they screwed this up! I almost drove back. But, I live to far. Can you imagine the 10 min drive to the place, the :30 wait in line… only to… well…just NO~!
Yesterday I got a chili relleno /​tamale combo «green sauce please». Result: Tamale the size of a cigar, the most bazaar interpretation of a chili relleno. just a weird rubber and hello, –sweet!!!- breading? Wha? NO cheese inside the chili relleno. They also did not seed the pepper, they also gave me zero green sauce. Their rice is tasteless. Beans were ok.
Salsas: They should be called Saltsas. Inconsistent. Each time tasting completely different. Sometimes hot, sometimes mild… but you can always count on something watery bathing in a salt lick bath.
I am super-​duper bummed and don’t think I’ll be back. They do use good quality shrimp, I just have no Forest Gump way of knowing what I’m gonna get here!

TGFY!
It’s been a long time since I’ve had good Mexican food, so I had to do it right in San Diego. From the countless reviews on how good this place is and the stress on their awesome burritos, it was obligatory I had a California Burrito. Plus, I’ve never had a Cali Burrito before (Pick up that jaw, I’m from Northern California and we don’t have those …)! Colima’s was close to my place in North Park, so Anthony L and I decided to drive-​thru it to dine at home.
The California Burrito was ah-​may-​zing. None of that fast food quality taste, but with fast food prices. The burrito had even portions of rice, meat, beans, fries, guac, sour cream (full fat, non of that low fat stuff) and it was hefty– like KO somebody if you whacked them in the face hefty. Their green salsa has heat to it, compared to the mild salsa verde at other Mexican spots. Horchata was typical, nothing amazing but way better than the Horchata at Vallarta’s– theirs comes out of a soda fountain machine FYI.
First time having a Cali Burrito and I’m sold! Colima’s is a win.
P. S. Yes, this place looks janky AF and their drive-​thru speaker doesn’t work– they literally have someone standing there to take your order. However, their food speaks for itself. I guess the reviews here factor in to, especially if you’re reading this O:-)

This place is yummy yummy. I have been here a couple of times and there is a huge selection on the menu. It seems like that try to go a little outside the box as far as taco shop experiences go. They even have a North Park burrito which seems to be mostly veggies.
This visit was easy for us. We ordered to-​go and only got a carne asada burrito and chili verde fries. I believe they got the fries wrong and we got carnitas fries. Unless they are the same thing. The burrito was perfect.
I give this place 4 stars because the wait was really long for what we ordered. Other people with more items than us were receiving their food before us even if they had ordered after us. The food is good, but I did feel it was too long to wait at a taco shop. I think next time we will go through the drive-​thru because it seemed to go quicker. I would understand the wait time if we had ordered a bunch of items or special items, but I believe our order was simple.

This is for the cubicle warriors and other employees on some version of office lockdown during the work week. I don’t get to see you often but it’s go time and we respond when duty calls. Last weekend was a birthday bar crawl and it was good times. It always is.
There are a couple of 4^th meal spots around town that I enjoy and Colima’s has recently become of my favorites for a monster burrito fix. Further expanding my list of late night options, Colima’s isn’t anything fancy, but then again, nothing on University Ave is. Well, maybe Tobacco Rhoda’s, but they’re more Neat than Fancy, and a whole nuther story for later.
The menu is vast. Solid variety. Tried a brekky burrito. It was ok. Will search another. My burrito faves are their Surf & Turf (great carne asada plus tasty shrimp — they don’t skrimp) and the Vaquero (bean and cheese plus carne asada AND chorizo — swoon!). The salsa bar has something for everybody. Green sauce, Red sauce. Redder sauce, like a bawse. They have a drive-​thru, but it’s worth stopping inside to stare at the menu board and get all the salsas. Check out their burrito specials sometime.
Designated drinkers. After strolling down 30^th St, we stopped at:
— Tiger! Tiger!
— Belching Beaver
— Rip Current
— Young Hickory
— Toronado
— Redwings
— Coin Op
— Office Bar
Could’ve maybe done one more, but eight is enough ;) Not too shabby. Thank you, Colima’s, for providing many delicious snacks.

My coworkers and I decided to eat here after a late night shift because it was the only Mexican food spot that was open in close proximity. Thank you, 24-​hour food gods. It’s a small little joint with a drive-​thru and a parking lot, so don’t worry about having to park on the street unless it’s incredibly busy.
Since we were hungry, but not starving, we decided to share one order of carne asada fries. (Also, we felt guilty because we had eaten at a restaurant prior to our shift). It was a pretty good size portion to share between the three of us because we were limiting ourselves, but if I wanted to eat more, I could’ve.
The fries were the thick kind. They were good and cooked to a crisp, but I prefer thinner fries. The shredded cheese was not melted whatsoever. It was just placed on top of the fries and meat. Was our order to «hot» enough for the cheese to melt itself? Now that I think of it, it wasn’t THAT warm. The sour cream and guacamole are just plopped on, also. I mean, it was good, but it wasn’t the best. I think I have really high expectations when it comes to my Mexican food, though.
If it’s late at night and I’m in the area, I’d come back simply because of the convenience for it being a 24-​hour spot.

Colimas’s is one of those places that you always end up going back to because you just want a good tasting meal without worrying about if its go well or not. I frequent Colimas’s often enough, especially when I just want some good local San Diego Mexican grub. This place probably remains as one of my most favorite taco shops in the local area, simply because of everything they offer here. The menu is vast with lots of different items, including stuff for vegetarians. I mean the place offers like over 20 different types of burritos, what else could you ask for? I don’t know of any other taco shop in the SD area which sells such a variety of burritos, tacos, tortas, etc.
Don’t even get me started on all the extras at this place. Large salsa bar, including five different sauces, peppers, and onions. Then you got the awesome drive through and they’re open to the wee hours of the early morning. Sure they’re not 24 hrs like Vallarta and some of the other places, but I’ve found that twenty four hour places cater too much to the drunk crowd rather than making good food. Colimas makes for great local taco shop food, can’t ever go wrong with one of their burritos, especially a California.

The breakfast burritos are AWESOME! The salsa is muy picante!