Barracuda Taqueria

We’ve been here twice for happy hour during the week and love it. VERY relaxed, casual atmosphere with good «street» food and sangria.
The first time we went, we shared an order of nachos. This is supposed to be an appetizer, but it is a HUGE plate. Easily enough for 2 – 4 people to share.
The second time we went, we ordered tacos (they have Taco Tuesdays, $ 1 off each taco). We ordered two tacos each; a shrimp, a flank steak, a chicken mole, and a brisket. All were very good and fresh.
The chips and salsa are nothing to write home about, with pretty spicy salsa, and they charged us $ 2 for them, which I thought was odd since we bought drinks and dinner.
Great service, great happy hour ($ 2 beers, $ 3 sangria). We’ll be back for a quick dinner.

Great presentation and service, unfortunately food didn’t taste so great to me and my companion for lunch the other day. We each ordered a variety of tacos and while they were very pretty to look at, they were all seasoned pretty blandly with only one salsa and hot sauce available.
Taste for tacos may be influenced that both of us spent a lot of time with taco trucks in Austin TX, but this just didn’t measure up.

3.5 stars — can’t believe finally found good tacos in Seattle :) Very lucky find.
Cozy, tucked-​away gem on an unassuming stretch of Denny is the perfect low-​key dinner spot.
Everything was super-​fresh and seasoned well, was surprisingly impressed. They were out of lengua :(so I tried the al pastor taco and carne a la plancha torta. Al pastor was definitely slow-​roasted and juicy. Steak was delish and good quality. Friend ordered the veg tacos, which were also yum. Only complaint was that I’ve had much better torta bread, and didn’t care much for the corn tortilla, which was denser than average.
Tacos and tortas are $ 4 each.
Nice group enclave in the back that could be good for a small dinner party.
Happy hour: $ 1 off tacos, $ 2 beers, $ 3 Sangria
Mon-​Fri 3−6pm, Tues. all day
Friendly service, will be back

Popped in for a late lunch with a couple of friends on a sunny day. We had been wandering around Belltown for a few hours and were hungry, tired and thirsty. Barracuda delivered the necessary solutions to our ailments in the form of cold beers and delicious tacos!
I tried the shrimp and brisket tacos and they were both awesome. Piled high with the protein of choice and condiments like grilled onions or tomatoes, we had to get a little crafty about taking bites of the tacos and not getting them all over our faces and laps. It was well worth the struggle. The service was nice and friendly and it was lovely to sit by the open windows and feel the slight breeze coming through as we sipped our Tecates. Yum!
I had a LivingSocial deal and I did not experience the trouble that a previous reviewer had… at all. I’m kind of surprised at the negative review and believe there was a communication breakdown. Since the deal was not applicable towards happy hour and one of my friends waited for happy hour to order, she requested her own check and was given it without a problem. I used the deal towards my/​the boy’s check and we paid the difference — again, without a problem. Maybe the reviewer should have requested his own check if he wanted to hoard his deal? Don’t be put off by reviews like that, this is a really lovely and accommodating place with great food.

Barracuda has been on my short list to try for at least it seems a year. Always ends up on a Sunday afternoon (when it’s closed) that I think about going. Well, that changes as I thought about going on a Saturday mid afternoon before a Mariners game to check it out.
I walked in and was immediately greeted and offered any open table in the house. I liked that every table was different dimensions and were basic antique wooden tables. I can see this being a very comfortable place to relax and enjoy my meal.
Ordered some salsa, chips and guacamole that came in a large basket with plenty of chips (no need to order more). The guacamole was really good and fresh and could have eaten much more. Chips are quite salty and you’ll definitely be drinking to compensate for the salt. The salsa was basic blended tomatos with lots of garlic and spicy; but not too spicy.
I wanted to order the carnitas torta, but found the carnitas was still cooking and ordered beef brisket as the replacement. I found the brisket to be a bit stringy where you take a bite and end up with more in the bite than you’d want. It was tasty, just not tender enough to desolve in my mouth as I’d wish.
I can see giving Barracuda 4-​stars as I want to go back and will go back to check out some of the other offerings. Just a few inconsistencys keeping me at the 3-​star level for now.

I’ve been to Mexico a bunch of times — not the touristy areas, but the backwater areas that require the hiring of a sturdy driver and van that fills with fine dust as you bump your way down the road — and then later all your nose boogers are white from the road dust. Ew. Okay, moving on.
This place sorta feels like those backwater restaurants I love in Mexico. Except instead of a Tarascan mamacita behind the counter there’s a hipster waif. And instead of spending 78 cents on a meal, you’re spending much more than that. But don’t get me wrong, this place is affordable.
Yummy! Love it. I’m afraid no one will go there because it’s hard to see. Tortas! Tacos! Nachos! Modelo!

Taking advantage of a groupon special, like everyone else apparently, I visited Barracuda Taqueria recently.
Pros:
— FOOD. Seriously. The food was outstanding, OUT. STANDING. Cannot emphasize enough how good the food was here. Two tacos for $ 8 – 9 might seem a bit expensive, but they were very generously filled, to the point where I could barely wrap my shell around them. Also, the chips were the best homemade chips I’ve had in Seattle. Wow.
— The staff was great! Very helpful, very nice, even when you can tell they were really busy and probably stressed out, they were still really nice.
— Décor. It was this kind of quaint, not in your face kind of eclectic that I really enjoyed. I sat near the window on a warm day and it was beautiful. The walls are different colored and patterned, but not in a way that overwhelms you, just enough to notice them. Each table had a little carafe of water on it for drinking, which I thought was really nice.
Cons:
— The space is very small. There are approximately 5 – 8 tables, ranging from 2 person to 8 person seating. Don’t come here with a large group hoping to eat sitting together.
— «Family seating» aka sitting with strangers. This is the second problem with space. sometimes you are forced to sit with others while you eat. While some people may enjoy this opportunity to meet someone new and have a nice chat, I find it obtrusive and bothersome. I lucked out and grabbed the last 2-​person table in the joint, but if I couldn’t have, I probably would have taken my order to go.
— Location. It’s in a weird spot to get to on Denny because there aren’t left turns allowed, you have to usually circle a block or proactively go down another road. It’s downtown, so parking is what you would expect.
Overall the pros completely outweigh the cons. The limited seating and bad location are going to prevent me from making this a regular stop, but I will be going out of my way to stop by in the future.

We were invited by the owner for a redo via Unilocal.
Arrived around 8ish on a Friday night, and the place was buzzin’ wall to wall. Stood around and waited about 20 minutes, watching the craziness of a crowded dining room with only 1 human there to bus, serve, wait on all of customers, and greet new arrivals. Nice.
We gave our server the $ 25 gift certificate the owner had emailed as soon as we were arrived, per instructions.
Eventually we were seated and decided to give their vegetarian nachos a second chance, as well as try their sangria. The sangria was served heavily iced, almost like a soda. It was too sweet, and tasted slightly like chilled cough syrup.
The nachos arrived promptly, and loaded down with ground beef.
The server was in such a hurry that we couldn’t even point this out as she rushed off. One of us had to follow her back up to the front of the restaurant to let her know they had been made with ground beef.
Our dinner guest tried the al pastor street taco, which was good and as per other reviews, a small portion.
The meat-​laden nachos remained at our table while we waited for our nachos to arrive, and we decided to gift them to a couple seated at a nearby table. They were pretty psyched, and it made my night to see all that food not go to waste.
The redo on the nachos didn’t take a long time, although by the time they arrived our guest was done eating. The black beans were more balanced in flavor this time, and not as dry. Overall they were OK, although so many jalapeños was overkill.
The server also brought back the $ 25 gift certificate and told us to hang on to it for next time.
Her night only got busier and more chaotic, and although we realize how overworked she was it still would have been nice to have her swing back through after serving us the nacho redo, and check on things. Our guest would have liked a second taco, and we all could have used drink refills. In fact, we might have ordered some wine had we been given the opportunity.
We waited for a while after we were done eating, and wound up flagging her down to double check on the bill. She said it was on the house, and we decided to leave a tip anyway. Clearly, she was trying to do the right thing for the customer in our case. It’s just not humanly possible to provide good service when the ratio is 1 server:+30 patrons.
And so the question remains … and with some of the recent iffy reviews for Barracuda, I’m even less sure we should return. Will it be 3’s a charm, or 3 strikes?

Authentic, but not where the rich would go.
Ambience: 3
Food: 3
Value: 4
Unilocaled onto this Taqueria strolling through Queen Anne. The hype is probably not worth it. Yes, the food is good: I had the shrimp tacos and the carne asada. The food is very rustic, I saw the cook make the soft taco shell from fresh dough right there. However, this is authentic, which is to say, it’s not with all the trimmings of guacamole and sour cream, which I personally enjoy.
A couple of tips, they allow you to take to food next door to catina/​bar to eat, which is cool, because next door has happy hour drinks.

I was pleasantly surprised about their taco, they were delish~! I used the Unilocal deal $ 15 for $ 30 worth of food for the dinner. Took us a little while to order $ 30 worth of food. Their price is good! $ 4−5/taco, and it’s gourmet style!
First of, their Sopa de Lima y Pollo soup was really good. The spike of lime juice really hit the spot. Pair perfectly with the tortilla chips. Then I had the Lengua taco (beef tongue), very very good! It was seasoned to perfection. I’m pretty sure they use wine to sauté those lengua. Another taco I would recommend is the Chile Lime Spiked Shrimp, the shrimps are fresh and good size. I can tell they are not frozen! pairing with the arbol sauce was just awesome.
Overall, I had a really good experience, I don’t mind the service at all, given that there were only one server for the whole restaurant on a Friday night. As long as the food is good, that’s all I’m care about. I also like how the trendy design the restaurant has like the pixelated symbol made by beer cap and the signature fish at the counter. They serve genuine mexican coca cola and beer too!
This restaurant certain raised the bar of gourmet Mexican food. Hey, you don’t get too many non-​americanized taco around Seattle. This is one of them.

Lunch date at a new taqueria? Score! Having read rave reviews about the Barracuda, we finally opted for it today. Big. Mistake.
We arrived to the hostess being on the telephone, no big deal, she sort of glares at us… whatever. I’m not here for the ambiance, although, I have to say, it’s kinda snappy inside, many neat photos, hip-​borderline-​kitsch. I like. Upon looking at the menu, I’m thinking, $ 4 for tacos, maybe two of them? In that case, not so bad. That, however, was not the case. Call me cheap (most people do, and I’m totally comfortable with that), but $ 4 a taco is not by any stretch of the imagination affordable. I guess they are catering to the Belltown crowd, huh?
The waitress/​hostess approaches us, and seriously, DOES NOT UTTER A SINGLE WORD. I honestly thought she was mute for a minute, minus the telephone thing, unless that was to avoid contact in the first place. I have been to some places with terrible service, but this silent treatment is the most bizarre thing that I’ve ever, ever experienced. She just stood there, I finally guessed she wanted us to order. We should have walked out. Seriously, who the heck just comes and stands uncomfortably over your table until you speak. Freakin’ weird, awkward, straight up rude.
We ordered 4 tacos, no chips, nada (over $ 20 with an EXTREMELY modest, though undeserved tip). They claim homemade this and fresh that. Whatever. Bland, tough tortillas are exactly that, I don’t care who made them if they aren’t good. The al pastor was chewy, tasteless, nothing like the meat I so adore. An abomination, really. The fish, likewise, was bland, tasteless, topped with likewise bland veggies. Oh yeah, the tacos are SMALL! The whole meal was like a mouthful of chewy. It felt like a total rip-​off. The $ 1 tacos you can find at almost any taco truck kick the Barracuda’s ass straight from the water (pun intended). Maybe this beached barracuda would be tastier than their «fresh fish». Hey! There’s an idea!
The «waitress», if you can even call her that, returned to ask us if we wanted to order more (if it was free, I would have considered), then promptly brought our bill without a word. Interesting though, she seemed much chattier with the bigger-​spending clients. Food nepotism is simply the worst. Kinda fake, more so pathetic.
Even if they got rid of this «server» for the likes of someone who actually asked you what you’d like to order (the basics, people… I don’t ask for much) rather than stare awkwardly, I probably wouldn’t drop another $ 20 for 2 tacos for 2 people ever again. This would have been tastier with better service for $ 4 at Tequila. Food for thought.
Avoid Barracuda unless you feel like laughing your ass off about your awkward waitress afterward. But hey, what do I know…
Thanks for listening.

Finally! I’ve been wanting to hit up Barracuda since it opened and today was the day. I see some reviews in here about the service and I’ll be the first to admit that it wasn’t the best. But hey, I was there to eat the food, not the service.
If you’re wondering why photos of the food are abundant and photos of the business are lacking, it’s because this place is TEENY TINY! There are 4 or 5 tables of varying sizes. In total about 15 people could eat at once. This didn’t seem to be a problem at all however, because I was here for about 30 minutes and only 4 – 5 other people came in to eat while I was there. Plenty of space!
Our pitcher of water ran out pretty fast and maybe the server could have been more attentive but overall I think the experience was great. Not enough to dock any starts… especially considering how good the food was. People complain that the tacos are $ 4 each but if they’ve ever been to Mexico, they’d see that tacos there are ½ the size and ¹⁄₃ the toppings. $ 4 is just fine for these. They’re tasty and they have a great variety. I was starving so in addition to the Everest sized pile of nachos that could feed a small country (or maybe 4 people) I ordered up: carnitas, al pastor, pollo en mole, and planchado. All of them were great and I was so full from the food I could only take a bite of two of each and still ended up taking half of the nachos home. Oh… and I ate with my boyfriend, not alone! So this really was a ton of food.
NOTE: If you’ve never been there, don’t do what I did and ask about seating. There’s a somewhat obvious sign (at waist level) that says SEAT YOURSELF. You’ll feel kinda dumb :)

I’m pretty torn about this place… somehow I really wanted more.
I saw a few things about this joint in Unilocal and recruited the BFF for another night of inspiration for another review. I read a few of the reviews before we went and was genuinely stoked about potentially ordering all kinds of tacos and reveling in ever single bite. I haven’t been able to find a real spot for authentic street tacos in Seattle and was excited because of all the rave reviews. So off we went.
This place was a bit difficult to find, its pretty tucked away on a side street but upon walking it I quickly noticed that it was small, cozy and darn right charming. The tables already had water in pitchers and we were greeted with a sign that said seat yourself. It appeared there was only one person serving but no biggie, its a small spot with roughly five tables so this wasn’t a deterrent at all.
Everyone raved about the nachos, so we ordered that then a few beers. We were absolutely starved, so we did a quick scan of the menu and decided that I would choose a handful of tacos and he would pick out a few tortas so that we could get a good feel of the heat this place was bringing. I was ready! The nachos came out and so did the beers, so we quickly jumped in.
What I found odd was that when she brought the nachos, she didn’t ask if we wanted to order… again, not a deterrent as i was happy munching on the nachos. The nachos were pretty good, they had the picadillo meat, it was piled high with a a great heap of guac on top. The cheese was like the type you get on 7 – 11 nachos but it worked. They had this chili salt on the table which went well with the guac. We almost demolished all of our nachos by the time the server came back to take our order… Still unfazed, I ordered the carnitas and al pastor… when she quickly told me they were out. hmmm… bummer. how can you be out of carnitas and al pastor? Pretty much staples of ANY street taco. This place was getting fishy in my book.
So, I settled on the spicy chili shrimp tacos and the la plancha. Both were really good! The shrimp brought some serious heat and had a great pickled red slaw. The BFF liked the la plancha-​the beef was tender and the onions were sweet and perfectly caramelized. It came with a side of red salsa – seeds and all – that packed another punch.
So, which brings me to why the 3 stars… The service was friendly but pretty hit or miss as far as attentiveness. The food was good but the running out of some pretty traditional items, ahem, carnitas and al pastor is pretty disappointing. Worse, the BFF and I probably encountered the most pathetic rubber lime in the northwest. It was dry and tasted like it was cut 3 days ago and had been resting on the counter soaking up all the air and smells of the kitchen. EWWW.
I’m not sure I’ll come back but it was worth a shot anyway. I’m still in the search of the best street taco Seattle can offer.

Mmm. I like Barracuda Taqueria.
Barracuda is a gourmet street style Mexican restaurant. Fresh, homemade tortillas stuffed with meat, cilantro and queso fresco! They may be $ 4 each, but they are huuuge and it only takes two to fill me up when usually I can eat four or five at other more authentic restaurants. The shrimp tacos here are spicy and the chicken mole is my favorite but often sold out.
I want to try to the rotisserie chicken next!

This place shocked the hell out of me. Quietly tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Denny St, we ventured to this cute little taqueria. But don’t be fooled by thinking this is a simple taco shop. Walking in, you see tables and chairs that will make you feel right at home. These are tables that will have you thinking family-​style dinners with your famished friends or family. I particularly like their water pitchers which are cleverly disguised as open-​mouthed fish vases. Cute and stylish!
The food is pretty good and impressively priced! $ 7 will get you a scrumptiously huge salad that I aggressively devoured. $ 4 will get you a deliciously filling veggie taco which I also scarfed down. $ 7 got my love a ginormous heap of nachos that can easily be shared by 4 starving folks (or a great man v. food challenge for one brave soul).
The waiter was really friendly and made us laugh which only enhanced our experience here.
Tasted, loved, and will for sure be back.

This place is small and has no air conditioner, normally this won’t be a problem for Seattle but we went there couple days ago and it was steaming in there!
One thing to note is their corn tortillas taste different than what others offer… I think it’s the proportion of the corn and flour — thicker, coarser texture, and taste slightly sweeter. The fillings for the tacos are good, we tried a couple different ones but honestly we’ve had better. With $ 4.00 a taco — even though the size is a little bigger than what you get from taco truck, it’s just a little too expensive. There are so many other choices that sells better taco at a cheaper price.
The restaurant itself is cute and cozy, service was great… too bad it isn’t the case for their price on food and beer.

We popped into Baracuda to use the restroom after the Pride Parade and decided to stay and have lunch. Service was pretty good. The food was just ok in my opinion. Big disclaimer though– I am vegetarian so I didn’t have any of the meat dishes. I will say, the Black Beans are vegan (except for the Cojita cheese on top FYI) and were delicious. I ordered a cheese quesadilla off the kids menu and was really disappointed. I think the cheese in the quesadilla was also cojita but it was not melted. (Does cojita melt?) Plus it was super tiny — maybe 5 or 6″ across. Another person in my party had the Cod fish tacos and said they were so-​so. The third person had the Chile con Queso (yes, cheese dip and chips for lunch) and thought they were great. (I think it’s pretty hard to screw up cheese dip and chips.) The fourth person in our party had the picadillo taco and loved it.
I thought the prices were really cheap until we got our food. Everything is ala carte so in order to get a decent meal you end up ordering two tacos ($ 4+ each) and maybe a side of beans ($ 2.50). You end up at more than $ 10 with tax.
I would give this place a second try if I weren’t vegetarian (since there aren’t many veggie only options) but I won’t be rushing back.

I’ve seen this getting a bunch of reviews, and I’m a Mexican food loving gal so I decided I *needed* to try it.
I got a couple strange looks when I ordered ONE taco, to go… but I have a bit of a confession. I had already eaten lunch (blush) I just HAD to try a taco from here and since I was driving by… well…I had to get one you see.
I got the Picadillo «street taco». I don’t know what street in Mexico sells tacos like this, but it’s sure to be one with large houses and people with fancier-​than-​normal tastes. The meat was good, but the toppings were overboard, and… is that CHEESE on my taco? Um… no. Cheese on tacos? No no no no no. The corn tortilla (made in-​house I guess) was delish, but I tossed off most of the toppings as it was overboard (and no, it wasn’t just because I had previously eaten).
$ 4 for this taco… everyone calls it a screaming deal. I beg to differ. I’m all for the authentic «street tacos». You know, a couple corn tortillas, some seasoned meat of your choice topped with onion salsa and cilantro served up with some lime, radish, and maybe even a roasted onion or pepper on the side. THAT for $.99 is a screaming deal. I could have had four of those for the price of this one fancy schmancy taco.
I’m giving it three stars because it was A-​OK considering you like that kind of thing. In the end I was disappointed and happy I’d already eaten.

I’d go 3.5 leaning towards the 4^th star. The salsa’s great, the chips are just ok, and out of a cheap bag. I had the steak taco which was very good and had lots of flavor, I would definitely get it again. I also had the carnitas taco which was difficult to get a lot of the flavor of due to how much pineapple salsa they had on it. The accompanying side salsa for the carnitas was quite good as well.
The service was mediocre and I think it’s typical of this place due to the hipster guys working there. Better to look cool than give good service? Not in my book. Weird seating arrangement and I think they should change it but that’s just my opinion.
Also, a little on the pricey side for what you’re getting but I would stop in for a taco if I lived in the area every now & then. 2.75 stars for service, 4 stars for steak taco & salsa… 3 seems too little and 4 is too many.

I have a total hard on for this place now. Ever since i left Cali Ive seen missing real Mexican food. I pity the Seattlites that think that Taco Del Mar or Taco Time is anything close to Mexican food.
The décor is pretty cool, little bowls of salt and a spoon on the tables, along with pitchers of water ready to go. There is some attention to comfort level. I ordered to go but then i spied the Pacifico’s and wish i would have stayed.
The hostess with the pretty eyes reco’ed the shrimp tacos, so I got that, and a beef taco (carne a la plancha). The corn tortillas are soft and really tasty i thought, but breaks apart pretty easily. Makes the tacos kinda messy. The beef one was seriously excellent tho.
White and green sauce were included with it. Good but i’d rather have a chipotle or somethign deeper red and roasted flavor.
They said they’ll start breakfast next week if this weekends trial run does good. How you can judge something for one weekend without anybody knowing about it yet, i’m not sure, but my vote is… fuck ya. I totally want to grab some bfast tacos on my way to work.
So props. Keep the quality up there. I’ve seen too many places that have stoked me out, then totally disappoint 2 months later. *cough* Papa Jones BBQ. *cough* o.0