I’m blessed (or maybe cursed) with working downtown, so I get to try a lot of the big-name food carts. Tacofino have always been a pretty solid choice for fish tacos. Their commissary/restaurant has been open for a couple years but I haven’t had a chance to try it until now. So glad I did.

Tacofino Commissary is located on East Hastings near Nanaimo, in the up-and-coming “East Village” area, just next to Platform 7. There’s a little bit of overlap between the truck and restaurant menus. They have an expanded dinner menu here that looks interesting.

One thing you definitely CAN’T get at the trucks is the Ice Cream Sandwich! 😀 You can get the cookies, but not the ice cream sandwich.

I like the ceiling.

Two salsas and a hot sauce.

Back of the room.

Good, tight selection of beer on tap. Bottle selection is ok. I understand that they have to cater to their clientele. Sierra Nevada or Anchor Steam would keep me happy.

Chips and salsa.

Crunchy housemade tortilla chips are fresh-tasting, thick and robust.

I believe this was a non-alcoholic mint lime “freshie”.

L-R: Fish Taco (crispy ling cod, cabbage, chipotle mayo, salsa fresca) and Yam Tempura Taco (cabbage, avocado, plum vinegar-soy). The fish taco tasted just like how I’ve had at the truck — like the lightest, crispiest, freshest-tasting fish ‘n chips you’ve ever had, served in a flour tortilla. Yam tempura taco was also fresh-tasting, non-greasy, satisfying and delicious. They’re really good at deep-frying here. Eating these overloaded tacos is messy but delicious. Good thing there’s plenty of napkins on the table.

A new one for me, the Pork Jowl (cabbage, fried shallot, pineapple, sriracha). Flavour was great but I thought the pork got a bit buried by the toppings. More meat or less toppings would make things better.

Now for dessert: amazing Ice Cream Sandwich with “chocolate diablo cookies” and horchata ice cream. IT’S SO GOOD! I’ve plastered this pic over Twitter and Instagram before, so it’s worthing making it real and putting this into a post 🙂 One of the most pleasurable pieces of art I’ve eaten. Rich dark chocolate cookie with a salty contrast and a noticeable spicy kick. Sweet milk chocolate medallions embedded on top, in case that wasn’t enough chocolate for you. Cold, icy horchata ice cream inside (horchata is a Mexican rice/almond drink that’s usually flavoured with vanilla and cinnamon). It’s decadent enough eating just the cookie, but take two of them and slap a fat hockey puck of cold ice cream in the middle and you’ve got the ultimate hands-on dessert. The knife is there if you want to share, but you probably won’t want to.