King Tacos

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: 1700 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes:  Two tacos, one taco rice with lettuce and cheese, bara bara chicken (fried chicken)
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

King Tacos is a chain in Okinawa that specializes in Taco Rice, a sort of Okinawan dish that is basically taco meat on Japanese rice with lettuce, tomato and maybe some cheese or salsa-ish sauce.  It's a very common "comfort food" in Japan that was probably a result of using American rations in a novel way (to Okinawans).  To me it's always reminded me of something I would have made in my poor college student days, along with some hideous ramen packet abominations.  It's not that it's bad...it just doesn't have a lot of flavor usually.

Anyway, here we were in Okinawa, making our way to our destination by bus.  It was getting dark, and we had just missed our connection and had to kill about 50 minutes.  Lo and behold, the sign for King Tacos loomed above us!  An excellent opportunity to try the chain I'd seen from a distance several times before.

It was quite sparse inside, mainly a call in and pickup kind of joint.  But there were some standing tables and we were told we could eat there.  We ordered some tacos, a taco rice with all the fixings and bara bara chicken because...we didn't know what it was.  It was all quite cheap and like I said, we had time to kill.  Which is good because it took about 20 minutes for the chicken to be made and it was like...an entire chickens worth of meat!  By the time we finally got our food several other groups of people had come and gone and we were getting antsy.  We were shocked by the large portions and managed to eat our tacos and half the taco rice before we packed everything up and went to the bus stop.  Later, after we got to our Airbnb, we pulled out the chicken and finished it up, then saved the last of the taco rice to combine with some fried eggs for breakfast.  Our 1700 yen meal served us quite well.

All that said, I wasn't amazed by any of it, but it's really cheap, and the tacos were pretty good.  I think it would be a guilty pleasure if we lived in Okinawa and didn't have so many other places to try out.