bartaco

Out late on a late night date w the hubs in his hometown and looking to NOSH!! This place was recommended by our rickshaw driver strolling down King street. This place is SUPER CUTE!! We actually had passed by it and didn’t even notice!! 😵‍💫 Accross from the Apple Store; with kitschy-modern vibes we loved it as soon as we walked in! 90s tunes wash over us as we enter and we are taken back to simpler days; when we were young and without the cares of kids and adulting. Our server Katie greets us as we sit down at our cozy little booth - she is Super Cute and upbeat! We love her energy! And she knows her Sh*%#! She thoroughly explains how things work in her world, and we know exactly what to expect and respect how much she loves what she does! She educates us on the freshness of the E back bar ingredients? As well as that we should expect the highest of quality Ingredients in the tacos and such as well! We also love that these tacos are served street tacos style and explains that each will be 2-3 bites. This is very helpful in Gauging how many we should order! We decide to get a little of everything! The cucumber salad and sliced cucumbers came first. Then came the Korean Beef Bulgogi Bowl - The Baja fish tacos - in CA they are usually grilled. But here they are fried. I was skeptical but when I added the jalapeño sauce and took a bite MAN!! So lite and flaky!! Fish was tender and the batter was melt in your mouth! Not at All great! And not breast either! Katie explained later that it is a tempera rice batter and that it’s gluten free. Super lite and DELISH!! The addition of the slaw gives it just the right vinegar mayo kick as well YUM 🤤 The mushroom taco is very light and mild. Bits of mushroom; they tasted like shiitake or even just an umami mix including some king mushrooms even had a very mild and meaty texture and mild flavor. I added the rojo sauce for a bit of a kick. The given tortilla adding the perfect nuttiness. The crispy shrimp taco uses the same lite tempura batter. This batter has a little kick to it. Not sure if they add something else to the batter to make it slightly different than the fish but it’s slightly spicier. Which I Loved. We eat a lot of spicy foods and I loved this one. I ate this with the cucumber salad as well for more of a crunch factor. The pork belly taco had a bit of a crunchy pork skin bite to it, and the porky goodness that you can ONLY get from pork belly!!! This one was next level taco yumminess!!! We ate this one with the Happy Habanero sauce and let me tell you - NO. This one you hafta taste for yourself to believe!!! PORK BELLY. NEED I SAY MORE??? Now we had also ordered the Seared Ahi Tuna Taco but we had forgotten about it and the kitchen had also forgotten about it , so by the time they brought it out we were so stuffed we didn’t get to try it before my review. I’ll try to update this tho once I try it! It looked awesome, and I will include the picture! The only thing the hubs wasn’t too impressed with was the bulgogi bowl. The bees was sliced too thinly he said and was a bit dry. He expected more juiciness. Especially for bulgogi and I hafta agree on that - having had a LOT of bulgogi in my lifetime lol. I LOVED the kimchi and spinach in the bowl tho and helped him to polish those off. 😝 Oh!!! We also tried some agua fresca - the Berry Colada which was FANTASMIC I cannot say this enough. This drink tasted of fresh coconut water, blueberries and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. Not sure if that’s the mix but that’s what it tasted like to me. It was so refreshing and didn’t make me feel light headed like fruit juice normally does. The hubs has a Tito’s n Grapefruit juice which he absolutely LOVED. We were really impressed with Bartaco! Late night nosh as its finest! And Thanks again Ms Katie!

Love love love! Celiac friendly. Delicious food, great prices and such a good vibe. The food comes out really fast too. Pretty sure I ate here 3 times during my last trip to Charleston.

It is a beautiful interior, the staff were helpful and kind and the food was delicious and had many dietary options (vegetarian, fish, meat and gluten free)