Fuzzy’s offers mixed-caliber Mexican fare
The Texas-based Fuzzy’s Taco Shop business has been around for about eight years and has corporate and franchised locations in seven states, according to its website.
The location here — big and airy, with primary-color walls and outdoor seating — on the corner of West Lee Drive and Burbank, has localized its decor, with some of its tables being purple and gold and plenty of LSU touches on the wall.
Some of the company’s reaches for the college crowd seem to miss the mark, though. A less-than-tasteful slogan on one of its T-shirts displayed up front for sale and another of its slogans painted down low on a wall didn’t add up to “Wow, that’s cool,” but, instead, “You’re kidding me.”
Casual, then, is the order of the day. Customers give their orders at the counter and pick up their meals from the kitchen’s counter at the back. The staff is friendly and helpful, and a big attraction here is the pricing. The most expensive item on the menu is the $6.99 fajita salad, with chicken or beef.
Fuzzy’s Taco Shop is billed as serving Baja-style Mexican food, a type of cuisine based on that of Baja, Calif., according to several food and cooking websites, that features fresh ingredients and often seafood.
For appetizers, we had the chips and guacamole ($3.49) and beef nachos ($5.99; pork and chicken nachos are also available). Both the guacamole and the beef on the nachos were neutral in flavor. The most flavorful item on the beef nachos was the sour cream topping.
Next, we turned to the entrées. What we can recommend is the tempura fish, tried by our guests in a jumbo burrito and in a two-taco plate (the other taco being grilled shrimp).
The jumbo burrito ($5.49) comes by itself and is stuffed with the battered and fried tempura fish — which is quite good — along with cheese, guacamole, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and garlic sauce.
The two-taco plate ($5.99) gives diners their choice of tempura or grilled fish, beef, chicken, shrimp, pork or veggie tacos and a choice of two side dishes. Our guests chose “Mix-Mex” fried rice and Latin fried potatoes. The rice, sorry to say, was tasteless. The fried potatoes — nicely seasoned, bite-sized pieces of potatoes fried a deep golden brown — were good.
What we can’t recommend is the shredded chicken salad ($5.49) and the grilled veggie sandwich ($5.99).
The chicken in the shredded chicken salad was actually shredded so finely that it hardly looked like chicken anymore, but maybe grated cheese. Salt — and a little too much of it — seemed to be the primary seasoning for the chicken that was served on top of some rather limp iceberg lettuce.
The teleras bread, a soft and mildly sweet type of Mexican bread, used in the grilled veggie sandwich was absolutely delicious; I wanted to eat it by itself. But I simply did not read the menu carefully enough. Like it says, the veggie portion of the sandwich is mostly lettuce and tomatoes with a cheese and garlic sauce. I found myself hankering for mushrooms or peppers.
Fuzzy’s serves breakfast burritos and tacos and other breakfast items including huevos rancheros, described as two fried eggs, tomatoes, jalapenos and onion, all topped with roasted salsa.
Maybe I’ll go back for breakfast.