Tacos el Torito vs. Ten Down Bistro: Which is the best restaurant in Othello?

Tacos El Torito 2 vs Ten Down Bistro, which is the Best Restaurant in Othello?

By Mason Russell

There are two restaurants that I consider to be the best in Othello: Tacos El Torito 2 and Ten Down Bistro. Both of these restaurants are excellent and are well worth visiting. However, if you are just visiting the town and can only visit one, then you are going to have to make a decision. Ten Down Bistro, as the name suggests, is a bistro, located on the main street of Othello. It has no specific focus, and the menu has many different options that you can choose from. Tacos El Torito 2 is a Mexican restaurant located on First Avenue. The menu has many different kinds of Mexican cuisine, and a tiny smattering of American food like burgers. Now that we have everything set up, we can start comparing the two restaurants.

Ten Down Bistro has a wider menu with more unique options.

The two restaurants have very different focuses on their menu. As stated earlier, Ten Down Bistro has a very broad menu, serving pasta, pizza, sushi, sandwiches and more. Tacos El Torito menu is more focused on Mexican Cuisine. While Mexican cuisine does have a lot of variety, it mostly boils down to various forms of burritos and tacos. This means that you definitely know what you are getting from there, but there isn’t much beyond that. For example, if a large family visits both of these restaurants, they will have an easier time ordering something that every person in the family will like at Ten Down Bistro compared to Tacos El Torito where there will be less options available. This will result in some people being left without options for the food they actually like. 

Photo by Mason Russell

Tacos El Torito 2 has higher quality and quantity.

While Tacos El Torito might have a narrower menu, the quality of the food is amazing. For 17 dollars you can order a burrito that is only slightly smaller than a football and is probably one of best burritos from any restaurant that I have personally gone to. While there is some bias on my part, the burrito is undeniably huge and has lots of quality ingredients, such as fresh cilantro, expertly prepared ground beef and very crisp, fresh fruits and vegetables. The Carne Asada is also great due to all of those quality ingredients. On the other hand, Ten Down Bistro still has good tasting quality food as well, but the variety of food here hurts it. This is due to the fact that the seemingly random food options prevent the cooks from getting too much experience with each type of food sold there. To elaborate, the sushi there is very good, but it is not as good as a place that only serves sushi. This is the price you pay for the variety of food.

Photo By Mason Russell

Tacos El Torito 2 has more experienced chefs than Ten Down Bistro.

The chefs at Tacos El Torito are excellent chefs who are very good at making the food they serve. They serve you the food very quickly, usually just taking a couple of minutes to serve you. I suspect this is because they all have grown up eating the food they cook and know the ins and outs of cooking the food very well. The restaurant has been open for a while, giving them even more time to get good at their crafts, not only that but it has been around for several years. Before that, it was a taco wagon for even longer. Ten Down Bistro on the other hand, is the newest restaurant in town. Because of this, the chefs are very inexperienced, and the large variety of food makes their jobs even harder. This results in long wait times for your food. However, because they are new, they can only improve. I have no doubt that they will get better over time, and maybe they already have by the time you read this review.

Ten Down Bistro has more side entertainment than Tacos El Torito 2.

If you are hosting a party and want to choose one of the two places to host it at, Ten Down Bistro actually has something really unique that most restaurants don’t have. Ten Down Bistro used to be our town’s bowling alley. However, the bowling alley couldn’t stay afloat and closed down. The owners of Ten Down Bistro bought the former bowling alley, but they didn’t actually remove the bowling systems. Instead, they kept them operational. This means that you can host a party here, where you can eat great food and have a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the arcade the bowling alley used to have was removed, so that option isn’t available. Tacos El Torito on the other hand, does not have very much, besides some minor toy and sticker dispensers.

Tacos El Torito is more accessible than Ten Down Bistro.

Both restaurants are not too difficult to access by driving. However, Ten Down Bistro is located on the main street of Othello. This can be awkward because there is usually a good amount of traffic on main street. Due to the slightly cramped conditions, there is also minimal parking space. Not to mention that I personally always seem to hit a red light on every single one of the numerous stop lights on main street, which other people no doubt struggle with as well.  Tacos El Torito on the other hand, is located right on First Street, which is much more accessible. It is located in a sort of small business center, alongside a couple of other small stores. There is plenty of parking space, and traffic tends to be pretty minimal there. There are no stoplights. However, at the time of writing this review, there is currently a roundabout that is under construction on first street that makes every single business on that road much more inconvenient to gain access to. However, this won’t be forever and eventually it will be done so you can have easy access to Tacos El Torito again.

 Ten Down Bistro has way less competition than Tacos El Torito 2

Tacos El Torito is not a rare kind of business. There are several Mexican restaurants in town, of varying quality. Not only that, but there are several food trucks which serve very similar food items. There is also competition from more Americanized Mexican food. The most notable one of these places is Checo’s Mexican restaurant. This restaurant serves more Americanized versions of what is served at Tacos El Torito. For example, the enchiladas are made very differently. It depends on personal perspective a lot, but I dislike the more traditional enchiladas while I love the more Americanized ones. Since Tacos El Torito serves the more traditional enchilada, I often have to make a tough decision between the two Restaurants. Ten Down Bistro does not have this problem at all, because it is entirely unique with what it serves. Othello has pizza restaurants, so I would not go out of the way for their pizza. However, there is no way to get sushi, pasta or good sandwiches in Othello besides this restaurant. This means that you do not have to think about which restaurant you should go to for what you want. It can also be a downside though, as the lack of competition could result in the restaurant getting lazy and not trying to improve their menu over time. That is not a problem in the short term, but it could be by if this review is read a while in the future.

Ten Down Bistro is more formal than Tacos El Torito

The environment of the two businesses is very different. Ten Down Bistro is a bit classier, with a neat orderly feel to it. This means that long wait times are to be expected. I have also encountered issues where the pizza ovens are not heated up and active right when the restaurant is opened, but are instead started up later, when the lunch rush is anticipated. There is also a problem with availability. Sometimes, options become unavailable as they have run out of stock. I have never had this problem, but other people I know have said that they experienced the problem. Ten Down Bistro does have one major other benefit that I am not sure if Tacos El Torito has, and that is the fact that you can call them to take your order and pick it up there to go. Tacos El Torito on the other hand, do not really need to do this. It functions as more of a middle-ground between a fast-food restaurant and a sit-down restaurant. The food is prepared fairly quickly, and everything can be easily wrapped in tin foil and taken with you. The environment at Tacos El Torito is still clean, but it can feel a bit more cluttered. Basically, it feels more like an older traditional restaurant than the more modern fancy feels of Ten Down Bistro.

Both Restaurants are some of the best restaurants in Othello, each offering excellent food. However, they are not quite the same. If you are looking for something like a place to host a party or meet up with friends, then you can’t do better than Ten Down Bistro with its bowling alley and variety of food. However, if you are looking for a restaurant where you can grab great tasting, quality Mexican food quickly for lunch, then you should definitely go to Tacos El Torito 2.