We thought it was a difficult debut year for Richie’s Cheese Curd Tacos in 2022, offering up a unique take on tacos with their two varieties, a diced bratwurst and a chicken bacon ranch, both laden with cheese curds within their shell in lieu of shredded cheese. Neither taco impressed us, and while this year’s trendy new inclusion of a pickle version will capture some fair-goers curiosities, it shouldn’t grab ahold of your wallet.
$14 is the price point for two large tacos, with the option to select one of the other two original flavors as well; one taco would have been plenty, but unfortunately they don’t sell them individually. These were easily shareable with a friend or two, which does drop the cost of entry if you’re splitting the bill.
Just like last year, the shell — a wide, puffy flour tortilla that’s been deep-fried until shatteringly crisp — remains far too oily for comfort. Each time you pick up your taco, you’ll be immediately grabbing for a napkin, and those that are even moderately health-conscious will be mortified. We did appreciate that these tacos held shape and structural integrity better than most, keeping all its fillings intact. The pickles themselves, however, are sandwich stacker dills that didn’t always bite all the way through, resulting in several bites where we were dragging out a full pickle from the taco by our teeth. Fortunately, several pickle slices were included, so ensuing bites afterward still retained their key ingredient, but it led to some difficulty in eating on the go.
One would desire the pickles to star, but they were unimpressive and got lost entirely among the myriad of other elements: a velvety cream cheese and a powerful raspberry chipotle sauce, which was globbed on thick and became the most prevailing flavor. Fortunately, we enjoyed the sauce, the tartness of the raspberries balanced out well by a little heat and smokiness from the chipotle pepper, providing a more mild burn that will not offend even the wimpiest of Minnesotans. The raspberry chipotle sauce and cream cheese interplayed together well, complimenting each other and distracting from the deep-fried nature of the dish. However, with the inclusion of the cheese curds, just like last year there was a fried-upon-fried distaste that overwhelms the eater, and making the color of these tacos a bland, sandy blonde that never appears vibrant or appetizing; the raspberry chipotle sauce tries to brighten things up some, but is laid on so thick that the tacos look nearly bloody. To make matters worse, the cheese curds do very little to stand out on their own, making them more of a novelty than a crucial aspect of the taco. The same pathetic lettuce returns as well, and we would’ve preferred it to be left off entirely.
While some growing pains are to be expected from any fresh-faced Fair vendor, sometimes the concept itself just isn’t up to muster, leaving the prospects for meaningful improvement to be bleak. We feel Richie’s Cheese Curd Tacos is the latest case of this, particularly as they show no concern for making tacos that taste fresh or clean, and seem content using the lowest-quality ingredients across the board. While this year’s new taco is an improvement over the two sorry offerings from last year, they essentially could only go up from where they started and the improvement is so negligible as to be irrelevant.
Ratings (0-5):
- Taste: 2
- Appearance: 0
- Novelty: 3
- Value: 2
Overall Score: 7 out of 20 (Better Luck Next Year)
Fairly Unbalanced 