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View the
Pepe's Finest Mexican Food, Temple City Menu
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Restaurants:
Pepe’s Finest Mexican Food, Temple City (also in
Alhambra, Covina)
Where: 5829
N. Rosemead Blvd., Temple City
Phone: (626)
286-3055
Reservations:
Not required
Cocktails: No
Service:
Counter service
Atmosphere:
Casual
Outdoor Dining:
Yes
Credit Cards:
No
Kid’s Menu:
No
Senior Discount:
No
Hours: Sun. -
Thurs.: 9am – 9:30pm; Fri. and Sat.: 9am – 10:30pm; Closed major holidays
Food to Go:
Yes
Catering Menu:
Yes
Price Range:
$1.45 - $5.75, avg. $3 - $5 |
Kids meal burrito, fries and beverage |
Taco, no tomatoes |
Taquitos, guacamole on the side |
Grown-up fries |
Burrito and fries |
Filet mignon and shrimp combo dinner |
Chile rellenos and carnitas dinner |
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DOT COM DINING
A Look At San
Gabriel Valley Restaurants by SanGabrielValleyMenus.com
Pepe’s Finest Mexican Food an Apt Name
By Bill Coburn
Pepe’s Finest
Mexican Food has been around since 1964, and in the fast food industry, you
don’t get to stick around for forty years unless you have something good that
people want. Now with three locations to serve you, at 511 W. Valley Blvd. in
Alhambra, 1140 N. Azusa Ave. in Covina, and 5829 N. Rosemead Blvd., in Temple
City, Pepe’s does offer some truly fine
Mexican food. I’ve eaten at the Covina store and
the Temple City store, and received the same great quality food at each
location. The subject of this review is the Temple City store.
I was driving down Rosemead the
first time I saw Pepe’s, and thought, that’s a nice looking store, with lots of
parking and a drive thru, too. I decided to stop in, and tried a couple
shredded beef tacos and an order of fries. I also got a soda (it’s a Coca-cola
brand house, with self serve fountain service when you’re not using the
drive-thru). When the food came out, I was quite pleased with the tacos
(ordered with no tomatoes) which were freshly fried tortillas stuffed full of
shredded beef, lettuce and cheese. And I mean full. No scrimping on the
portions here. They have the crinkle cut fries, which I think are probably my
favorite kind of fries. It was a good size portion, and the fries were nice and
hot, not overcooked or too crispy. So my first impression was a good one.
I’ve been back a couple times,
and always had the tacos. At $1.50 per, it’s a heck of a deal. I know you can
get them for less at the big chains, but you’re not getting anywhere near as
much as you get at Pepe’s, nor are they of the quality of Pepe’s, in my
opinion. The one thing I would like to see changed is the addition of bottled
hot sauces, at Pepe’s you can only get their house sauce, which is good, but is
more mild than hot.
Tonight, the family stopped
in. I ordered a carnitas burrito, a taco and some small fries. Keelan got the
kids meal bean and cheese burrito (comes with fries, a drink and a “surprise”),
and Katie ordered a carnitas tostada.
The carnitas tostada was
smothered with so much guacamole, Katie and I were both amazed. The meat
tostada, by the way, is served without cheese, so if you want cheese you’ll have
to request that. Katie said there was a lot of meat and that it was well
proportioned, not overflowing with lettuce to make it look bigger, etc.,
although she also couldn’t believe how much guacamole covered this thing. One
thing she did notice is that Pepe’s is one of the places that includes shredded
lettuce in their guacamole, which she usually doesn’t much like, but she said
that it was pretty decent here.
My carnitas and beans burrito
was a good sized burrito, stuffed full of chunks of deliciously seasoned
carnitas. My taco was up to the high expectations I’ve come to have for Pepe’s
tacos, and the crinkly fries were also cooked just right.
Now I could (and judging from
the way my shirts keep shrinking, probably should) have been done with my meal
with what I had, but I do usually try to have several menu items when I do a
review, if possible, so that I can give you an idea about as much of the menu as
possible. So, for you, the readers, I decided to go ahead and try the taquitos,
too. After all, I’m a giver. And the taquitos were delicious. They came with
a huge portion of guacamole, which I’d ordered on the side. They were shredded
beef taquitos, cooked fresh to order, and I enjoyed them immensely, though I
decided to forgo the guacamole and just added a little of Pepe’s hot sauce to
them.
Keelan’s kids meal, a
remarkable deal at just $2.15, was really good, too, he said. However, he’s
getting to be a bigger eater, and ordered a second bean and cheese burrito, as
well. That a la carte burrito was bigger, after all, at $2.30 it cost more than
the whole kid’s meal did, but he downed it all. I take the fact that he wanted
seconds as an indicator that he enjoyed the burrito, as well.
As I said, I’ve also eaten at
the Covina store, and found both stores to have consistently good food, and
really good prices. You can find each of the three stores’ menus on the San
Gabriel Valley Menus.com website, or you can just go to
pepesfinestmexicanfood.com where you’ll find links to pages for each of the
stores.
I was at Posse’s Sports Bar
last Sunday (not as a customer, I’m now bartending there on Sunday day shifts),
and was a little overwhelmed at the amount of NFL football I could view. The
early game time slot had nine games, and we had seven of those games on the
seven flat screen TVs. Alll in all, I got to see 10 games that day, not
counting the Packers game that didn’t start till after my shift, at 5:30 as the
evening game. It was an NFL fan’s dream, and I’m thinking I’m going to like
this new job. Feel free to stop in and see me, and enjoy a game or six.
Bill Coburn is owner of SanGabrielValleyMenus.com, a
restaurant website featuring dozens of restaurant’s menus, as well as
downloadable coupons. He has nearly 20 years experience in the restaurant
business, and has been eating for much longer than that. |
