ORIGINAL GUACAMOLE $8.75
Made with fresh chunky avocados, tomatoes, jalapenos, queso, fresco sprinkled and cilantro.
NACHOS $13.95
Freshly made chips, topped with lard-free beans, jack cheese, sour cream, guacamole, fresh salsa and your choice of meat.
ROLLITOS $9.50
Two rolled crispy flour tortillas filled with shredded chicken, topped with guacamole, sour cream and crisp greens.
TAQUITOS $9.95
Three rolled crispy corn tortillas filled with shredded beef, topped with guacamole, sour cream and crisp greens.
QUESADILLA $9.95
½ folded grilled flour tortilla, filled with jack cheese, served with greens and guacamole.
With choice of meat $11.50 | With shrimp $5.25
SUPER QUESADILLA $13.95
Full size double tortilla, plus with your choice of meat.
With shrimp $14.95
TOSTADA $10.25
A crispy corn tortilla topped with mashed beans, your choice of shredded beef or chicken, lettuce,
jack cheese, sour cream, guacamole and salsa.
CHICKEN TACO SALAD $12.95
Crisp greens topped with marinated grilled chicken breast, sour cream, guacamole, fresh salsa and
served in one of our freshly made taco shells.
Come have some chips and guac with us! Visit our website for our locations and menu.
A taco salad is a Tex-Mex dish that combines ingredients used in Tex-Mex tacos. The dish originated in Texas during the 1960s.
The salad is served with a fried flour tortilla shell stuffed with shredded iceberg lettuce and topped with diced tomatoes, shredded Cheddar cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. The salad is topped with taco meat (ground beef), seasoned shredded chicken or beans and/or Spanish rice for vegetarians.
Read more, here.
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
Favela’s Mexican Grill delivers a fun Mexican dining adventure at a moderate price. We have become Solano County’s favorite Mexican Restaurant by being a place where every guest will enjoy fast friendly service and delicious food…
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
Avocados seeds were first found in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico around 9,000 - 10,000 years ago (7000 - 8000 BCE) and have been domesticated by various Mezoamerican groups by 5000 BCE. They were likely cultivated in the Supe Valley in Peru as early as 3100 BCE. In the early 1900s, avocados frequently went by the name alligator pear. In the 1697 book, A New Voyage Round the World, the first known description of a guacamole recipe (though not known by that name) was by English privateer and naturalist William Dampier, who in his visit to Central America during one of his circumnavigations, noted a native preparation made of grinding together avocados, sugar, and lime juice.
Guacamole has increased avocado sales in the U.S., especially on Super Bowl Sunday and Cinco de Mayo. The rising consumption of guacamole is most likely due to the U.S. government lifting a ban on avocado imports in the 1990s and the growth of the U.S. Latino population.
Guacamole is traditionally made by mashing peeled, ripe avocados and salt with a molcajete y tejolote (mortar and pestle). Recipes often call for lime juice, cilantro, onions, and jalapeños. Some non-traditional recipes may call for sour cream, tomatoes, basil, or peas.
Due to the presence of polyphenol oxidase in the cells of avocado, exposure to oxygen in the air causes an enzymatic reaction and develops melanoidin pigment, turning the sauce brown. This result is generally considered unappetizing, and there are several methods (some anecdotal) that are used to counter this effect, such as storing the guacamole in an air-tight container or wrapping tightly in plastic to limit the surface area exposed to the air.
Read more, here.
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
We use only the best, highest quality ingredients to bring the freshest Mexican food experience around to you. That is our commitment. All our food and sauces are prepared daily from scratch in our kitchens with top-quality products.
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
Chips and salsa, typically served using tortilla or corn chips, is a common type of chips and dip dish that gained significant popularity in the United States in the late 1980s. Chips and guacamole, also typically served with corn-based chips is another type, as well as chips and bean dip. Seven-layer dip and tortilla chips is another corn-based chip combination, as is chile con queso, an appetizer or side dish of melted cheese and chili pepper typically served in Tex-Mex restaurants as a sauce for nachos.
Curious about chips and dips? Read more, here.
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
A public eating establishment similar to a restaurant is mentioned in a 512 BC record from Ancient Egypt. The establishment served only one dish, a plate of cereal, wild fowl, and onions.
A forerunner of the modern restaurant is the thermopolium, an establishment in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that sold and served ready-to-eat food and beverages. These establishments were somewhat comparable to modern fast food restaurants. They were most often frequented by people who lacked private kitchens. In the Roman Empire they were popular among residents of insulae.
In Pompeii, 158 thermopolia with service counters have been identified throughout the town. They were concentrated along the main axis of the town and the public spaces where they were frequented by the locals.
The Romans also had the popina, a wine bar which in addition to a variety of wines offered a limited selection of simple foods such as olives, bread, cheese, stews, sausage, and porridge. The popinae were known as places for the plebeians of the lower classes of Roman society to socialize. While some were confined to one standing room only, others had tables and stools and a few even had couches.
Another early forerunner of the restaurant was the inn. Throughout the ancient world, inns were set up alongside roads to cater to people traveling between cities, offering lodging and food. Meals were typically served at a common table to guests. However, there were no menus or options to choose from.
The Arthashastra references establishments where prepared food was sold in ancient India. One regulation states that "those who trade in cooked rice, liquor, and flesh" are to live in the south of the city. Another states that superintendents of storehouses may give surpluses of bran and flour to "those who prepare cooked rice, and rice-cakes", while a regulation involving city superintendents references "sellers of cooked flesh and cooked rice."
Early eating establishments recognizable as restaurants in the modern sense emerged in Song dynasty China during the 11th and 12th centuries. In large cities, such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou, food catering establishments catered to merchants who travelled between cities. Probably growing out of tea houses and taverns which catered to travellers, Kaifeng's restaurants blossomed into an industry that catered to locals as well as people from other regions of China. As travelling merchants were not used to local cuisine of other cities, these establishments were set up to serve dishes familiar to merchants from other parts of China. Such establishments were located in the entertainment districts of major cities, alongside hotels, bars, and brothels. The larger and more opulent of these establishments offered a dining experience that was similar to modern restaurant culture. According to a Chinese manuscript from 1126, patrons of one such establishment were greeted with a selection of pre-plated demonstration dishes which represented food options. Customers had their orders taken by a team of waiters who would then sing their orders to the kitchen and distribute the dishes in the exact order in which they had been ordered.
There is a direct correlation between the growth of the restaurant businesses and institutions of theatrical stage drama, gambling and prostitution which served the burgeoning merchant middle class during the Song dynasty. Restaurants catered to different styles of cuisine, price brackets, and religious requirements. Even within a single restaurant choices were available, and people ordered the entrée from written menus. An account from 1275 writes of Hangzhou, the capital city for the last half of the dynasty:
The people of Hangzhou are very difficult to please. Hundreds of orders are given on all sides: this person wants something hot, another something cold, a third something tepid, a fourth something chilled. one wants cooked food, another raw, another chooses roast, another grill.
The restaurants in Hangzhou also catered to many northern Chinese who had fled south from Kaifeng during the Jurchen invasion of the 1120s, while it is also known that many restaurants were run by families formerly from Kaifeng.
In Japan, a restaurant culture emerged in the 16th century out of local tea houses. Tea house owner Sen no Rikyū created the kaiseki multi-course meal tradition, and his grandsons expanded the tradition to include speciality dishes and cutlery which matched the aesthetic of the food.
In Europe, inns which offered food and lodgings and taverns where food was served alongside alcoholic beverages continued to be the main places to buy a prepared meal into the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They typically served common fare of the type normally available to peasants. In Spain, such establishments were called bodegas and served tapas. In England, they typically served foods such as sausage and shepherd's pie.
France in particular has a rich history with the development of various forms of inns and eateries, eventually to form many of the now-ubiquitous elements of the modern restaurant. As far back as the thirteenth century, French inns served a variety of food — bread, cheese, bacon, roasts, soups, and stews - usually eaten at a common table. Parisians could buy what was essentially take-out food from rôtisseurs, who prepared roasted meat dishes, and pastry-cooks, who could prepare meat pies and often more elaborate dishes. Municipal statutes stated that the official prices per item were to be posted at the entrance; this was the first official mention of menus.
Taverns also served food, as did cabarets. A cabaret, however, unlike a tavern, served food at tables with tablecloths, provided drinks with the meal, and charged by the customers' choice of dish, rather than by the pot. Cabarets were reputed to serve better food than taverns and a few, such as the Petit Maure, became well known. A few cabarets had musicians or singing, but most, until the late 19th century, were simply convivial eating places. The first café opened in Paris in 1672 at the Saint-Germain fair. By 1723 there were nearly four hundred cafés in Paris, but their menu was limited to simpler dishes or confectionaries, such as coffee, tea, chocolate (the drink; chocolate in solid state was invented only in the 19th century), ice creams, pastries, and liqueurs.
At the end of the 16th century, the guild of cook-caterers (later known as "traiteurs") was given its own legal status. The traiteurs dominated sophisticated food service, delivering or preparing meals for the wealthy at their residences. Taverns and cabarets were limited to serving little more than roast or grilled meats. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, both inns and then traiteurs began to offer "host's tables" (tables d'hôte), where one paid a set price to sit at a large table with other guests and eat a fixed menu meal.
Read more, here.
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
Favela’s Mexican Grill delivers a fun Mexican dining adventure at a moderate price. We have become Solano County’s favorite Mexican Restaurant by being a place where every guest will enjoy fast friendly service and delicious food…
In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is offered. Menus may be printed on paper sheets provided to the diners, put on a large poster or display board inside the establishment, displayed outside the restaurant, or put on a digital screen. Since the late 1990s, some restaurants have put their menus online.
Menus are also often a feature of very formal meals other than in restaurants, for example at weddings. In the 19th and 20th centuries printed menus were often used for society dinner-parties in homes; indeed this was their original use in Europe.
Read more, here.
Visit our website to see more about our menu and locations.
We use only the best, highest quality ingredients to bring the freshest Mexican food experience around to you. That is our commitment. All our food and sauces are prepared daily from scratch in our kitchens with top-quality products.
A churro (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃuro], Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʃuʁu]) is a type of fried dough from Spanish and Portuguese cuisine. They are also found in Latin American cuisine and the cuisine of the Philippines and in other areas that have received immigration from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, especially in the Southwestern United States and France.
In Spain, churros can either be thin (and sometimes knotted) or long and thick, where they are known as porras [es] or jeringos in some regions. They are normally eaten for breakfast dipped in champurrado, hot chocolate, dulce de leche or café con leche. Cinnamon sugar is often sprinkled on top.
There are also two slightly different snacks in Portugal, called porra and fartura, which are filled with jelly instead of the doce de leite, traditional to Brazilian churros.
Churros are fried until they become crunchy, and may be sprinkled with sugar. The surface of a churro is ridged due to having been piped from a churrera, a syringe-like tool with a star-shaped nozzle. Churros are generally prisms in shape, and may be straight, curled or spirally twisted.
Like pretzels, churros are sold by street vendors, who may fry them freshly on the street stand and sell them hot. In Spain and much of Latin America, churros are available in cafes for breakfast, although they may be eaten throughout the day as a snack. Specialized churrerías, in the form of a shop or a trailer, can be found during the holiday period. In addition, countries like Colombia, Peru, Spain, and Venezuela have churrerías throughout their streets. In Portugal, they are commonly eaten at carnivals, fairs and other celebrations, where they are made freshly at street stands.
The dough is a mixture of flour, water and salt. Some versions are made of potato dough. Depending on the recipe, it may not be vegan, they can contain butter, milk or eggs.
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A side dish, sometimes referred to as a side order, side item, or simply a side, is a food item that accompanies the entrée or main course at a meal.
Side dishes such as salad, potatoes and bread are commonly used with main courses throughout many countries of the western world. Rice and couscous, have grown to be quite popular throughout Europe, especially at formal occasions (with couscous appearing more commonly at dinner parties with Middle Eastern dishes).
When used as an adjective qualifying the name of a dish, the term "side" usually refers to a smaller portion served as a side dish, rather than a larger, main dish-sized serving. For example, a "side salad" usually served in a small bowl or salad plate, in contrast to a large dinner-plate-sized entrée salad.
A typical American meal with a meat-based main dish might include one vegetable side dish, sometimes in the form of a salad, and one starch side dish, such as bread, potatoes, rice, or pasta.
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An entrée (/ˈɒ̃treɪ/, US also /ɒnˈtreɪ/; French: [ɑ̃tʁe]) in modern French table service and that of much of the English-speaking world (apart from the United States and parts of Canada) is a dish served before the main course of a meal. Outside North America, it is generally synonymous with the terms hors d'oeuvre, appetizer, or starter. It may be the first dish served, or it may follow a soup or other small dish or dishes. In the United States and parts of Canada, the term entrée refers to the main dish or the only dish of a meal.
Read more here about the early use of the word 'entrée'.
Mexico
Burritos are a traditional food of Ciudad Juárez, a city bordering El Paso, Texas, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where people buy them at restaurants and roadside stands. Northern Mexican border towns like Villa Ahumada have an established reputation for serving burritos. Authentic Mexican burritos are usually small and thin, with flour tortillas containing only one or two of several ingredients: either some form of meat or fish, potato, rice, beans, asadero cheese, chile rajas, or chile relleno. Other ingredients may include: barbacoa, mole, refried beans and cheese (a "bean and cheese" burrito), or deshebrada (shredded slow-cooked flank steak). The deshebrada burrito has a variation with chile colorado (mild to moderately hot) and one with salsa verde (very hot). The Mexican burrito may be a northern variation of the traditional taco de Canasta, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Although burritos are one of the most popular examples of Mexican cuisine outside of Mexico, they are only popular in the northern part of Mexico. However, they are beginning to appear in some nontraditional venues in other parts of Mexico. Wheat flour tortillas (used in burritos) are now often seen throughout much of Mexico (possibly due to these areas being less than optimal for growing maize or corn), despite at one time being particular to northwestern Mexico, the Southwestern US Mexican-American community, and Pueblo Indian tribes.
Burritos are commonly called tacos de harina ("wheat flour tacos") in Central Mexico and Southern Mexico, and burritas (the feminine variation with 'a') in "northern-style" restaurants outside of northern Mexico proper. A long and thin fried burrito called a chivichanga, which is similar to a chimichanga, is prepared in the state of Sonora and vicinity.
A variation of the burrito found in the Mexican state of Sonora is known as the burro percherón.[citation needed]
San Francisco Mission burrito
The origins of the Mission burrito or Mission-style burrito can be traced back to San Francisco, in the Mission District taquerías of the 1960s and 1970s. This type of burrito is produced on a steam table assembly line, and is characterized by a large stuffed flour tortilla wrapped in aluminum foil, and may include fillings such as carne asada (beef), Mexican-style rice, whole beans (not refritos), sour cream and onion.
Febronio Ontiveros claims to have offered the first retail burrito in San Francisco in 1961 at El Faro ("The Lighthouse"), a corner grocery store on Folsom Street. Ontiveros claims credit for inventing the "super burrito", a style which may have led to the early development of the "San Francisco style". This innovative style involves the addition of rice, sour cream and guacamole to the standard burrito of meat, beans, and cheese. The Mission burrito emerged as a regional culinary movement during the 1970s and 1980s. The popularity of San Francisco-style burritos has grown locally at Mission Street taquerias like El Farolito, and nationally at chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill, Illegal Pete's, Chevy's Fresh Mex, Freebirds World Burrito, Qdoba, and Barberitos. Chili's had a brief stint with "Fresh Mex" foods and burritos between 2015 and 2017. In 1995, World Wrapps opened in San Francisco's Marina District and brought a burrito-inspired wrap style to the restaurant industry.
San Diego
San Diego-style burritos include "California burritos" and carne asada burritos. The style has been described by food writers as an "austere meal of meat, cheese and salsa", a contrast to the Mission-style burrito, which is typically larger and always contains more ingredients. A significant subgroup of Mexican restaurants in San Diego serves burritos described as "no-frills" and, in contrast to Mission-style burritos, the assembly line is not used.
In the early 1960s, Roberto Robledo opened a tortilleria in San Diego and learned the restaurant business. Robledo began selling small bean burritos (or burrititos) at La Lomita in the late 1960s, and by 1970, he had established the first Roberto's Taco Shop. By 1999, Roberto's restaurants had expanded to a chain of 60 taco shops offering fresh burritos known for their distinctive quality. Hoping to draw on the prestige of Roberto's, new taco shops in San Diego began using the "-bertos" suffix, with names like Alberto's, Filiberto's, Hilberto's, and others.
The California burrito originated at an unknown -berto's named restaurant in San Diego in the 1980s. The Fresh MXN chain (formerly Santana's) also claimed to be the originator of the California burrito. The earliest-known published mention was in a 1995 article in the Albuquerque Tribune. The California burrito typically consists of chunks of carne asada meat, French fries, cheese, and either cilantro, pico de gallo, sour cream, onion, or guacamole (or some combination of these five). The ingredients are similar to those used in the "carne asada fries" dish, and it is considered a staple of the local cuisine of San Diego. With the merging of French fries and more traditional burrito fillings, the California burrito is an example of fusion border food. The California burrito has also been described as a "trans-class" food item, as it is regularly consumed by people across socioeconomic lines. Variants of this burrito may add shrimp (surf and turf), or substitute carnitas (pork) or chicken for carne asada.
The carne asada burrito is considered one of the regional foods of San Diego. Carolynn Carreno has said that to San Diegans, "carne asada burritos are as integral to the experience of the place as a slice of (pizza) pie is to a New Yorker." The San Diego-style carne asada burrito is served with chunks of carne asada, guacamole, and pico de gallo salsa. This "wall-to-wall" use of meat contrasts to burrito styles that use rice and beans as filler ingredients.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles also has several unique local burrito varieties. The first is the most traditional and is exemplified by the versions at Mexican-American restaurants such as Al & Bea's, Lupe's #2, and Burrito King. These restaurants have often been in existence for decades, and they offer a distinctly Americanized menu compared with the typical taqueria. The burrito of L.A. itself can take multiple forms, but is almost always dominated by some combination of: refried beans, meat (often stewed beef or chili), and cheese (usually cheddar), with rice and other ingredients typical of Mission burritos offered as add-ons, if at all.
The most basic version of this burrito consists of only beans and cheese; beyond this, there are the "green chile" and "red chile" burritos, which may simply mean the addition of chiles or a meatless chile sauce to the plain beans (as at Al & Bea's), meat or cheese as well. Rice, again, is rarely included, which, along with the choice of chiles, is one of the style's most defining traits. The menu will then usually go on to list multiple other combinations, such as beef and bean, all-beef, a "special" with further ingredients, etc. If the restaurant also offers hamburgers and sandwiches, it may sell a burrito version of these, such as a "hot dog burrito".
In addition to the version described, Los Angeles is also home to three burrito styles that can be said to fall under the category of Mexican fusion cuisine. The first is the famed "kosher burrito," served since 1946 at its eponymous restaurant at 1st Street and Main in Downtown Los Angeles. Another is the Korean kogi burrito, invented by American chef Roy Choi, the first to combine Mexican and Korean cuisines. The kogi burrito was named the seventh best burrito in Los Angeles in 2012 by the LA Weekly. The kogi burrito is accented with chile-soy vinaigrette, sesame oil, and fresh lime juice. Food writer Cathy Chaplin has said that "this is what Los Angeles tastes like." Finally, there is the sushi burrito, most notably the version sold at the Jogasaki food truck. Wrapped in flour tortillas, sushi burritos include such fillings as spicy tuna, tempura, and cucumber.
The existence of such a large truly Mexican community in Los Angeles also makes it possible to find a variety of authentic burrito dishes from different regions of Mexico: from Oaxaca to Hidalgo.
Read more, here.
Visit us in one of our two locations to get your burrito fix.
Horchata, which comes from the Latin term hordeata, which in turn comes from hordeum (barley), is a term related to a Mediterranean tradition of grain-based beverages and also the linguistic root of orgeat syrup.
It originated in North Africa. It is estimated that during the 11th century it began to spread throughout Hispania (now Spain and Portugal). There are 13th-century records of a horchata-like beverage made near Valencia.
From Valencia, where it remained popular, the concept of horchata was brought to the New World. Here, drinks called agua de horchata or simply horchata came to be made with white rice and cinnamon or canella instead of tiger nuts. Sometimes these drinks had vanilla added, or were served adorned with fruit.
Today, these and other similarly flavored plant based beverages are sold in various parts of the world as varieties of horchata or kunnu.
Want to know more? Read it here.
Did you know you could find us in two locations? Come visit us for delicious food in either Vacaville or Fairfield.
CHIPS AND SALSA FRESCA $3.25
ORIGINAL GUACAMOLE $8.75
Made with fresh chunky avocados, tomatoes, jalapenos, queso, fresco sprinkled and cilantro.
NACHOS $12.25
Freshly made chips, topped with lard-free beans, jack cheese, sour cream, guacamole, fresh salsa and your choice of meat.
ROLLITOS $8.50
Two rolled crispy flour tortillas filled with shredded chicken, topped with guacamole, sour cream and crisp greens.
TAQUITOS $7.95
Three rolled crispy corn tortillas filled with shredded beef, topped with guacamole, sour cream and crisp greens.
QUESADILLA $8.25
½ folded grilled flour tortilla, filled with jack cheese, served with greens and guacamole.
With choice of meat $10.00 | With shrimp $11.25
SUPER QUESADILLA $13.95
Full size double tortilla, plus with your choice of meat.
With shrimp $14.95
TOSTADA $8.95
A crispy corn tortilla topped with mashed beans, your choice of shredded beef or chicken, lettuce,
jack cheese, sour cream, guacamole and salsa.
CHICKEN TACO SALAD $9.50
Crisp greens topped with marinated grilled chicken breast, sour cream, guacamole, fresh salsa and
served in one of our freshly made taco shells.
