I've said many times before that the Quad Cities is blessed to have a number of good to great Mexican food places in the area. Two guys even had a website called QC Mexican Food (it's dormant now, but there's still some information on the site) that highlighted the Mexican restaurants around the area. They made a Top Ten list of their favorite places and their second place restaurant was a place that I hadn't been to before until I had a lunch date with a friend of mine earlier this year - La Finca. It turns out that my wife had been there before and she liked the place. On a rainy Sunday evening when I couldn't cook on the Weber grill, we decided to go down to La Finca for some tacos.
The Negrete Family - Erica, Rafael and Ofelia - are listed as the owners of La Finca (which translates into "the farm") which has been in business since 2008. The place is a combination Mexican grocery store/restaurant. Some of the better Mexican restaurants I've eaten at are part of a grocery store.
La Finca is located on West 2nd Street just west of the downtown area of Davenport, across from the main post office for the city and just west of the Centennial Bridge. (see map) There was plenty of parking on the street in front of when we went there around 6:30 p.m. that evening.
The restaurant part of La Finca isn't very fancy. The dining area is well lit and features bright orange walls with a series of booths that look like they were salvaged out of an old 70's-style fast food restaurant. My wife remarked that she thought the place was sort of dirty pointing out food on the floor, tables that needed wiped off, and just a sort of dusty atmosphere. They don't serve liquor at La Finca, so a margarita is out of the question. But they do sell Mexican beers and Jarritos flavored soda pop if you want a liquid taste of Mexico with your meal.
The grocery store is on the other side of the wall from the dining area. It featured a full meat counter that included house-made chorizo and other Mexican-centric meats. They had fruits and vegetables, imported Mexican food brands, and even plants such as aloe. La Finca is also known for their house-made pork rinds.
Depending upon the day - or even the time of day - you may get wait service in the restaurant at La Finca. But most people order at the counter, like we did that evening. They have a menu board, but they also have a number of handwritten signs touting the type of tacos they have, as well as their burritos and any specials they may have. We ordered up some tacos and found a seat in the dining area.
We were brought out a basket of warm fresh tortilla chips and some thick red salsa. The chips were great and the salsa had a good amount of cilantro and onion mixed in.
I got a couple carnitas tacos and a carne asada taco that was served Mexican style with ample amounts onions and cilantro on the meat, with lime wedges served on the side. I asked for a salsa verde to be served with the tacos and I poured some of that onto my tacos. I thought the carnitas tacos were fabulous - the moist and tender chopped pork had a bit of a spicy seasoning to them, but it wasn't overpowering at all. The carne asada taco was also good, but the beef was a bit overdone and dried out compared to the carnitas. Still, it was a pretty good taco. The flavorful green salsa helped out with the overall taste of my tacos.
My wife went with a couple chicken tacos. She found the chicken to be a little overcooked and dry to the taste. She added some of the salsa verde to her tacos to help give them a little more flavor but she was sort of disappointed in the tacos. "I've had better tacos here in the past," she told me. "I can think of three other places I'd go to for tacos before I'd come back here."
The tacos I had at La Finca, I thought, were pretty good. The carnitas tacos were very good, while the carne asada taco was good. My wife wasn't too enamored with her chicken tacos and she thought the dining area needed to be cleaned up. Looking past that, I thought La Finca did a good job for Mexican-style tacos. Just don't expect it to be a fancy place that serves a lot of different types of Mexican food.
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