Our largest tournament bracket to date completed its fourth round. For those new to this, I wanted to go big with the latest social venture. There are arguably more places to get tacos in Wichita than any other type of food. When I set out to set up the bracket for Wichita’s Most Liked Taco, I wanted to go big and do something the city has never seen before: A tournament bracket featuring a whopping 128 restaurants, food trucks, and pop-ups around town dishing out tacos was the end result.
The massive list included nearly every locally owned taco option along with some national chains to fill in the 128 spots. It ranged everywhere from street tacos, fried tacos, Vegan tacos, gourmet tacos, fast food tacos and creative taco options that range from one end of Wichita to the other. It’s 100% Wichita.
The point of this whole bracket was three-fold and if you don’t like it, tough shit:
- Introduce you all to the incredible number of options many of you may have never heard of.
- Use this platform of Wichita By E.B. to help give some exposure to places that rarely get love elsewhere.
- Have a little fun in the name of Tacos.
Over the past few weeks, readers had their chance to vote on matchups via Facebook. The fourth round featured eight matchups. In those eight, the restaurants that failed to advance were Ruben’s Mexican Grill, El Viejito, Mr. Taco (Tacos Alex), Rene’s Mexican Food, Tacos Fajita, Uno Mas Fresh Mex, Pollo Express and Los Compadres. There were plenty of big names who lost this week which caused a ruckus among many voters and even some very hateful comments that took me by surprise. Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised. Facebook is a breeding ground for many hateful people. Many comments came about questioning Wichita’s taste in food which is funny because food is ultimately what someone’s individual preference is. Imagine if people started judging those same people’s taste in who they date or marry? It could get ugly fast!
With all that aside, the people who have been able to enjoy the Most Liked Taco Tournament for what it is are the ones this is geared towards. And while it is for fun, I’m sure any of the restaurants would love to eventually take home the bragging rights as it could be a good boost for business. Past restaurants who have won or made it to the Final Four of our Most Liked Tournaments have seen a boost in business so it’s nice to be able to indirectly provide that.
For the EL-EAT 8, I made an executive decision. I wanted the matchups further down the line to be more competitive so I reseeded the matchups based on total votes from all previous rounds. Similar to the NFL, I just wanted more action. They’ll once again be reseeded for the Final Four where we should likely have some epic matchups.
Without further ado here’s your EL-EAT 8 Pairings:
- Taqueria El Fogon vs. Jimenez Tacos
- District Taqueria vs. Paleteria La Reyna
- Tacos TJ 664 vs. Cactus Cantina & Grill
- Felipe’s vs. Taco Pronto
Those are the matchups everybody on Facebook came up with.
REMEMBER, the results of this post don’t necessarily mean they are the best taco but more of which place has the most online support thus Most Liked. So if your favorite place doesn’t win, please cry to your parents….. not me. This all comes down to social media support. In the end, I hope you can find some new taco options you may have never heard of or tried! And just like the previous bracket, I will not be voting in any bracket. This will be left strictly to the general audience.
I do have ONE REQUEST. When you vote, ask yourself if you’re voting for what you truly feel is the BEST TACO or if you’re just voting to support said place based on other reasons. You are voting strictly for tacos, not Mexican food…just tacos. There were comments blasting places for not being “authentic enough” or “Mexican”. This is a “Most Liked Taco” poll. The criteria does not involve the style of taco or having to be from a Mexican restaurant. Obviously there is no way to regulate it but I just wanted to throw that out there.
If you’d like to vote, you can find the four matchups on the Wichita By E.B. Facebook page. So with that said, here’s the updated bracket.
Download the full PDF here. And since the bracket is so large, I had to split it up into two images so printing off the file and viewing it that way is the best way.
We went from 128 down to 8, now we continue on down to 4. May the best taco win.
Happy Dining,
Eddy
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It’s too bad that people have to react like that. There were always going to be favorites that fall out earlier than expected, but based on the results so far, I think it’s been an incredible tournament. Of the 8 left, I have eaten tacos at 6 of them, and my son has covered the other two. We each have our favorite left, and they could meet in the finals. But no matter who wins, we are really blessed here in Wichita to have so many incredible places to get tacos.
So what will be next? Fajitas? Burgers? Pizza?
Possibly BBQ