Bomba Tacos & Rum
 Fairlawn, Ohio       Date of Visit  12/09/16        http://bombatacos.com

Looking for lunch in Fairlawn and happened upon one of the two Bomba Taco outlets. Fancy hipster tacos with more of a Central America/Caribbean vibe to the flavors and lots of rum. We showed at an off hour and they were definitely off. Our server was thinly kind, got our order wrong, then overcharged us for stuff we didn’t get. She was clearly struggling to paste on a facsimile of caring at all. We ordered quite a spread, but I think you can do better at places like the tiny Funky Truckeria in Barberton for local fancy tacos.
 

We started with the Roasted Corn Dip, which reminded me a little of the corn at El Carnicero, just cheesier…not a bad thing. It was served with a crazy variety of sliced and fried plant matter…namely yucca, plantain, malanga and corn. The adobe fries are functional fries coated with adobo seasoning, the corn dip is much better.
 

Over all the tacos were too spicy for Steph and homogenous and monotonous for me. The heat level was fine but it all but obliterated any of the other nuances that might have existed. Her pork taco (BBQ Pork with Salvadorian slaw, crispy onions, tamarind bbq) was blanketed by the stifling BBQ sauce, the cauliflower taco (Roasted Cauliflower with pickled jalapeños, lemon confit, goat cheese, aji verde) could have been anything, and I had to dig apart her last taco (Crispy Shrimp mango, jicama, pickled jalapeños, garlic aioli) to figure out which of the crispy ones she had brought us and which we never saw (Crispy Fish  jicama, mango, jalapeño remoulade)…which in the end was fine.
 

My three tacos had less heat (we clearly ordered backwards which makes me wonder how accurate the menu descriptions are) but still aren’t going to challenge many other taco places on my list. All in all the braised duck (Braised Duck Mole pickled red onions, queso fresco, housemade mole sauce) was probably my fav with the earthy mole underlying the rich braised bird. The crispy avocado (Crispy Avocado pico de gallo, cilantro pesto sauce) was terribly outclassed by Funky Truckeria’s and the chorizo (Chorizo & Potato goat cheese, smoky aioli, hot sauce) needed more brash spiciness to stand out through the potato. I don’t know that I’ll be back with a kitchen barely more inspired than our walking dead and either forgetful or deceitful server.