It is a great day in Hockessin when a restaurant opens that does not cater only to pale suburbanites (of which I am one, but we’ll let that pass). Not long ago, I found out about Famous Rivera Grill, which is in the tiny strip mall next to Rita’s Water Ice on Rte. 41 in “downtown” Hockessin. My first two visits were to the takeout window for tacos–$2 apiece for absolutely delicious, just-like-they-should-be tacos with a truly fine salsa verde and all the fixin’s. They have many kinds, including things like lengua and tripe, which tells you the crowd that they are aiming for. The takeout window also has plenty of other things on the menu, but for me the tacos are the real draw. Service can be leisurely, but your food is being made to order, so wait and enjoy.
On our third visit, we went inside the restaurant for a sit-down dinner. You know you are in the right place when there are two TVs over the bar, one of which is showing bullfighting, and the other one Discovery en Espanol. The menu is not super creative, but does have things like ensalada de nopalitos, which I love, and other things like that–basically, comfort food for the hometown crowd. As we were there on a weekend, when they serve posole, my dining companion and I got a bowl of that (pretty good, although I think mine is better, if I do say so myself) and sopa de camarones, which was not as interesting, but tasty enough. Both dishes came with tortillas (we got corn) and the portions were immense. We got two full meals out of these two dishes. The total check, with beer, came to $32.50.
The restaurant has live mariachi every Friday, and we already have plans to head there for that. It is a family place, for sure, so I don’t think it will get too rowdy, although there is a full bar. When we ate there, we were the only non-Mexican patrons, but fear not, the menu is in two languages and our waitress was bilingual (and very friendly). So head on over!