FOOD

El Vaquero’s weekend buffet is strongest when treated as a sampler of the Mexican restaurant form itself rather than as a taco bar. The guaranteed core spans tacos, enchiladas, fajitas, chimichangas and chilaquiles, with rice, beans and desserts completing the core. That breadth matters because these are normally competing choices on a long sit-down menu. Here they become components, and the plate can move from sauced to grilled to fried without waiting for another order.

Tacos and enchiladas make the easiest first pass. Tacos are naturally suited to tasting because they leave room for something else beside them, while enchiladas bring the softer, saucier side of the spread. Chimichangas change the texture again, adding a fried shell and a heavier, more complete feel. Taken together, those three familiar formats already explain the buffet’s basic pleasure: the guest does not have to choose a single lane and stay there.

Fajitas create the next branch of the meal. The grilled meat-and-vegetable character breaks away from the tortilla-and-sauce pattern and gives rice and beans a more substantial partner. Chilaquiles are the more revealing inclusion. They are common enough to be instantly Mexican, yet unusual enough on an American buffet line to make the spread feel less like a generic taco setup and more like a broader survey of the cuisine’s comfort-food vocabulary.

Rice and beans are structural rather than decorative here. They absorb sauces, fill the gaps between small samples and let a plate built from several different dishes still make sense. Carnitas can push a later round toward pork and away from the first-pass combination classics, while chicken fajita mix offers another straightforward anchor. This is the kind of buffet where the supporting staples make experimentation easier because there is always something familiar to build around.

The most interesting edge of the rotation reaches beyond the expected combination-plate standards. The weekend spread has reached whole fried fish, along with a seafood soup that gives the hot line a completely different direction. Other rotations have included tamales and chorizo potatoes. None of those items needs to dominate the meal; their value is that they interrupt predictability and reward another walk past the buffet before deciding the plate is finished.

The supporting side broadens the experience further. Salads, fresh fruit, cheeses and salsas create cooler, sharper breaks between fried and sauced dishes, while kid-friendly fried items have also had a place in the spread. That makes the buffet easier for mixed groups than its cuisine label might suggest. One person can stay close to tacos and rice, another can chase the rotating dishes, and both are still working from the same line.

Dessert closes a buffet that is ultimately less about one signature dish than about permission to stop choosing. The best strategy is to resist building the definitive plate on the first trip. Start with the Mexican standards, use chilaquiles or fajitas to change direction, then let the rotating foods decide whether the next round turns toward carnitas, seafood or something fried. Blue Ash works because the buffet converts a familiar restaurant menu into an edible comparison: several orders’ worth of possibilities, tested one small portion at a time.