Is Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza Worth It? Our Honest Review

Bottom Line

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is best for families, parties and any group that wants ten minutes of loud, silly fun with almost no rules. Skip it if anyone at your table hates fast reflex games or physical contact, because slapping is the whole point. Its biggest strength is that kids and adults play on completely equal terms, since your brain trips you up whatever your age. Its biggest weakness is that it’s over quickly and you’ll rarely play it for more than half an hour.

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza earns a perfect 5/5 Bamboo Plants and 5/5 Pandas from us, and we’ve played it about a dozen times with our board game group. The Bamboo is a five because you can teach it in the time it takes to deal. The Pandas are a five because nothing else we own gets a table laughing this hard, this fast.

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The five chant cards. Photo by Dragonhawk12, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How It Works

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is a slapping game. The 64 cards are dealt out face down, and nobody looks at their pile. Going around the table, each player flips a card onto the middle while saying the next word in the chant: taco, cat, goat, cheese, pizza, and then back to taco.

When the card you flip matches the word you say, everyone slaps the pile, and the last hand down takes the whole pile. The three special cards, Gorilla, Narwhal and Groundhog, mean everyone has to do an action first, beating their chest, making a horn above their head, or knocking on the table, before slapping.

Flinch toward the pile when you shouldn’t and you take it too. The game ends when a player who has run out of cards is the first to correctly slap a match. It’s based on the old card game Egyptian Ratscrew, with a chant that makes your brain trip over itself. Our Taco Cat rules page covers every rule, including two-player games.

What We Liked

• Age doesn’t matter. An eight-year-old and a grandparent are equally likely to slap on the wrong word, which makes it one of the few party games where kids win fairly.
• The chant is the clever part. Saying one word while seeing another is exactly what makes your hand jump at the wrong moment.
• It’s over in ten minutes. That makes it a perfect opener or a game to play while dinner finishes.
• It’s a cheap, small box that fits in a bag.

What We Didn’t Like

• It gets physical. Hands get slapped and occasionally scratched, and the official instructions even warn that the game involves physical contact. Take rings off first.
• It’s short-lived as a whole night. Most groups play two or three rounds and move on.

Who It’s For

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is for families with kids eight and up, parties where people have had a drink, and game groups that want a warm-up. It’s also brilliant for mixed ages, because reflexes and focus matter more than experience.

It’s a great pick for people who say they don’t like board games. There’s no strategy to learn and nothing to read.

Who Should Skip This Game

Skip it if anyone at your table dislikes being touched or gets upset about losing a speed contest. It’s also not for groups who want a long game night with real decisions. For that, look at our best strategy board games list.

Who Should Buy This?

Buy it if you need a cheap, fast game that gets everyone laughing, especially with kids. It’s one of the least expensive games we rate, so there’s no need to try before you buy. Think of it as a warm-up you’ll play at the start of game nights for years.

The original Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is the one to start with. Our versions ranking covers the many spin-off editions.

Check Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza price on Amazon →

Best Player Count

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is best with five to eight players. With more people, the pile grows faster, matches come up more often, and the scramble for the last slap gets wilder.

With two or three it still works, but it’s more of a reaction duel than a party, and the pile builds slowly. If you often play with just two, it’s fine, but a bigger group is where it shines.

Replayability

There’s no strategy to explore, so replay value comes entirely from the people. Every game is a new set of flinches, wrong slaps and arguments over who was last. It doesn’t change much from game to game, but it doesn’t need to, because a round is over in minutes.

If the original starts to feel familiar, the spin-off editions add new special cards and twists, and some can be combined with the original. Our versions ranking covers which ones change the game.

Awards

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza hasn’t won the major hobby game awards. Its fame came from players, and Wikipedia notes it spread widely through TikTok videos during the pandemic.

Similar Games

If you like Happy Salmon, try Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza — both are fast, noisy and physical, but Taco Cat adds a chant that tricks your brain.

If you like Exploding Kittens, try Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza — both are silly card games, but Taco Cat is all reflexes rather than luck. Our comparison goes into detail.

If you like Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, try Throw Throw Burrito — even more physical, with foam burritos instead of slaps.

More quick games are on our best card games list and our best board games for kids.

Tips and Tricks

1. Watch the card, not the word. Your brain wants to slap when it hears the word. Train yourself to look at the picture first.
2. Keep your hand still. A flinch counts as a wrong slap, so rest your hand flat on the table between turns instead of hovering.
3. Learn the three special actions before you start. Gorilla is chest-beating, Narwhal is a horn above your head, and Groundhog is knocking on the table.

1. Keep the pace up. The official rules say breaking the rhythm, by forgetting your word or missing your turn, means you pick up the pile.

For second opinions, Meeple Mountain’s review calls it pure chaos, and the Dice Tower’s video review shows a round in action.

Want to Go Deeper?

• Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza Versions Ranked — the original, On the Flip Side, 8-Bit, Poolside and the seasonal editions. Read it here
• How to Play Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza — every rule, including two players. Read it here
• Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza vs Exploding Kittens — which silly card game to buy. Read it here

The Verdict

Buy it if you want the fastest, loudest ten minutes in your collection, for kids or adults. Skip it if your group hates speed games or physical contact. Start with the original, and add a spin-off edition later if you want new special cards.

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza official site: Taco Cat Games