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Tacos: They're everywhere!

Although it's been a while since I've been out to a new taco place for a review, I've definitely been a repeat customer this past month at a few places.

I've had a lot of friends in town from various places, and they all wanted to eat a places I've reviewed! Most recently, I took a friend visiting from New Jersey out to Poncho Villa, and he loved it. Even though he didn't get the tacos. But I did, and they were magical. We also took advantage of their daily two for one specials on margaritas, and got a little silly.

Don't think that because I'm not reviewing, that I'm not some where eating tacos.

Tacos have been appearing to me in places other than on my plate recently.

For instance, this Onion headline:

Or this recent Deadpool comic book cover:

And Friday, at the lovely wedding shower that my darling Minneapolis friends threw for Bob and I:

Not to mention Sunday, when Bob and I, and all our wedding guests will be eating special matrimony tacos.

Keep your eyes peeled, tacos are all around you.

Calexico: Worth the Wait

If Endless Summer was the worst hip taco I've ever had, Calexico was certainly the best. The cart on Wooster and Prince was crowded today. I hear it's crowded every day but it was 90 degrees out! I was starting to get nervous. I didn't want a repeat of Endless Summer. Standing in line waiting for a sub par taco that would ultimately disappoint me. If I hadn't been set on reviewing these guys, I probably would have bailed.



But man I was glad I stuck it out. By the time I got there at 2:45pm they were already out of chicken (who cares) and their special for the day, chili verde pork so I chose the carne asada and chipotle pork. Can someone please explain chicken tacos to me? Is there some place that makes them amazing? It's seriously the worst meat to put on a taco in my opinion. Why would you choose bland old chicken when for the same price you can have amazing steak or pork?

After a 25 minute wait (yep) in the hot July sun, my tacos were ready. While I was standing there I kept hearing about "crack sauce". Crack _____ is worst nickname for anything. It embarrasses me to say it. But as a taco journalist it is my duty to thoroughly review a place! So I ordered it on the side.




Both tacos were packed with flavor. They were pretty similar to Dos Toros in their cali style. Taco purists may enjoy just some simple meat, cilantro and onions, but I certainly enjoyed a taco brimming with extras. The carne asada was perfect. Tender marinated meat, cabbage, avocado sauce and pico de gallo. And the chipotle pork was nice and smokey with the awesome extra touch of pickled onions. I noticed at the very end when I got a hunk of pure pork that it was a little dry but I honestly couldn't tell before with all the toppings. The crack sauce was a nice extra chipotle mayo sort of dip. But it wasn't any more addicting then my go-to mix of sriracha and mayo.

My day got doubly better when I saw that the Van Leeuwan ice cream truck was right around the corner.



Their ice cream may be ridiculously expensive (3.95 for a small!) but it is ridiculously good. Their air ratio is spot on. Extra smooth and creamy but not too thick. I got the earl grey which was subtle and perfect and just what I needed on a hot day.



Summer in New York is good.


Calexico
Wooster and Prince
New York, NY
www.calexicocart.com

Van Leeuwan Ice Cream Truck
Greene and Prince
New York, NY
www.vanleeuwenicecream.com

Show Your Love for Jarritos

Jarritos is having an art contest for their new slogan "Drink Out Loud." Submissions are due by June 30th. I can't draw but I love Jarritos and the artwork can be in any medium so I plan on putting something together even if it's just a photoshop of the bottle with hearts drawn around it. Let me know if any of you readers out there submit something. I'd love to see what you come up with. The winning artwork will get published by partner Jarritos media outlets (so, 20 year old sun-faded signs in the back of bodegas?) and will be on display at the LA Downtown Art Walk on July 8th, 2010. But the real prize is being the ultimate Jarritos fan...and a 1 year supply of Jarritos!




jarritosflavorcity.com via Great Taco Hunt

Mexican Make-Out

I'm going to begin by complaining. I'm tired. I am incredibly tired, so excuse me if this post doesn't exude the excitement that I want it to. Today was my first day off in ten days (which you probably know if you've talked to me any time today, because complaining feels good sometimes). Unfortunately I still had to attend a long, but important work meeting. It was a total bummer to my summer sensibilities. Especially because today it was so freaking beautiful outside. Luckily, my fiancee and I had an appointment downtown to pick up our wedding bands.

Even more luckily, the jewelry shop is located right next to one of Minneapolis' foremost non-Mexican, Mexican restaurants: Barrio. Our jeweler (a very nice gentleman, and former Prince marketing manager), highly recommended that we go there, and even told us to ask for the Executive Chef, and say that he had sent us over there. Doing this felt totally awesome, but didn't pay off because the chef wasn't around.

The only things I knew about Barrio before we ate there were as follows: it's located on the Nicollet Mall and has great outdoor seating, a guy I work with highly recommends it and finally, that it has a taco truck delighting people over in St. Paul (which will soon be seen in Minneapolis now that the law has changed). But soon, I was to find out about their totally excellent lunch special: made to order guacamole with fresh chips, and two specialty tacos for $10. Every day.

Their specialty tacos for today were braised pork belly with heirloom tomatoes and watercress, which sounded fancier than usual, but like an interesting take on the standard taco fare. Because the special only comes with two tacos of the same variety, and because I typically order three of difference varieties, I decided not to break tradition but try something new, and ordered a third, very special taco. TACO DE LENGUA!

My drink came first. Because it was my day off, I decided to let loose a little bit, even though I hadn't had anything to eat yet, and get a margarita. They had a wide, and really interesting selection of margaritas and tequilas, which makes sense because they are also knows as one of Minneapolis' foremost tequila bars. I got the Cobra Verde, a fantastic, refreshing, and potent drink consisting of tequila, sour cherries, lime juice, and absinthe.

I was totally tipsy halfway through this little sucker. I hear a lot about how the new, legal absinthe is totally bogus, but this is my second time having the "wacky water", and it definitely makes me feel way weirder than just plain boozeahol.

Next to come was the made to order guacamole and chips. As an added bonus they brought out three different types of salsa, including one really delicious habanero salsa. The guacamole was really delicious, but that's no surprise, is it?

That shit was tasty! Then, before I had enough time to gorge myself on too many chips, and too much dip, my tacos came out. It was kind of weird, because the two tacos from the lunch special were on one plate, and my poor tongue taco was all by itself on a separate plate, like some sort of undelicious outcast, which DEFINITELY was not the case.

Here's the thing about "fine dining" tacos. They are awesome, but they are so unfamiliar. It feels like the first new make-out after a break-up. The actions are familiar, but the taste is totally different.

The pork belly tacos were really good, although they were really really spicy, which I think was definitely exacerbated by the addition of watercress, the spiciest of the greens. I was disappointed in how few heirloom tomato slices were on the tacos, but I appreciated that they were there. I'd never had pork belly tacos before...it makes sense when you think about it, but the meat was way fattier than I was expecting, which is probably why they were so spicy. That fat holds all the flavor, way better than lean meat. I was alright with eating two tacos that contained such fatty meat, until a piece fell out of my taco, and I picked that little chubster off the plate with my hands, and felt it squish and slime between my fingers. I got kind of grossed out then, but I was pretty hazy from the bite of the Cobra Verde, and ate it anyway.

A note about the TACO DE LENGUA- although I ate it first, I wanted to save talking about it until last. That taco was brilliant. That taco was hella tasty. It was so good, I took off my engagement ring to eat it, so it wouldn't know I was taken.

I wasn't expecting it to be so good. I was expecting to feel about it the way I felt about the pork belly, but no, it was awesome. It was tender, and gamey. It tasted like those huge turkey legs at the fair. I was really surprised, and totally delighted. It might be my new standard wherever I go (if they carry it). What I liked, too, was that they kept it simple. They let the tongue....do the talking.

I am definitely interested in going back and eating more of the delicious-looking items on their menu, and drinking more of their drunk-inducing margaritas.

Verdict: Get there! The tacos run between $3.50 and $4.50 per taco, the appetizers are all $7.50 and the sandwiches $10, and the dinner dishes will set you back $20.00 at most. The boozey drinks are kind of pricey, but hey, don't underestimate Little Ricky.

Barrio: 925 Nicollet Mall.

Baja Humbug

There's a type of advertising that's supposed to be inflammatory to get you to notice it, but I don't think this is what Baja Fresh intended with their Times Square sign.



Dammit, Baja Fresh, that's not even close to true! I know this is a taco blog so this is a little out of my jurisdiction but I was so enraged by this ad that I had to take up the cause. I think there's a place for Baja Fresh, Chipotle, Qdoba (well maybe not Qdoba). In fact, I secretly love Chipotle. It's a type of fast food mexican that's better than taco bell and is really comforting in a big, overstuffed, cheesy, sour creamy way. But oh my good lord, I would never say those places have the best anything anywhere. And I don't think they should be advertising as such.

Here are some suggestions for a more accurate sign:

Hey, office jerk. Too lazy to walk more than a block for lunch? Well have some cheap, assembly line burritos so you won't be late for the big meeting but you will be too stuffed to care about it.

Hey, New York tourist. Too scared to eat from carts? Here's something you're familiar with. And why bother trying anything new when you've traveled 1,500 miles?

Baja Fresh. Yea, you already know what we are.

Any of these would have been better. Don't try to play out of your league, Baja Fresh, when you've already got so much to work with.

Endless Bummer

For a city as big as New York, it's pretty easy to pick out the good places to eat. You hear about them, A LOT. It's seems like everybody mentions the same handful of places when you ask for somewhere to eat and usually it's with good reason. I've been continually impressed how even the most hyped up places will live up to their name. It's been especially helpful for writing this blog because if I hear people mention the same taco place enough times, I can be pretty sure it's going to be good.

That's why I was so bummed to eat at the Endless Summer taco truck in Williamsburg. It's a place I had been hearing about for a while. "Have you been to Endless Summer yet? Oh you have to go!" So to kick off Memorial Day weekend, I decided to go and I could not have been more disappointed.


The only drawback to writing this blog is that I can't sample all the tacos each place has to offer. So I have to decide which ones will best represent the restaurant when I go to make my review. I usually break it down like this: I always get a pork taco because it is the best kind of taco and is a good barometer for the quality of a place. Then I'll get a wild card. Something on the menu that not a lot of places have and seems unusual or is at least new to me. Then I'll pick an alternate. Usually fish since I'm still searching for a decent fish taco on the East Coast (I know, it doesn't exist, but I'm trying!).


For Endless Summer I went with pork, seitan (because I had never heard or seen a seitan taco on the menu before) and fish. When I got to the counter I was told the fish would take a while, so I decided to switch to chorizo (another favorite of mine) but I was told that would take a while as well. So I asked which one was better. The response I got was "eh, neither" and not in the "because they're both so good!" way. More like, "you don't want either of these", which is advice I should have taken. But since I wanted a third taco I chose chorizo figuring bad chorizo is better than bad seafood. The wait only ended up being 5 minutes anyway while they chopped up the sausage and threw it on the grill. All the other fillings were pre-made.


I was happy to see that the tacos looked so good when they came out. And they were stuffed with meat. I ate the pork one first (on the right) and it was just okay. Plenty of pork but the meat was a razor's edge away from being too dry. It was pretty bland overall.

Next, I dove into the seitan (middle) that was practically over-flowing. I've had seitan before and I've enjoyed it. I still think the whole fake meat thing is weird. There's so many delicious non-meat food options. Why not have something that tastes really good instead of something that tastes like a shitty version of something else? But I think it has it's place and decided to give it a go. This taco did not taste like any seitan I've ever had. It tasted like a chopped up vegan hot dog. In other words, horrible. And the fact that there was so much of it only made it worse. This was the first taco I could not get through (and it wouldn't be the last of this meal). It seemed so strange that they would make the choice to have this disgusting filling when cactus is such a tasty vegetarian option. I couldn't imagine anyone enjoying this taco, veg or not.

So, last up was chorizo (on the left). My expectations were getting lower but I figured it's impossible to screw up spicy sausage. They did. The chorizo was only split in half instead of chopped up. So in the first bite I almost took out all the filling because I couldn't bite through the chewy skin. Also, the chorizo was almost all grisle so even in that huge bite there wasn't much meat. I probably would have made it through this taco but the tortillas they use (Mayab Happy Tacos) are so thick and starchy that I couldn't finish it after eating 4 already. They probably don't need to double up with these ones.

So here are the remains. The first time I've ever thrown away a taco and hopefully the last.


This is one place where you shouldn't listen to the hype. I think they're getting away with being a cool truck in Brooklyn with a good location. But there are seriously much better tacos out there. Don't waste your time with this one!

Endless Summer Taco Truck
Bedford Ave at 6th Sreet
Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY