Lina’s – Going, But Not Forgotten
From the Hat
This is the second time that the Taco Show Host and I have chosen the weekly taco research site based primarily on the fact that the shop is closing. Although I’d never been to Lina’s before, I found myself saddened that she was closing shop. It’s like The Green Lantern, formerly of Yorktown, TX. My memory of the Lantern is of a true cafe. Not one of these pied, glass and chrome places that pass for a diner in the more urban areas of the state, but a cozy, comfortable place with well worn booths, and The Real Thing served up in that curvy glass with a maraschino cherry nestled in the ice. I can’t drive down the quiet Main St. without thinking about it. It long ago ceased to exist anywhere but in my thoughts.
Or Mr. Burger, a 4-table dive on the edge of Brady, TX that best I could figure did mostly a drive through or take out business. They had video games inside…a sit-down knock-off of the original Space Invaders and a pinball machine called “The Black Knight”. I spent many an hour keeping Earth safe from invaders and doing battle with the Black Knight in his two-level, multi-ball demesne until he had exhausted my coin. I seem to remember getting burgers to go there a few times – more often though it was a vanilla coke, or some other drink that would make the Twin Sisters Charcoal Filtered Vodka more palatable as we toured Brady in endless circles, identifying others on The Drag by their headlights alone.
Or Milan’s, man I wish this place was still open. This place was hidden in a strip center on the south side of Corpus. Milan and her partner offered up a clever, southwestern-style menu. Shell and I spent many an evening there during our engagement. Quiet, Dark, Romantic, and Great Food – this place and the company were perfect. We heard some vague rumors about taxes…whatever. The bottom line is that it is another example of the transience of things. One day here, the next – memories. And even those are fleeting, reduced now to their emotional content. But I’ll take it.
I’m sure that Lina’s is the kind of place that people will later remember with fondness. Lina, spry and smiling, sat and ate breakfast in the restaurant while we were there. Accompanied by others, the event looked like it had happened a million times. After having a bite of her tortillas, I wished I’d eaten there a million times.
I had a carnitas taco, and a beef super taco, both on flour. The carnitas were served alone in the taco, and needed nothing. I added some of the excellent, very hot salsa about half-way through. The two played well together. The beef super taco was ground beef in the tradition of taco meat. It was richly seasoned with a satisfying amount of salt. Served with fresh iceberg, tomatoes, and a good cheddar – very good. The stars were the great flour tarpoleans. I’ve left the technical analysis of the torts to Ian. The coffee was not as strong as I like it, but flavorful. I plan on creating a few more memories of the place before they close at the end of the month.
From the Taco Show Host
I like things that are a little rough around the edges, a little less than perfect. Things that shine through in spite of their problems can sometimes be better than things with no flaws. Perfection, after all, can be embodied in very few things. The shakers thought they could do it, we see where it landed them. Persian rugmakers incorporate an intentional flaw in their design so as not to offend god by creating something perfect. What does this have to do with the price of China in East Westchester? In spite of a few shortcomings to be described in the paragraphs to follow, Lina’s makes tortillas that approach perfection. I’ve had some good ones in my day, but not this good. Not to sound like Goldilocks, but they were soft but not too soft, they were big but not too big, they were toasty but not charlie brown. They are larger than a typical tortilla, about the same thickness, but there is something unique about them that you can’t quite put your finger on. The texture is unusual, as if there were a thin skin pulled over the body of the tortilla, that is separated from it in most places. They are of a quality that defies description, the best you can do is to show up before they close at the end of this month and behold the glory that is a Lina’s tortilla.
No homemade corn though, and that’s what I was saying – sometime the flaws make the qualities stand out in greater contrast. The taco shop in question was old, a little dingy, and the cook looked like he’d been in a fistfight the night before. The chorizo & egg, though, was heavenly. I picked it up and juice started pouring out before I could even get a first bite. So much, in fact, of the bright red juice (yeah, okay, chorizo grease) that I had to put a paper towel on the plate as a dam to keep my carne guisada from being compromised. I say the redder the better. Fortunately there was a paper towel dispenser on the table.
The Carne G was something else too – so concentrated was the flavor it needed no salt. Like Wonka’s Meal Gum, it was as if I were eating a whole side of beef in this not so little taquito.
Shout out to Loring, who gave us the official recommendation for this place – though it’d been on our radar for some time, we wouldn’t have known it was closing and would have missed out without her comment. I know I’ll be back at least once before the bitter end.
‘The Hat’ and myself got a hot tip on a serious taco establishment from Louie at Executive Surf Club, who knows a lot about Movies as well as Tacos. A town like this is so overrun with taco shops you could eat at 1 or 2 a week for years and not have even heard of a place that’s about as good as they come. Linda’s is one of these places. I drove by a couple of taqueria’s we’ve reviewed before to get here but I didn’t recognize the place we I came up on it, and was surprised once I got inside. It was big, bright and clean – looking like it had less than 1000 miles on a remodel, though I hear tell of tacos being peddled from the same spot as far back as the 80s.
As I pass through the familiar patterns and practiced routine of my day I am scarcely aware of an entirely different world that occupies the same space. Move one block to the west, drive an hour earlier, focus on the roofline instead of the sidewalk, and you’ll see it. The Hat and I agreed to meet at Toñia’s #2 this morning and I took the Morgan exit, one exit too late. I cut back a block into the neighborhood, and kept my eyes keen for new taquerias. There were many old boarded up businesses, at least one had been a taqueria at one point based on it’s signage but it was fenced in and chest deep in weeds, looking as if Andrew Wyeth had painted the barrio – lonely and haunted by emptiness. I made it to the destination, and the parking lot was thick with workers in their trucks. These guys have their own little world too. They go to their own bars, have their own family events on weekends and hang out at their own section of the beach. I thrive on repetition. I find something works and I’ll work it that way until it doesn’t, and get better at it. Time passes too quickly, though, when you’re doing the same thing over again, and it’s nice to see things you don’t, especially when they’re right in front of you.
Toñia’s might be one of these places, if you regularly drive down Agnes – though I get the impression many people who do might not be big readers of blogs. I make it out that way when I need some unusual piece of wood, or a weird fastener, or some angle iron and 16 gauge plate – meaning not that often. Not like people who live and work there, whose families lived and worked there, who have a rich history and stories to tell about every street in the neighborhood like I once did about the place I grew up… One of the places I grew up.
The fare was fair, and even though the tortillas were the worst I can remember and chorizo & egg could have been called the egg that imagined it once knew chorizo, I ate both tacos (well they were tiny). The carne g was not bad really, and the coffee was decent. If you’d only ever had Whataburger’s excuse for a taco this might be the best you’d ever have, but we do live in Corpus Christi, AKA Tacotopia, the center of the tacoverse.
