But as the smoke clears and the dust settles from a week of harried and hurried pushes to finish projects just before (or in a few cases just after) their dealine, there appears to be a light at the end of the sweatshop. I picked up a new embroidery machine after a big order that looked like it would fall apart magically put itself back together, and I hired a new employee to operate it. We had a good turnout at the CC7D casting call where I made and sold the shirts (get yours here), and a good turnout at the Downtown Art Walk last night.

So I was looking forward to a real breakfast this morning when I headed South to Nile, to eat at the recommended La Chapala, past a pastoral sunrise down Ocean Drive and through the smell of Summer. I hadn’t eaten here before, and upon arriving I discovered there was no interior dining area, it was walkup only, with a teeter totter picnic table that might have been built for Andre the Giant. It could harldy have been a better morning to sit outside, and the insects may have added some much needed complexity to the flavor of the Carne Guisada.

While the ambience was charming, the food … not so much. The tortillas were like something you’d find on a taco from Des Moines – stiff and tasteless. It tainted the rest of the tacos which didn’t need much help to be less than ideal. The chorizo & egg was bland and unremarkable. The carne guisada was not bad, but tasted very much like it was right out of a food service bag’n’boil. The salsa was a bit of a bright spot, but not enough to recover this meal, and the whole thing was topped off with ‘construction coffee’ – which if you’ve had coffee from a coffeemaker in a job shack, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

As a taco enthusiast I hate to disparage establishments that are furthering the cause of tacotude, but this place may be doing a disservice to the world’s acceptance of tacos. After tabulating the scores Chapala has the worst scores to date of any place at which we’ve eaten. Do yourself a favor if you’re trying to scope out an untried taco place and look through reviews of any of the other spots in town and you’ll be glad you did. If you’re trying to curb your addiction to tacos in response to Corpus Christi’s ownership of the title of fattest city in the US this place might help.

A little band from the 80’s had a great song that captures the essence of this issue –

“In ancient rome,
there was a poem
about a dog
who had two bones.
He picked at one.
He licked the other.
He went in circles
and he dropped dead.”

I was setting up an account with a vendor this morning, and had to spend 45 minutes, call three numbers, and navigate through countless voice prompts just to find the name of an actual person at my bank to put down on the application. It’s enough to make a man want to sign up for a lobotomy.  I’ll take mine in the form of two breakfast tacos, thank you very much.

And here in Tacotopia, we have many trained master taco surgeons ready to oblige. For the cure to this morning’s psychotic break I checked myself in to Hospital la Tapatia, located on Ayers near Golihar in what can only have been a Burger King in a past life (I know the layout, BK was my first job). The Hat and I had been to La Tapatia #2, and to date it got the worst rating we’ve given so we didn’t quite know what to expect. The quality of a taqueria can vary from day to day, so comparing one restaurant to another with the same name can be like comparing an apple to something that’s unlike an apple.

I like to sit in a booth, and these booths were still intact. The interior was clean, bright, and filled with a heady enthusiasm for the biggest sporting event in the world crackling out of the TV. I was rooting for the carne guisada, but in the end the chorizo and egg won. My carne g came out with huge chunks of beef, the biggest I’ve seen in this type of taco, but the flavor was pretty neutral and the gravy tasted just a bit of Sysco. The chorizo and egg was better, though the flavor of the chorizo was not that distinctive. The three red salsas were all excellent, and the handmade flour tortillas as well. The coffee as well was good and constantly replenished.

That’s the thing about Corpus Christi, we are presented with so many choices of incredibly good breakfast tacos we forget what it’s like in places like Austin, where you can’t get fresh tortillas at five places in a three block radius at 6:30 in the morning in just about every working neighborhood. That’s why our ratings look like they never change. Corpus operates on such a high level that almost anywhere you go is going to be at least a high B, and probably an A. Throw on top of that the incredible value of these taco shops, where you can feed two people breakfast for less than it costs to buy a coffee at Starbucks and my newly lobotomized mind boggles. It is really like a little slice of heaven to be able to be surrounded by such a bounty of taco goodness here in South Texas.

So La Tapatia was serviceable, pleasant, satisfying, and I’d even say fun. The waitress’ enthusiasm for team Mexico was infectious. Now we’ll have to go back and try Tapatia #2.

From the Hat

So today starts the most watched sports tournament in the world – the World Cup.  I’d like to be clever and use all sorts of soccer (futbol) – related references, but in reality, I’d be guessing if you asked me how many players are the field at a time.  And what are those guys in the big nets doing anyway?  I’m sure it has something to do with the extended “Gooooaalll” when someone scores.  I understand the excitement.   The announcers get to perform their yells, what, maybe five times in the whole tournament.  I’d make it last too.

Sure, I’ll participate in the hype. How can I avoid it? Already I’ve found myself talking shit about kickin’ the Brit’s asses and I don’t have a clue about either team. But it doesn’t matter. That’s part of the fun. People are social animals. Theodore K-types aside, we like to be part of groups. We find strength in numbers and enjoy the comfort that comes from being in the company of like-minded people.  So I find myself enjoying the good-natured ribbing with a small crowd of friends at the expense of a friendly Brit. And I say she held up well to the barrage, dosing us with an across-the-pond version of the same business we were giving her – but with an accent. Get ’em Cat.

Sure, I couldn’t tell you who has the best chance of winning, who the stars are, why the keepers get to wear fancier clothing. Nor do I have the answer to many other soccer mysteries, but I don’t have to. I’ll be like many others, enjoying the spectacle and unless I catch some on a public TV, I won’t see a game. Speaking of public TV, the World Cup opening ceremonies were playing at Tapatia while TSH and I had our Friday morning taco repast and in the midst of colorful costumes, dancing, singing, and a human-powered dung beetle butt-up to a minivan-sized soccer ball – there were tacos.

I had a lengua taco, and uno de mollejas, both on flour torts.  The tortillas were very good, toothy, dense, and cooked to that perfect Holstein look. Both were stuffed amply with the goods. The pale, grey lengua looked steamed, not the guisada I prefer. But it was tender and with the addition of salt and salsas, and onions, and cilantro, good. The mollejas were better. Fried crisp, but not quite that perfect fried oyster consistency and served with pico de gallo. They also suffered from a paucity of seasoning, which I made up for with a couple of excellent salsas. One was surface-of-the-sun HOT!  It was offered in a squeeze bottle with a color scheme reminiscent of hornet.  There was a slightly fermented taste that I haven’t decided was purposeful. With purpose or not, it added a pleasant sourness that one doesn’t find in typical Mexican sauces. The second salsa was a rich brown-red color with a deep, smoky flavor and mild heat. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. The coffee was cafe good and served in an IV drip by a diligent waitress who was definitely rooting for Mexico.  To her I say, “Go Dallas Cowboys!!”

Salud

Politics is consumed with it, like a cancer, but polarization is all around us. Take the Memorial Coliseum for example. ‘You’re with us or against us.’ I unfriended someone on facebook this week because that person was painting a less-than-unfavorable picture of another US civil war. The benefits vs the inevitable horrors of such a thing fall outside the scope of a blog about tacos, but WTF!

Then there’s BP. Almost everyone is unified in the understanding that this is a terrible catastrophe, but the machine has turned this into grist for the mill, another argument for whatever the people already believe, one way or the other. Rand Paul says accidents happen in a free market. Rahm Emanuel says not to waste a crisis. I have some ideas of things we could put in that well to plug it. I bet you do too.

There is a local chain of restaurants in Corpus Christi, arguably the Exxon/Mobile of local taquerias, that polarizes local tacothusiasts. You know which one I’m talking about: Jalisco. The mention of the name in a roomful of people will illicit strong statements condemning or praising them. The criticism is usually for the chain as a whole, and the praise tends toward individual restaurants. I have never weighed in on the controversy, as I have not eaten enough of the many locations to make an informed judgement, even as vast as my experience with local tacos is – and as my straining belt can tell you, it is vast.

So this morning we moved one step forward in the quest to understand the nature of this argument by eating at Jalisco #12 on Staples at Weber. The Hat and I fought for the turn lane on the way into Jalisco’s lot, but reconciled. Can’t we all just get along? Once inside we ordered, and in a show of bipartisanship the Hat ordered chorizo & egg just as I always do. In my fashion, I also got a carne guisada. The food came to the table and was presented in a polite formality, but not before our coffee had been refilled three or four times in as many minutes. The red I expect in chorizo & egg had jumped from one side of the plate to the other – the carne g looked like it was on fire, and the other taco was a mellow yellow.

From the Hat

Taco Blanca and I attended the Star Wars Orchestra Concert last night and man, what a blast!  There were people of all shapes, sizes, and colors in attendance.  There was no arguing, no bickering, no complaining about the current political scene, or a peep about the gushing gaff in the Gulf.  We laughed, cried, celebrating in solidarity the sonic wonders of Lucas’s amazing movies.  If you can’t tell, I loved it.  It was one of those rare times where no matter who you listened to, there was no rancor.  No “Them”, only “Us”.

Refreshing in a world where no matter what the issue, there are always two diametrically opposed factions that pass on promoting the good of The People to promote their own version of “Us”.  Finding an angle at every instance to make “Them” look like devils and “Us” like saints.  It’s normal.  I understand it.  And the mechanism probably worked great when we were hunting, gathering tribes.  But now the only thing I’m really hunting is the next great barbacoa.  I don’t need a “Them” to set up as the enemy so I can gather a good guisada.  And maybe we can take a lesson from that.  I’m not getting all Cumbaya on you.  We have real, deadly enemies in the world who view us as devils, literally.  And we should make every effort to protect “Us”.  But that enemy is not those who have different opinions, or wear different kinds of clothing or hairstyles, or tattoos, or Liberals, or Conservatives.  And they’re not across the breakfast table – no matter how we might disagree about the quality of the tortillas.  Which by the way were damn good.

And the torts weren’t the only thing good at breakfast this morning.  We went to our third Jalisco this morning and I was pleasantly surprised.  I ordered a barbacoa classico (with cilantro and onions on corn) and a chorizo and egg.  The barbacoa was tender – moist, but not greasy.  Usually I would be crying “Fat is flavor.”  But this “lean” barbacoa was packed with flavor of cow head and spices.  It was served on a very corny tarpolean.  All-in-all a successful breakfast package.  The choizo and egg, usually TSH’s purview, was very good.  Different from most in that it was distinctively not-orange and not-greasy.  I’m ashamed that I could not identify a very tasty seasoning in the mix.  I’ll definitely have to go back and try again to determine the mystery spice.  A query verified that the chorizo was made on-site, but I’ll leave the details to an expert.  The flour tarpolean was fluffy, with a light coating of flour.  I like the brush of flour as long as the flour is cooked.  I’m not a big fan of raw flour.  These were to my liking.  Both salsas, red and green were fresh and tasty.  The green had a good taste of fresh peppers and the red had a pica that pleased the palate.  Definitely the best of the Jaliscos reviewed so far.

Salud