tacotopia

So we came out into the freshly drying world, two by two, and met up at a taco shop my wife had wanted us to check out since we’ve been checking out taco shops: La Costeñita.  Nestled in the heart of the Leopard badlands it has been here for about 13 years.  It’s got a nice hand-painted sign and rustic timber posts holding up the roof.  We all started showing up around 6:30, we being Myself, Monica my accountant wife, Matthew my brooding but taco-loving stepson, Kevvy the Hat, Shella Bella, local personality and downtown enthusiast Heidi H, and Movie Maestro, Talk Radio Host and the Fencer with the rapier wit and no GPS Joe Hilliard.

We all immediately set about discussing current events and solutions to the vexing problems that face our city.  Memorial Colosseum, stagnant growth, the effect of karma on unscrupulous downtown property owners, the fortunate absence of working girls on this stretch of Leopard due to the weather. Mr. Hilliard who I expect is as tuned-in to direction of the prevailing winds of local business development as anyone at the table seems pretty optimistic about the future but suggested we tune into his nameless show tomorrow at 11:00 on Keys AM1440. We also talked tacos, and before long we were doing more than talking.  The food arrived and we dug in.

My chorizo & egg was not bad.  The tortillas weren’t off the shelf but were a little springy.  There was plenty of filling and plenty of that filling was chorizo.  My other taco, a carne guisada, was atypical: the meat was cooked less I’d guess than many taquerias, resulting in a bit tougher tooth but with a fresher flavor and the sauce was quite good and red.  Ranchero sauce was brought out, but I opted for the salsa verde which was really excellent and quite hot.

The place itself was comfortable, and filled with working folks taking in coffee and fuel for the coming day – and a day it’ll be.  Everyone at the table has unusual things they have to do.  Grading finals, Christmas parties, taking finals, getting ready for the holidays, cooking chili for the Slaid Cleaves show tomorrow at the Venue at House of Rock.  Things get steadily more and more chaotic each day closer we come to Christmas and I struggle to keep myself from having psychotic episodes, self medicating with eggnog.

After it was done the Hat and I went to take a closer look at something we’d been discussing today over tacos, the Sign for the old ‘Tally Ho’ motel which is currently residing at Dawson’s Recycling, the company that handled much of the cleanup of the site.  The owner told us some stories about the things they found during the cleanup that would curl your hair.

I liked this place.  The tacos weren’t world class but still good, especially with the salsa, and sitting and looking out onto this part of leopard on a nice sunny morning is almost like looking back through history, to a time when this was a boomtown, when we cherished intellect and the promise of technology and the future.  Who knows, maybe Joe’s right and we’ll see a new period of prosperity here.  I’d like that, but as frustrating as this town can be and even if it stays just like it is warts and all I can’t think of a place I’d rather be in Texas.  Merry Christmas Y’all!  Happy Holidays too. Celebrate the little time we have left so we can end this decade on a sweet note, and turn it into some harmony to start off the next ten years.

From the Hat

Merry Christmas All!  Everyone seems to be getting into that Spirit – including those at the taco gathering this morning.  Everyone was animated in that early morning kind of way, buoyed by a night’s sleep and a couple of cups of coffee.  Not to mention the hot fiery thing at the center of the solar system making its first appearance in a month.  I’m not complaining about the rain.  But a respite from the slow, cold drizzle has raised my my razed spirits.  It was a good crowd this morning and the conversation was current and enjoyable.  Not that it’s usually not current and enjoyable, but more brains, more topics, more points-of-view.  We were loud compared to the other patrons, but they didn’t seem to mind.  Usually it’s Ian and I, quiet, scheming about the blog; this was more like a Holiday Gathering.  La Costeñita was dark from the outside but brightly-lit inside.  Shell and I have been there many times in the evening, or for lunch.  But this was our first visit for breakfast tacos.

It’s an interesting neighborhood, S. Leopard Street; an old neighborhood.  Some renaissance has happened in the last several years, but you’re still likely to see women with no purses walking to nowhere and guys in trucks willing to give them a ride.  Just up the road is Lou’s (Greyhound) Saloon.  Lou’s is an institution where you can get a beer, good and cold, draft or bottle.  I haven’t been in a while, but seems like they had a pretty good barbeque too.  They use to sport aerial photography of a time when Lou’s was the only building for miles in any direction.  Not far in the other direction, is Frank’s Spaghetti House.  Frank’s has been slinging pasta for 60 years.  It’s dark in a cozy kind of way and they have a decent selection of Italian food.  Over the twenty years I’ve been eating there it’s been mostly good.  Like the Astor, another long-time Corpus Christi establishment.  Steaks are cooked right out in the restaurant on an open fire.  Opened in the late 50’s, it looks like the restaurants from my childhood.  Like the rain though, all things eventually end and sunshine illuminates the darkness and clears out the dank corners of the world – the sun or the wrecking ball.  Such was the fate of the TallyHo.  The motel was ritzy from its beginning, infamous in its end.  From Swanky to Skanky, the TallyHo ended more about Ho than Tally.

I don’t expect a similar fate for La Costeñita.  While still a newcomer to the area, (10 + years on site), I think it will be around for some time.  The ingredients are fresh and the service is good and as it turns out, they serve a mean taco.  I’ll probably get some groans at my selection of tacos this morning – a taco de camarones, and one de aguacate.  It’s a stretch ordering a shrimp taco in the morning, but it was on the menu, and I love a shrimp anything.  It was tasty, the shrimp were firm and bedded in a nest of iceberg and tomatoes.  It needed salt and pepper, but otherwise was good.  The avo taco was delicious, simply avocado, lettuce, and tomatoes.  It was filled with perfect avocado.  Both tacos were accented well with either of the choices of salsa.  The salsa verde was fresh and delicious.  The warm ranchero sauce was liquid fire.  Both tacos were on flour torts, torts that didn’t make my list of favorites, but coupled with excellent company, well worth the trip.

Salud

Taqueria Jalisco has used a classic technique to defend it’s place in the Corpus Christi food chain. Boasting ten Corpus locations on their website it’s not easy to find a spot in the metro area that isn’t 4 or 5 blocks from a Jalisco, and that’s just in Corpus. Jalisco’s reach must extend further as one of their CC locations is #19. We ended up at the first, Jalisco #1, this morning.  Dug in on Port, on the west side of Crosstown Fwy, Taqueria Jalisco sits between Carniceria Jalisco and the the Jalisco Bakery on both adjacent blocks like a cult compound. This is a neighborhood where you’d do well to live in a compound, though not nearly as dicey as some – and it’s caddycorner to the lot where the chicken trailer parks on weekends.  Opinion is mixed on the quality of Jalisco’s food. Some locals will tell you to avoid them, but they are always busy with full parking lots and drive-throughs. An inquiry directed toward the lady at the counter determined that this location had been open for around 25 years. That’s no small papas. They must be doing something right in order to survive that long.

the 'ladybug' presentation

The Hat and myself walked in the front door, half expecting to find a butcher greeting us with a blood-soaked apron and a cleaver. No such luck, it was nice, tidy, and clean. The waitress was on point, and we couldn’t go 2 minutes without her offering to refill our coffee cups. The tacos quickly arrived in the ‘ladybug’ formation. The chorizo & egg was not bad: dry but not too dry, without a strong flavor of chorizo but still quite serviceable.  The carne guisada was about the same – not bad, not great.  The flour tortillas weren’t standout but they came hot, fresh and soft.  The salsa was powerfully hot – and not at the expense of flavor.

The most impressive thing about the place is the signage, and not even the signage on the taqueria itself, but on the carniceria.  It is a work of art, flawless in its execution.  You see tags around this part of town but I could see no evidence that anyone had tagged that wall. Taggers are not entirely without respect for talent.

While we try to quantify the tangible qualities that make a place good or bad there’s so much that we can’t put our fingers on. Jalisco #1 is not excellent but well worth the trip. In any other town you’d be hard pressed to find anything better. It just so happens we aren’t in any other town, we’re in Corpus Christi.  The Great Corpus Christi, a little town I like to call Tacotopia – Breakfast Taco Capital of the World.  You might think different but if your tacos try to upset the natural order of things, they might become part of the circle of life.

From the Hat

We found ourselves at Jalisco because the taco joint we had selected was closed.  Gallus gallus hadn’t even announced the day and we were standing in an empty parking lot on Ayers.  I wonder what the street life thought at the sight of two Nerds brandishing iPhones, bringing technology to bear to locate a suitable substitute taqueria…”prey” probably.

Prey…Back in the day, I used to be quite the hunter.  Bow, black powder, rifle or shotgun – it was a great way to spend some time, spend some money, visit with friends, and perhaps bring home something for the freezer.  But I haven’t been hunting in more than five years… dove hunting a few times, but no deer.  So I decided that I’d go out and try to shoot a deer this year.  My uncle Bob sets up blinds on our place in Papalote and has taken a few pigs.  He’s seen some deer, but nothing he thought about shooting.  He hunts often so is looking for big impressive deer, or those that need to be culled.  Me, I prefer the does.  I’ll shoot a buck or an atypical of course, but does are so tasty and I’m in it for breakfast.

So I got up early and went and sat on a blind.  I’d never been up in one of these tripod blinds and I must say that I felt a bit uneasy hoisting my butt 12-15 ft in the air and sitting on a swiveling chair – a swiveling chair filled with water my butt would tell you.  Lesson one, take towel.  From my gantry view, I could see and hear the brush wake up.   I love the sounds of the dawn chorus.  Foghorn Leghorn in the distance, coyotes yapping, the occasional mystery sound, and wild birds of all kind singing as if the coming sun had just thawed their syrinxes.  It was steamy when I got there and there were mosquitoes as big as bumblebees flying around.  That didn’t last long, though.  A front blew in and it got cold, and my wet butt got cold.  I hung a couple of hours and watched a feral hog and a doe, but didn’t get a shot at either.

I went back out that afternoon and put in another several shivering hours and was rewarded with a nice doe.  The rifle was true and the deer dropped where she stood.  I always feel kind of sad when I kill a deer.  They’re really quite beautiful up close and she hadn’t done a thing to me.  But I’m looking forward to backstrap and eggs for breakfast, not this morning, though.  This morning it’s tacos.

We hadn’t reviewed one of the ubiquitous Jaliscos before and figured why not?  You can’t turn around in Corpus without running into a taqueria, and there’s a good chance it’s a Jalisco.  We chose the one on Port because it was fairly close.  They had tripas on the menu, and chicharrones, so I had one of each.  The tripas taco on a corn tarp was not stellar – but not cellar either.  The tripas were ice cube-sized Borg ships cut from a frozen block then fried in very hot grease.  Most were so fried that they had very little taste, but there were a few in the center of the cubes that were still too soft.   The corn tarp was of higher quality than those al paquete, but did not hold up to being manhandled.  Not my favorite execution of the dish, but I managed to assimilate it.  The chicharron con huevos taco was better, on a better (flour) tortilla.  The chicharrones were toothy and there were plenty of them mixed with the eggs.  The vegetables making it a la Mexicana were fresh.  Both tacos had ample filling.  The red salsa was screaming hot.  I think jalapenos.  Ian may differ.  It was good though.  The service was excellent and my Bunn-driven coffee never dropped more than a half an inch below the brim.  Tomorrow, venison and eggs.

Salud