Linda’s – As In Pretty Damn Good!

Exterior

20091113-Lindas

4033 Golihar Rd
Corpus Christi, TX

361-852-0040

Opens at 6:00 AM

Chorizo & Egg: $1.40
Carne Guisada: $1.85
Bottomless Coffee: 99¢

Interior‘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.

The pretty waitress, resplendent in her crazy lipliner, was quick with the coffee and accurate with the order and we sat and hashed out schemes and told stories without ever reaching the bottom of the coffee cup. We’d both had harrowing weeks, and I for one don’t see it letting up over the weekend. Life is exhausting – moving from work to driving a kid around to cleaning out the garage to digging through boxes looking for tools squirreled away years before. If you work hard enough you can get ahead but more often it seems like you just barely keep pace and I for one am so tired at the end of the week that I could sleep through the weekend and not feel too guilty about it.

I see these young people out in the street when I leave for work as the sun comes up and they’re running – probably before they drive around 2.5 times as many kids as my wife and I do and get more done at work (and paid more for it) before coming home, eating healthier and getting less sleep. My cardiologist might disagree but if fatigue is the price of living the taco lifestyle I guess it’s a price I’m willing to pay, while I can afford it.

My bag is sinkin' low, and I do believe it's time

My bag is sinkin' low, and I do believe it's time

And pay we did today. The tacos at Linda’s were the size of a thanksgiving turkey and just as likely to put you into a tacoma (noun – the condition of fatigue following the consumption of particularly satisfying or plentiful meal consisting of tacos). The tortillas were flawless, I saw Kevin’s homemade corn and mistook it for a flour. The salsa was good, a bright orange purée though not as bright as that of Nano’s. The chorizo & egg was the standard ratio of Chorizo to Egg, cooked together but the quality of the chorizo was very good, and the eggs were perfectly cooked and with the neutralizing flour tortilla topping it off the combination of the three was nearly ideal.

All of this is before I got to the carne guisada, a great example of how it’s supposed to taste. The beef tender and the gravy savory. I saw the hope of completing the meal fading due to the size of the tacos and put some shoulder into the eating and pushed through to the end. In the end all I could find wrong with the place is the lack of a hand-painted sign, a liquor license, and a hammock.

One taco took a piece out of the other and left a bloody mess.

One taco took a piece out of the other and left a bloody mess.

Linda's Restaurant on Urbanspoon

From The Hat

First a couple of items of business:  Louie, thanks for the recommendation. We’ve had quite a few referrals from the Executive Surf Club, all have turned out to be very good.  Is it that the ESC has an unnaturally high percentage of tacologists?  Hmm, I wonder if I spent an hour every day at the gym if I’d find great taco tips there too.  Probably, but not likely. I’ll let you decide whether “not likely” applies to me-at-the-gym or to great advice from athletic (taco) supporters.

Shelly, the love of my life and partner in crime for the last 18 years told me of this place long ago.  It wasn’t Linda’s then, and it was about Milanesa, not breakfast tacos.

“Back then” she says, “they had the best Milanesa in town.”

Now I love to cook.  To try new tastes, new ingredients, new techniques…the whole gambit.  I don’t have many rules, but there is one near-constant.  A wooden spoon.  It’s hard to say where I got them.  I want to say it was back when Corpus Christi had a festival called “Art in the Heart” – a weekend-long, three-music-stage party in downtown that had great music, great art vendors, and an all-around great time for all that went.  That’s another story.

Anyway, somewhere back in time I bought a couple of mesquite spoons.  Right-handed spoons.  They have the perfect shape.  (For a Rightie.)  I’ve used them for almost 18 years now.  It’s always the first thing I grab when preparing a meal.  I’m convinced that there’s magic in them.  Magic from years of cooking for the two of us.  Of great meals and of those not-so-great – either way done with care and love.  That magic is passed on to others as when a sick friend needs some Chicken-n-Dumplings, or at family gatherings.  We joke that now I can’t cook without them.  I don’t believe it, but Shell is quick to implore that double-X-linked genetic ability to find things when one comes up missing.

It’s not too far-fetched to think that the taqueria now known as Linda’s has some of that same kind of magic.  Nothing quantifiable, necessarily.  But due to years in the neighborhood, cooking for people.  And the people, in some way influencing the place in a positive way.  Who knows – and my scientific mind waves its arms around and screams “Danger Will Robinson!” at the thought.  But there’s magic in those spoons, and there was magic in the tacos this morning.

I had two tacos, as is my wont – a nopalitos, chorizo, and egg (It was on the menu.) and a carne asada.  Both were excellent.  They were both as big as a VW van hood ornament and stuffed with the goods.  There was plenty of nopalitos in the chorizo offering.  There was also a taste that took me a minute to recognize, Louisiana-style hotsauce.  It worked very well in the taco.  Might have overpowered the nopalitos a bit.  Ian wondered if the vinegary taste might be pickled nopalitos.  A possibility, but I’ll stick to my original assessment.  The corn tortilla surrounding the taco was very good.  As I ate it, it bled an oranger-than-chorizo orange that stained the waiting asada.  The asada taco was exactly how I like it.  Basically fajita meat with lettuce and tomato.  The meat was seasoned very well and held up its end of the bargain.  The shredded iceberg was fresh as were the tomatoes.  Both the green and orange salsas where delicious and each added something different to the party.  The coffee was cafe good and the guy behind me could have definitely used a cup.  He cat-napped between visits by the waitress, as evidenced by a low growling snore heard ’round the restaurant.  Nighttime noises aside, we’ll definitely be back.  I’m curious now if they have Milanesa.

salud


Toñia’s #2 – Right Before Your Eyes

This is an beautiful example of the dying craft of hand painted signage

This is a beautiful example of the dying craft of hand painted signage

2561 Agnes St.
Corpus Christi, TX 78405
361-884-7596

ExteriorAs 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.

tacosToñia’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.

I’d been here before, back when I would put these things up as posts on facebook to mock the people I went to school with who’d moved to California and mistakenly thought they had good breakfast tacos. It was still there though the giant mulberry tree was bare this time, not like before when the sidewalk was dappled with thousands of impossibly deep purple stains. I didn’t see the pretty cross-eyed server this time, but the hairnets were still on all the employees as they dished out the business from their cafeteria steam tray. I served my own coffee and Kevin paid the lady, and we went back to his place to eat after finding the only place to sit – an outside patio in a steel cage – too wet to sit on with dew.

SkylineThe 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.

After we hastily consumed the lot I headed back to my shop, stopping along the way to take a picture of the fog rolling around downtown. A homeless guy shuffled into my shop at 8:30 asking for some vinyl stripes to put on his profoundly soiled jacket and I obliged him, for free, in a effort to cause him to exit as efficiently and expeditiously as possible. Tom Waits put it well in Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Down By Law’ when he said, “It’s a sad and beautiful world, buzz off.”

Agnes Street is the back door to the world.  It’s not the prettiest street, in fact, it’s damned hard to use the words pretty, Agnes, and street in the same sentence.  Rimmed with junkyards and recycling facilities –  it’s a place where cars go to die and dead cars become iron carcasses, picked-over by hyenas looking for that no-longer-available taillight housing, or switch, or Dodge Ram Truck Dash.  If you work it, you can find a rusting hulk to represent each of the last 6 or 7 decades nestled comfortably among the thorns and snakes.  Once road-proud beauties now half-buried, raise their fists in silence as if trying to illicit a mournful cry from Charlton Heston at the loss of a world lost in time.
At least it’s a peaceful end.  I’m reminded of similar rusting hulks, nigh when the earth was young, in Oklahoma, Alaska, and North Carolina.  Targets they were, for the field artillery.  They didn’t go quietly.  The stood brazenly upright out in the open, giving a raspberry to any would-be forward observer willing to step up and try to give ‘em a black eye.  Taking high explosive, white phosphorous, (used for equipment and facilities only, their use is prohibited on troops.), and smoke rounds ranging from grunt-carried mortars to self-propelled howitzers.  It was the eighties, so quite often the target descriptions were, “platoon of Russian Special Forces in the open”, or “Soviet T72 tanks in defile”, or the occasional “school bus full of armed children and nuns.”  Humor was a different thing in the field.
At one post, Ft. Sill Oklahoma, on the training course where we learned to put hurt on these targets from artillery located dozens of miles away; it was a daily event when the “Gut Truck” showed up.  “Roach Coach”, “Poagie Wagon”, whatever you called it, you could get a sandwich, or taco (definitely not a good example of either) from this big white ford truck equipped with a mobile kitchen.  It was a paradise of donuts, chips, or any other kind of terrible-for-you junk food you could desire – located conveniently in the middle of a staged war zone.  But we were hungry, and there were tacos.
There were tacos this morning, too.  Tonia’s #2 had an action station for taco construction.  The taco lady hawked her wares from behind glass – an assortment of goodies to choose from.  I had a picadillo, and a chicharone, both on flour.  The chicharones were basically a soup of pig skin and onion, with a tomato base.  They were piggy, but too soft for my preference.  Not enough to put me off on them though.  But they were mighty; undiluted with eggs or other nonsense.  The picadillo was better.  It’s a peasant dish of spiced ground beef and potatoes.  Tonia’s offering was seasoned well with plenty of salt.  The salsa specialists out there will groan at the salsa offering.  And even a tortilla trainee would see that these were not that good.  Mine might have needed a bit more time on the comal.  The coffee was good, but not never-ending.   I liked the place and will probably be back.  I was derelict in my duty by not having noticing the sliced hotdog and barbeque sauce taco.  Damn.

From the Hat

Agnes Street is the back door to the world.  It’s not the prettiest street, in fact, it’s damned hard to use the words pretty, Agnes, and street in the same sentence.  Rimmed with junkyards and recycling facilities –  it’s a place where cars go to die and dead cars become iron carcasses, picked-over by hyenas looking for that no-longer-available taillight housing, or switch, or Dodge Ram Truck Dash.  If you work it, you can find a rusting hulk to represent each of the last 6 or 7 decades nestled comfortably among the thorns and snakes.  Once road-proud beauties now half-buried, raise their fists in silence as if trying to elicit a mournful cry from Charlton Heston for a world lost in time.

At least it’s a peaceful end.  I’m reminded of similar rusting hulks, nigh when the earth was young, in Oklahoma, Alaska, and North Carolina.  Targets they were, for the field artillery.  They didn’t go quietly.  They stood brazenly upright out in the open, giving a raspberry to any would-be forward observer willing to step up and try to give ‘em a black eye.  Taking high explosive, white phosphorous, (used for equipment and facilities only, its use is prohibited on troops.), and smoke rounds ranging from grunt-carried mortars to self-propelled howitzers.  It was the eighties, so quite often the target descriptions were, “platoon of Russian Special Forces in the open”, or “Soviet T72 tanks in defile”, or the occasional “school bus full of armed children and nuns.”  Humor was a different thing in the field.

At one post, Ft. Sill Oklahoma, on the training course where we learned to put hurt on these targets from artillery located dozens of miles away; it was a daily event when the “Gut Truck” showed up.  “Roach Coach”, “Poagie Wagon”, whatever you called it, you could get a sandwich, or taco (definitely not a good example of either) from this big white ford truck equipped with a mobile kitchen.  It was a paradise of donuts, chips, or any other kind of terrible-for-you junk food you could desire – located conveniently in the middle of a staged war zone.  But we were hungry, and there were tacos.armyphoto0001

There were tacos this morning, too.  Toñia’s #2 had an action station for taco construction.  The taco lady hawked her wares from behind glass – an assortment of goodies to choose from.  I had a picadillo, and a chicharrón, both on flour.  The chicharrónes were basically a soup of pig skin and onion, with a tomato base.  They were piggy, but too soft for my preference.  Not enough to put me off on them though.  But they were mighty; undiluted with eggs or other nonsense.  The picadillo was better.  It’s a peasant dish of spiced ground beef and potatoes.  Toñia’s offering was seasoned well with plenty of salt.  The salsa specialists out there will groan at the salsa offering.  And even a tortilla trainee would see that these tarps were not that good.  Mine might have needed a bit more time on the comal.  The coffee was good, but not never-ending.   I liked the place and will probably be back.  I was derelict in my duty by not having noticed the sliced hotdog and barbecue sauce taco.  Damn.

–Salud

20091105-Tonias2

Tonia's Taqueria 2 on Urbanspoon

El Potro – Mounted Police

Exterior

1401 Rodd Field Rd. Corpus Christi, TX 78412 361-986-1028 Sun-Thu, 6:00am–10:00pm Fri-Sat, 6:00am–11:00pm www.elpotro.cc

(Ian: Red, Kevin: Green)

Tacotopia’s headquarters are in Downtown Corpus Christi, a once thriving heart of the city that has atrophied but continues to sustain its extremities. Most of the taco joints we visit are down here because they’re the places we drive by and see when we’re going about our day to day activities. Accusations have been made from some quarters that we focus too much on downtown, that we should look further to the North and West, and also to the South where most of the growth and prosperity seems to have taken place. We love downtown, but not to the exclusion of the rest of the city so today we packed a bag and headed down to Rodd Field off S.P.I.D. (that’s South Padre Island Drive for you folk outside of the tacotopia border) to a charming place called El Potro. The Hat and I were accompanied by my stepson Matt, who has considerable experience with the taco, and who suggested this taqueria to us. He was up and out the door by 6:15 to make the half hour drive to the outlands with me and made no peep about it being too early, truly a dedicated tacoteur.

It was a bit out of our normal AO. As I headed south, I couldn’t help but marvel at the line of traffic heading north to downtown. There was hardly any traffic going my way so I began to wonder if I was heading toward some disaster that everyone else knew about and was hastily avoiding. I’d been to El Potro before several times so it was easy enough to find. Ian and the young man were already there and waiting on me. The place was bright, clean, and thanks to the guys for saving me a spot at the table with my back away from the door. I guess it’s a fairly common neurosis, but I get a hinkey feeling with my back to the door. I felt safer knowing I would see any would-be maniac hell-bent on ruining my breakfast. I didn’t realize that we were probably in the safest place in the city.

Safe is right, Kevin, unless you have a life threatening taco allergy or a warrant out for your arrest. The place was crawling with police, and that is typically a good sign. Cops like to eat, and they have evolutionary pressure to consume constantly while they are on the job just like a shark. If the tacos weren’t there we might have been their next meal. El Potro means colt in Spanish, but I couldn’t find any horseflesh on the menu. The place was bright and clean as is with so many of the businesses constructed since the turn of the century, or more to the point, constructed since the last world war – which stands in stark contrast with many of the structures downtown.
OK Ian, I agree that downtown has places that are not bright and clean. But I think you can make the case that things are happening DTown. This week saw an art walk, and a street festival on Starr street. House of Rock continues to have a variety of music at their exceptional venue. And while I’m playing shill for DTown, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Lomax Compound for serving up great food, beer, and coffee. (Not to mention housing a really good graphics shop). Seems I remember reading something about loft apartments selling up on the bluff, too. I’m optimistic. I have to agree with you on the whole cops-as-evidence-for-good-food – not to mention the stray probation officer. Here’s a shout out to F.G. We definetly were in a good position for an emergency. Just out of the line of fire between what must be a table reserved for the boys in blue and the doorway. We joked that “This place should sell donuts!” And what did we see?
Donuts of course, but after a couple of their tacos there was precious little room for desert. I got the standard chorizo & egg, and carne guisada taquitos and I’ve to say they were both excellent. The chorizo and egg hit me like a billy club to the face, one might call it chorizo brutality. The flavor subdued me. It needed no salt or salsa. The carne guisada on the other hand took a much more subtle approach. The flavor in carne g is usually in the sauce but this was all about the beef, which provided not only the texture but all of the taste. For me it needed some salt and salsa but this allowed me to regulate the degree, most times you don’t get any choice.
Speaking of chorizo, I took a different tack than usual. Normally I go for something out of the ordinary and usually off the menu. But after months of watching you get all the chorizo, I couldn’t stand it. I’ve been thinking about a place that used to be in Kingsville, La Siesta. We would go in there for a late breakfast on occasion and order the chorizo and papas platter. This stuff was the stuff of legends. You had to eat quickly or it would jump off your plate and attack your napkin, the tablecloth, or any other textile within range, leaving a sinister orange stain as evidence of assault. (Here, long after the fact, sitting at a keyboard, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.) That was my inspiration for one of my tacos this morning. The other, was a regular for me, the chicharrone con huevos. Both tacos were on flour torts and were excellent. (No handmade corn tarpoleans at El Potro.) The aspiring tacoteurs out there would appreciate the chicharrone taco. Served a la mexicana – it was a jumbo-stuffed beauty. The chicharrones had just the right bite. I’d say it could have used a bit more of the pig skin, but really it was delicious. The chorizo and papas really brought back the memories of those college days at Taco Tech. When I opened the taco to take a look, the slightly vinegary aroma rushed out at my face as if trying to give me a kiss. You’re right about not needing anything, but I had to try the salsa and it was terrific. It had a smokey, almost chipotle taste to it. Very fresh. For those missing out on the tripas, or barbacoa review, it was a good thing my tacos were excellent. Otherwise I would have had a case of taco envy. Across the table, Matthew had ordered the tripas and a barbacoa. At his first bite, I heard the crunch of very crispy tripas. He reported that they were “very good” and that the barbacoa was “pretty good”.
Yes, Matthew is succinct. All in all I could find nothing wrong with anything. Even their tortillas, which seemed to lack any real texture were hot, fresh and complementary to their imprisoned filling. All of this served up by a pretty waitress who could have easily been dressed up for Halloween as an 80’s witch, complete with blue eyeshadow and what I thought at first was a collar but I guess was a choker. We didn’t see the bottom of a coffee cup while we were there. I guess that about wraps it up for this fall behind edition of Tacotopia, and welcome to the new our new home at Tacotopia.net. Keep those taco tips coming in
Happy Halloween all.  May the Great Pumpkin find your pumpkin patch to be the most sincere and rise up from within and deliver toys to the true believers. Salud.

20091016 Alteno

CnE

Taqueria El Potro on Urbanspoon

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