tacotopia

Chacho’s Tacos #2

1321 Ayers Street

Corpus Christi, TX 78404

361-888-7378

Chorizo & Egg – $1.75

Carne Guisada – $1.95

Large Coffee – $1.35

As we stepped in from the rain, we shook off and stepped up to the counter and reading the menu board found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the elusive spam taco! The 5th in town! Next week we’ll be reviewing all five, stay tuned.  For today, however, I stick with my regular.  The place was nice, painted white, bare walls, humble and clean.  The servers were friendly and the patrons were diverse. We got our chow to go and headed back to Kevin’s to do some analytics.

The tortillas were soft and flour coated – an object of contention.  I like, Kevin doesn’t.  The Chorizo and egg was delicious, and tasted as if it was cooked in butter as well as chorizo grease.  The Carne Guisada was also quite good, very tender, and savory with more than a hint of tomato. The coffee was not great, and the creamer was in a packet.

We sat and ate the breakfast in the warm security of the house, a whole world of deep blue shadow, and quietly reflected on the day ahead in a fleeting period of calm before the storm of work. I swear I saw a ghost at the taqueria. Then – out into the rain again.

Enrique’s Restaurant

5230 Kostoryz Rd # 1

Corpus Christi, TX 78415

361-851-2864

Chorizo & Egg – $1.39

Carne Guisada – $1.88

Over the past few weeks my life has become confusing and I’ve had this feeling that it’s missing something.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a happy man.  I love my wife and kid.  I’m professionally satisfied.  But at a certain point a lot of guys start to realize their youth is rushing away from them like a falling tide and it’s not coming back.  Some guys do the unspeakable and transgress the covenant of marriage.  Some buy a Harley and hang out on weekends with other white collar types in a similar place – dressed up for show to disguise the creeping malaise of eminent mortality.  Kevin & Shelly could be spotted cruising the strip in a Dodge Prowler this week, and when the thrill was exhausted from that as it inevitably is with cheap thrills they re-upped and bought a new Lexus.  I have simpler tastes – I pawned my Canon 40D DSLR and headed down the squalid sidewalks of taco row: Kostoryz.

I’d heard tell of this one little number – Enrique’s. “The bean tacos are the best you’ll ever have,” they said.  I had to find out myself if 25 years of satisfied customers could be wrong.  As we shuffled up to the front door of Enrique’s Restaurant past the tawdry ‘Romance Room’ bar we weren’t sure of what we could expect.  Once inside we were seated at a big table and looked at the expensively trimmed wood paneling and highbrow fixtures that belied the fact that this place sits in a run-down shopping center.  The waitresses brought the food to the table and we noticed they must have all left their cotton uniforms in the dryer too long this morning.  The service was good.  The coffee was good.  They offered a broad range of tacos – catering to any taste.  There was even a spam & egg taco on the menu – for those with the most depraved appetites.  The tortillas were homemade thick – both flour and corn.  The chorizo and egg was decent, and the carne guisada was better than average.  Something about the tacos when all put together was at once greater than the sum of its parts and less than hoped for.  The star of the show was the beans.  Sultry and greasy they defy description, sitting in pool of what I think was bacon drippings.  They were so good, but it felt so wrong eating them.  By the time we were leaving I felt strangely unsatisfied, despondent and more confused than when I’d come in.  ‘I’m so sorry’ ran through my head as I rehearsed it.  I hope my regular taqueria will take me back.

From the Hat

I write this epistle today with thoughts about life’s high noon.  I’ve started seeing the telltale signs of age.  Today its ears, but eyes, knees, and who knows what else will plague me in the coming years.  I guess it happens to everything.  Time and Gravity don’t play favorites.   But without that long passage of time, we’d not have long-time friends.  Today, and for the weekend, my long-time best friend Jim R. is in town running from the World Championship Bar-b-que Goat Cook-off in Brady, Texas.  He’s here in Sur de Tejas with a truck full of drum kit.  We’re hoping to drag Ian into a couple of jam sessions this weekend in Papalote.

The mob tacoed at Enrique’s this morning.  The tacos were good, not great, but well worth the trip.  For you gearheads, I had something called Carne Fritas.  Thin-sliced little disks of fried beef in a savory sauce with tomatoes and lettuce on a homemade corn tortilla.  The corn tarp was good.  Could  be me, but it could have used salt.  I like them a bit thinner, but for you thick corn tortilla fans, it was a good one.   I also had a picadillo taco.  Basically ground hamburger taco meat with potatoes added.  It was tasty – served on a good homemade flour tortilla.

The Star of the show today was the salsa – a very fresh-tasting squirt bottle of red delicious with plenty of heat.  I considered asking to take some to go.  The coffee was good too.  It was the standard café coffee that you find everywhere.  Good honest coffee with no pretentious names and sizing conventions.  The place was clean.  The woodwork on the uncluttered walls is really well done and meant to be there in a couple of decades.

As we left, I noticed the shopping center was showing  signs of middle age too.  But with just a little imagination, I could see gentrification happening in the next several years.  My guess is that Enrique’s will still be around for that future facelift.  I’ll be there too, having a taco.

Salud

4066 S Port Ave

Corpus Christi, TX 78415

(361)808-7711

Chorizo & Egg – $1.40

Carne Guisada – $1.95

Large Menudo – $7.00

Small Menudo – $4.50

Menudo is served daily