Almeida 1 – the ‘Demon Pass’ Edition

2650 Waldron Road, Corpus Christi, Texas 78418 • 361-939-7488
Chorizo & Egg $1.55 • Carne Guisada $2.05 • Coffee $1.35

It’s was a lonely road I rode this morning, down to the Southland on my morning constitutional. I hear a lot of things from North of here. On one side you’ve got folks sayin’ the revenuer is gonna come and raise our taxes, we should revolt. On the other side they’re tellin’ us if we don’t do what they say it’ll be bad for our health.  The two sides are meeting up at a little crossroad they call ‘Demon Pass,’ and I don’t expect it’ll be pretty. There’s an established protocol they’ve elected to abide by called ‘Slaughter House Rule.’ Personally I think they’re all working together to take advantage of us little guys who are foolish enough to give them any creedence. So I set out this morning to step away from the coming fight that I can’t hope to win – it’s all out of my hands – and to watch the sun rise in the East while wolfing down a desayuno del vaquero.  Old Honda, my horse, complained a bit as I spurred him to a fast gallop down South Padre Island Drive before entering Flour Bluff.

At once I saw a sign for the chow stand, hand-painted on wood, a real beauty. My backup, ‘the Hat,’ had showed up ahead of me and they served him up in short order.  In minutes they had my vittles out as well.  A tall cup of drip coffee and two tacos.  I’d asked for a chorizo & egg, and a carne guisada.  The guisada was pretty tasty with a strong flavor and plenty of cumino. It was big too, and I knew my horse would need some rest after my trip back North. When I got to the chorizo & egg I discovered it had been replaced with an entirely different taco – bait and switch, a tactic those carpetbaggers at Demon Pass might try in the upcoming battle. What I had still looked pretty good, though, and I’m not one to argue with fate, in which case the arguer tends to lose, and I started to eat into what turned out to be a breakfast sausage, egg, cheese & potato taco.  Both tacos were big, and we ate them on the wooden picnic tables set up in the only place there was to eat – an outside covered patio.  The amber lamp of the sun colored everything we were eating with a dusty light, and the wind blew so hard we had to hold down our coffee to keep it from spilling.

The tortillas were handmade, and had blackened patches from the plaqa that were just on the right side of overdone.  There was salsa but it wasn’t much to speak of.  Neither of us talked about the upcoming battle, it was going to happen one way or the other, no matter what we thought.  Maybe it’d be better in the long run, but then again maybe it’d just be another lie the government told us so it could go on doing whatever it wants to do – which seems to be working in cahoots with fatcats and tycoons who build their empires on the broken backs of the people they screwed to pay for it. Once they get a taste for that money you can’t cure’m, and if you let them run free they’ll infect the rest of the herd.  If you ask me we’d be better off if we rounded them all up and stampeded them off the edge of Flour Bluff.

So next time you’re out on the trail, and you see someone on an Texas-sized red and white horse with a little bag of tacos, come on up and set a spell.  That is unless you’re campaigning, then you might as well head on over to Demon Pass.

From The Hat

Good Morning Tacotopia!  Hope Spring Break has been good to you.  If you’re not getting a break, then I hope you’re enjoying the weather.  Thanks to all of you who have left a mark on Tacotopia.net, the Facebook Fan Page, or on the Caller Times Website.  Special thanks to those who left a raspberry on the NYT site regarding the recent “Best Taco in Texas” brouhaha.  It’s been good to wallow in the much-deserved buzz but it should be noted that no amount of celebrity will keep us from our mission.  That mission had us up dark and early this morning for a trip to the hinterlands – Flour Bluff.

Flour Bluff is hardly the place it used to be.  Historically the butt jokes, usually about shrimpers or missing teeth; The Bluff has seen a renaissance in the last decade or so.  Poised on prime property between the Sparkling City and the Island, it is no wonder that the area has seen population and business growth. I know of one example where people were run out of their ratty residences so the apartments  could be renovated and re-rented to those with more robust resources (Arrrrr!).  While this was an inconvenience for my friend Dicky (Dicky Neely Blues Band), another friend benefitted from the work. I guess that’s how it goes in the world, some get work, others get worked. Dickey, a master of the harmonica still plays the Coastal Bend, contributes to local papers and maintains several blogs including one dedicated to the blues. Being in the Bluff makes me think of Dickey and how I haven’t seen him in a while. I think I’ll do something about that!

The Taco Show Host and I had agreed to meet at Taqueria Almeida #1 on Waldron Rd and I was early.  I had the paper and was looking forward to running through the local items of import, having a cup of coffee, and taking in the atmosphere. Almeida’s #1 came highly recommended by many people including noted FB taco specialist, Terry P. who maintains that they were consistently better than their in-city sister. When I arrived, I had to circle the place before I realized there was no indoor dining area, instead was a nice, clean, covered patio area and a steady stream of customers both drive-up and walk-up. There was a bit of a cold wind, and being dressed in CC formal, I decided to wait in the truck. I ordered a papas con chorizo and a nopalitos and egg, both on flour torts at the walk-up window just as TSH was tying up his horse. The tacos arrived quickly and turned out to be pretty good. The tortillas were fresh with a light dust of flour and both tacos were stuffed to capacity with the goods. The chorizo con papas was flavorful with the vinegary taste that I like. The potatoes were soft, but not over-cooked – a fine offering. The nopalitos taco was served a la Mexicana and had plenty of cactus. The mix needed salt, but other than that, it was also a good offering and will satisfy the cactus jones. I give Taqueria Almeida a thumbs-up.

Salud

Isabella Rossellini as the Late, Great Bettie PageOur free taco winner for this week is:

Isabella Rossellini

This Icon of beauty and grace is a writer, activist, actor, filmmaker, philanthropist, model and beauty – looking as good at 57 as many half her age and with but a fraction of her charm. She counts among her lovers Martin Scorsese, David Lynch & Gary Oldman. Her acting career includes roles ranging from the serious (Blue Velvet) to the absurdly funny (30 Rock), and she is presently working on season 3 of Green Porno, a bizarre presentation of the mating practices of animals in which she often portrays, in costume, nature in its most natural act. It is worth noting that Rosselini hails from silver screen royalty, even though they were married to others at the time, her father the director Roberto Rossellini (called the father of the French New Wave) and her mother the legendary Ingrid Bergman.

Offer includes 2 tacos, an audience with the ‘tacoteurs,’ and a free tacotopia t-shirt. Please redeem this offer at Whetstone Graphics on a Friday morning of your choice. Offer subject to cancellation by order of the wives of the tacoteurs.  Enter to win by emailing your name on the back of an autographed copy of Fearless, or better yet a single piece of thread from the hem of Isabella’s garment, to tacos@tacotopia.net.

Santa Rosa – Big, But Not Bad

2722 South Staples St. • Corpus Christi, Texas • 361-853-3388
Chorizo & Egg $1.39 • Carne Guisada $1.49 • Bottomless Coffee 99¢

We have been here before. Way back on our spam run we did a drive through, and were amazed at the number of customers eating here. It was easily the busiest place we visited that day.  Santa Rosa is at the intersection of Staples and Ohio, not too far from 6 points, in the old chinese buffet building.  The last few years the chinese buffet was there I was afraid to eat there due to the dearth of patrons, but with its new inhabitants there is no lack of customers. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire so the Hat and I were obliged to give Santa Rosa a more thorough investigation.

My wife’s aunt and uncle are here in Corpus from Houston, and they swear by this place.  That’s a pretty good endorsement, if you know them.  Add to that the fact that I haven’t had a taco since last friday and have subsisted mostly on salad, fruit, lean cuisines, and occasional can of compressed air (but it gives me gas) for the last week and you can imagine how much I have been looking forward to this Friday morning.

Once inside you seat yourself. The place is huge, I expected to see elderly couples walking laps around the perimeter of the dining area.  I didn’t feel conspicuous at all with my oversized dslr.  We occupied one of the many booths next to the big windows facing Staples.  It was all very comfortable.

The food was good. I ordered a chorizo & egg, and a carne guisada. The chorizo and egg had a strong but muted flavor complemented by a good flour tortilla.  The carne guisada was dense and meaty – not a standout but still good. The coffee was decent, and plentiful.  Mine was refilled at least four times.

The Hat and I talked about work, technology, food. The usual. Yesterday the weather was horrible.  It was cold and raining, and the wind was blowing so that even standing under something you couldn’t help but get soaked.  I had a meeting in the afternoon, and had to fill up my truck with gas on the way.  I arrived dripping wet and smelling like hi-test. That always impresses potential customers. But the meeting went well, as did the event my business held later in the day, in spite of the weather.  By the time I woke up this morning the ground was dry save a few puddles.  The conditions are harsh, but things can thrive in harsh conditions. Neither of us wanted to work today, but I expect we’ll both get done what we need to get done before welcoming the weekend with open arms.

From the Hat

So I’m sitting here, tryin’ to do justice to the Tacotopia reputation for quality blogging.  Waiting for inspiration – a lightning bolt of creativity that will spur me into something enjoyable to write and hopefully enjoyable to read.  I guess another lightning bolt is too much to ask even though todo el mundo knows that I’ve done my fair share of provoking in the past.  What I did get is a screaming refrigerator.  It’s a small, aged thing hangin’ in there way past its prime.  It screams just often enough to let us know that it’s sick and tired of the daily grind and wants to retire.  These kinds of things run in gangs.

A lightning strike at the ranch seems to have fried a fuse in a transformer.  It’s damaged the refrigerator in the barn, the starting electronics for the well pump (and maybe the pump itself), and while all of the power leaves the pole, only half of it shows up in the barn.  This means a short buried in the earth somewhere like some cruel hidden treasure.  Thanks Thor.  The frozen, then burst pipe above what we call the Bed and Breakfast could mean that the Thunderer wasn’t alone, in fact I’m guessing both the lightning and the freeze resulted from a clandestine quicky with Skadi.  They must have arrived simultaneously because the burnt circuit kept the pump from pumping water out of the burst pipe for the couple of weeks we weren’t out there.   It’s a good thing I don’t believe in luck because I wouldn’t know whether this was an example of good luck or bad.

We got Serendipity limping along.  The cistern is full of water so we can get by for a while without the well.  We had a repairman out for the fridge and a C+note got it running again…for about a week.  We went out a couple of weeks ago to find that it was again no bueno.  Now I’m thinking that we picked up something at the ranch and brought it home.  Sunday’s preparation for Monday’s work was halted by a loud grinding noise and the smell of smoke from the washer.   Through the convenience of the Internet, and Craig’s List, Shell found a good deal and we picked it up.  The faucets behind the washer were so old, that upon being closed and opened again after installation of the washer, one of them leaked so badly that I expected a little Dutch Boy would be pounding on my door soon.  As Shell says, “It’s never easy.”  I’ll be going to Plumber’s Warehouse to get a new hopefully higher-quality faucet because the new, apparently lower-quality one I got from the home depot developed a slow leak from the handle the minute I put it on.  But at least it works and I had clean clothes for today’s taco run.

It was just the Tacoteurs today at Santa Rosa this morning.  The place is big, but cozy on a cold day.  I arrived shortly before Ian, picked a comfortable booth by the window and ordered coffee.  By the time Ian had arrived, I’d decided on the chicharrones a la Mexicana on flour and a barbacoa con cilantro y cebollas on homemade corn.  The corn tort was smaller than the flour but well-stuffed with a decent barbacoa.  The onions and cilantro were fresh and with the addition of the hot salsa, the taco was a winner.  The chicharrones in the other taco were of the airy pork-rind-in-a-bag variety.  Not my favorite kind, but dense enough to have a bite.  There was plenty of egg and again the vegetables were fresh.  The wait staff was on constant coffee patrol, ready with a good café-fresh Joe for your plastic cup. I might have to go check this place out for lunch.

$#!+, there goes the fridge again!

Salud

Our free taco winner for this week is:

Sofia Vergara

Turning in fantastic performances in Spanish and English this thyroid cancer survivor is an essential part of the chemistry that makes the ABC comedy Modern Family so pleasant to watch.

Offer includes 2 tacos, an audience with the ‘tacoteurs,’ and a free tacotopia t-shirt. Please redeem this offer at Whetstone Graphics on a Friday morning of your choice. Offer subject to cancellation by order of the wives of the tacoteurs.  Enter to win by emailing your name and a pre-release Apple iPad to tacos@tacotopia.net.

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City Bakery – The Decline of Western Civilization

I think this may not have been painted by a professional sign painter

808 South 19th Street, Corpus Christi, Texas 78405 • 361-885-0128
Carne Guisada: $1.50 • Chorizo & Egg: $1.00

Corpus Christi is a wonderful city, filled with hard-working people, entertainment, and the best tacos in the world.  And while the taco scene here is better than it has ever been, many other things in Tacotopia have been in steady decline for decades.  It’s easy to point to (and I often do) the outsourcing of US oil profits to Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC as the cause of our problems but there is more to it than that.

The best decade for population growth in Corpus Christi was the 50s during which we added 60,000 people.  I’d estimate that we’ve added around 10,000 in the last 10 years. Young people don’t want to live here and our community continues to age as does the municipal infrastructure and the entrenched system of local politics. All this means to me is that I can look at this city and love it, and at the same time see so much of it that is crumbling and broken, from the 100 year old downtown plumbing to the many vacant buildings with absentee landlords who’d rather let the buildings crumble and depreciate than do anything with them, and urban blight that scars downtown (again with the downtown). Small business owners from downtown and the West side organize functions to drum up business, but even in the heart of one of the most successful blocks of businesses in the area I get very few walk in customers.

Our taco shop today is a place that resembles the city itself.  City Bakery is a place that was once great.  Long a hub of activity in the West side it was the place where local civil rights leaders met during the creation of LULAC and MAYO, demanding a fair shake for a culture that existed here for longer than the Republic of Texas itself. I have been told by ‘El Gran’ Dee among others that there would be lines snaking around the block in the morning to buy this bakery’s signature item, the biscuit, and that most of the wedding cakes and local restaurants’ commercial baking moved through this establishment.  Sadly, this is no more.  The restaurant shows every day of 50 years of wear, with none of the benefits of its toil and yet it is still there, still open, still operated by the same family.  It’s not a great place to eat, and it is confusing to think that it has managed to pass health inspections all these years.  Dee spoke of the utter lack of pretense in the decor, and how after eating here in the morning he felt seasoned to deal with any comer throughout the rest of the day.

How is the food, you ask? The menu is limited, written in stilted hand with 4 different markers on 5 year old poster board.  Half of the items have been crossed out, and one or two have been written in, crowding for space.  Like downtown, or the Memorial Coliseum therein, no one wants to tear it down and start with a clean slate, thinking it’s better to hold on to something broken than to let go of the past. It breaks one’s heart. The carne guisada was crossed out but I asked for it and the lady at the counter said she had it.  It was not good, but it was edible.  The chorizo and egg was a little better, but just a little.  A bit peppery, and I didn’t add any pepper.  The chile salsa was fair.  Shell’s water came with a 1/2 lb chunk of ice that might have come off a piece that had been in the back since the place opened.  While we waited for our food, which all of the attention of the two employees to prepare, a steady stream of kids in their catholic school uniforms and shuffling street people lined up.  No one grumbled about the wait, and the ‘ring for service’ cowbell was only politely rung once.  By the time our food came out (at least the first part, we ended up eating in shifts) there must have been eight people in line.

The tortillas, however, were very good – I’d guess made fresh to order – and the biscuits were excellent, made fresh and pre-buttered.  The Hat says he couldn’t recommend anyone eat there, but I could.  It’s got atmosphere in spades.  If you want to eat at a place you’ll remember, this is the place.  If you want to eat food you’ll remember this may also be the place, but not for the reasons you’d like.

From the Hat

Usually I joke about the dangers of breakfast tacos – cholesterol, blah, blah, blah.  But not this morning.  Today I felt the danger in that singular, crystal-clear way that the rabbit must feel in the presence of a bobcat.  Struck tharn, wanting more than anything to move but unable to, knowing that he’d be seen.  My worry was that I’d already been seen.  Traffic had me pinned in behind the Bakery and I was being seriously-eyeballed.  Eyeballed in that very threatening way that makes you bow your head and look askance so the big Silverback doesn’t knock the shit out of you.   I locked the doors and waited for the traffic to clear; very aware of the two approaching eyeballers and feeling a bit vulnerable, armed with only my whitebread sensibilities.  The traffic cleared just as they got to the car and I didn’t wait around to see what they wanted.  For a few minutes, life was crystal clear. Missing was the calliope that usually inhabits my head.  There was no worrying about what I’m doing when I should be doing something else.  No worrying about time, about deadlines, about schedules, people, or meetings. Nothing. Just silence.  And awareness of life.  It was exhilarating.  Like jumping out of an airplane.  It wasn’t long before the ride was over and the calliope was running at full steam. Unlike the City Bakery.

What a dump!  I’m having a hard time with metaphors, but it might be like the proverbial truck stop queen.   If you look close enough, look back in time, through the grime, you can see what she was in her heyday; Heart of the neighborhood, vibrant and full of life.  People lined up around the block to sample her wares.  Now the lines are on her face and the people around the block are a weird mix of young boys saggin’ their khaki school pants and hoodlums of the scary clan.  The run-down restaurant had a limited taco menu.  I had a chorizo and egg and a picadillo, both on flour.  The C&E was so-so and the picadillo not that good.  The salsa was a watery red.  It had a bit of heat, but mostly like canned tomatoes.  The coffee was hot (heat hot) and refills were not convenient.  The tortillas, though were very good and definitely the star of the taco, but not of the taqueria.  That honor goes to the biscuits.  They were soft and held together in a perfect way.  Not too dense, not falling apart.  They didn’t need butter at all but were of course slathered with it.  A must if you find yourself in the City Bakery.  It looked like they had a pretty good assortment of fresh pan dulce, too.  Shell and I had a total of three tacos, a coffee and a biscuit for $4.25.  They definitely know their market.

Thanks again to Don Dee for his enlightening conversation on old-time CC.  You have a way of description that makes one able to feel some of what the city was like, what the people were like – bringing to life the history of the city like no one else I know.

C/S

Our free taco winner for this week is:

Christina Hendricks

Making the little screen big for three seasons, Christina’s marriage to Geoffrey Arend should give hope to all men who have to count on their personality to get them through life.

Offer includes 2 tacos, an audience with the ‘tacoteurs,’ and a free tacotopia t-shirt. Please redeem this offer at Whetstone Graphics on a Friday morning of your choice. Offer subject to cancellation by order of the wives of the tacoteurs.  Enter to win by emailing your name and a Robert Anton Wilson paperback of your choice to tacos@tacotopia.net.

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