So it’s no surprise that I look forward to these little Friday morning taco runs. Hopping on the bike, and flying South on the causeway with the sun coming up over my left shoulder helps me to rise above all of the tedium that I’m neck deep in lately. And then there’s the taco at the end of the ride. Today that taco is inside El Mexicano, and was recommended by Sonny – my wife’s primo. I hadn’t eaten here before, and I rarely find myself on this side of Leopard. I had noticed the top notch hand painted signage before, however, and when I pulled up I felt like I’d been there a hundred times.

The hat was already there, and he’s got problems of his own. He’ll be coordinating multiple contractors this week too: electrical and carpentry. As Fritz Kunkel said, ‘to be mature means to face, and not evade, every fresh crisis that comes.’ and the crisis ahead of me was the choice of which taco to try first; chorizo & egg or carne guisada. This is the kind of crisis I can sink my teeth into.

The carne guisada looked like a typical ‘UT’ burnt orange stew, heavy on the cumino but there was something else to it. I was very tender, and good quality beef. The chunks were big, and the sauce, though sultry, was upbeat and sharp. With some of the pureed salsa verde it was a serious taco.  On to the chorizo & egg; a visual inspection revealed an optimal level of segregation of the c and the e (you’ve got to keep em separated). One bite and my suspicion was confirmed, this one was tip top. The two flavors wait to mingle until they’re in your mouth, along with the salsa and tortilla. The tortillas themselves were also impressive, fresh but thin and uniform.  You could see some corners of flour coating but for the most part you’d have a hard time distinguishing them from shelf tortillas unless you felt or tasted them, and then there would be no mistake. And there was something else about this taco – a hint of sweetness and spice – like cinnamon, so slight as to nearly be undistinguishable. I don’t know if it was in the chorizo, or if it was added in-situ, but I liked it.

So, on leaving, I felt ready to deal with the challenges laid out before me as I rode down Leopard, toward downtown, directly into the sun, dodging hookers and bums as they shuffle out into oncoming traffic. I love this town.

From the Hat

This morning, the Taco Show Host and I were to meet at Taqueria Mexicana for our usual Friday repast.  I was a little frazzled because I couldn’t find my iPhone.  Since the message from the Impossible Missions Headquarters was on my phone, I drove down Leopard hoping my memory of the location was correct.  So preoccupied with my missing appendage I was that I failed to even notice if the working girls were at it on the infamous street.  My memory was correct and I did find the place and settled in to wait for TSH.  While I waited I had a couple of fair cups of coffee and didn’t play scrabble, or check my email, or get a quick Facebook fix.

The place was clean and smelled of breakfast.  I figured the place was going to be good because it looked as though the most effective measurement of customers was by the ton.  (The Hat included.)  I heard the red Honda before I saw it and we had ordered before Ian even sat down.  I had two tacos, a nopalitos con huevos (not a la Mexicana this time) on flour and a lengua con cilantro y cebollas on corn.  When they arrived, right away I knew I should’ve ordered the carne G.  I found myself eyeballing my friend’s plate and hoping that he would have to leave for any reason and I could abscond with a bit of his taco. He was on to me so my order would have to do.  The lengua was tender, but grey and tasteless.  The cilantro, however, tasted as if they had picked it fresh moments before so between it, the onions, some salt and pepper, and a hot and spicy green salsa, it was okay.  I did enjoy the corn tortilla.  Warm, corny, with a bit of tooth to it, it was good.  The nopalitos and egg taco was pretty good.  It was stuffed with eggs and cactus.  I’ve kind of been on a quest for understanding of this particular menu item.  I’m usually not really sure if I’m eating pickled cactus, or freshly prepared nopales, but this morning for sure they were pickled.  This is not necessarily a bad thing as I could still get a strong note of cactus in the dish.  This taco is becoming one of my favorites and in the world of tacos, it’s seems to be a fairly healthy offering.  This was a good example, not great, just good.  Still, San Luis rules on the nopales taco.  There’s been some talk of running through some of the favorite taquerias to recalibrate our metrics.  I’m all for it.  (Like I need a reason to go to San Luis.)

Some of you will notice (cheering from some, boos from others) a distinct lack of levity in today’s taco text.  Recently a skydiver was killed on a dive in Port Aransas.  Shelly and I and a couple of friends had just jumped with him the week before and had the time of our lives.  Shell is still flyin’ high.  He was a talented videographer that enjoyed his work filming terrified jumpers – putting together a record of the event that the overwhelmed brain just can’t manage.  The divers are a close-knit group that will be saddened at the loss for a long time.  To them, our prayers.

Salud

And while I respect any work that nurtures multiculturalism, this is so wrong. The column doesn’t claim Austin is ‘the best place for breakfast tacos that aren’t made by the people who invented them and know how to best make them,’ it says “when it comes to breakfast tacos, Austin trumps all other American cities.” Like a copy machine (or a clone, or a foreign film) the 2nd generation is never quite as good as the original. Look at the Storm Troopers – they’re taken right from Jango Fett’s DNA but he’s a bad-ass and every one of those storm troopers is a half-wit.  I’m one of the only people on earth who liked Gus Van Saint’s remake of Psycho, but it’s not as good as the Hitchcock version.  Can you think of any cigarrette lighter better than a Zippo? This unqualified affront to the great tradition of breakfast tacos must not stand, and like the Gracy family at the birth of the UFC I challenge any city to come here and put up or shut up. Just bring some kleenex and a some cardboard boxes, so you can pack up your broken dreams and wipe the tears from your eyes as you return home defeated to face the shame and humiliation of your ineptitude and the cold comfort of your inferior breakfast.

Imitation and re-imagination is fraught with pitfalls. Robot maker Masahiro Mori (I can’t pass up any opportunity to use the word robot) coined the phrase ‘Uncanny Valley’ to describe our reaction of revulsion to artificial humans that we find close enough to look more like a human than a robot, but at the same time seem inhuman and disturbing. There has been a lot of discussion of the Uncanny Valley regarding CGI as the technology sits at the edge of this valley peering in. What does this have to do with tacos, you ask? This morning we ate tacos at Kiko’s, a local taco purveyor and winner of the Caller Times‘ Best of the Best award for breakfast tacos. One need only to look at our national election system, or the academy awards to appreciate how easy it is for the unscrupulous to manipulate a poll. Kiko’s is an attractive and sprawling restaurant located a stone’s throw from Corpus’ main commercial thoroughfare S.P.I.D. (South Padre Island Drive). It’s central location is nearly perfect – close enough to the highway to pickup all the shopping traffic and far enough back that you can eat there and still feel like you’re in a neighborhood. It has a faux patina that is at once charming and artificial. I get the same two tacos every Friday, the carne guisada and the chorizo & egg. Their chorizo & egg taquito was pretty good, far short of such greats as Marroquin’s but still pretty tasty.  The tortillas were just good enough to qualify as fresh, but not much better than off the shelf. The salsa, too, was fresh and hot but not great and somehow lacking anything to distinguish itself. Then there was the coffee: as the Hat said to me something was not quite right about it.  Like a Stepford Wife it was satisfactory but a little creepy. All of these things fell into the Uncanny Valley, and tasted a few degrees off true. Let me throw another movie simile at this description, Dr. Seth Brundle in the Cronenberg remake of The Fly when he teleported the steak and then tasted it…

Being the third month of the new year I have yet to give up hope of reaching my goal weight for the year.  I’ve been walking downtown instead of driving, and climbing stairs to the 7th floor instead of taking the elevator, at least sometimes.  One of the most difficult sacrifices I’ve had to make is the cherished taco.  There was a time where I’d have a taco every morning, and Yaneth at Garibaldi’s would have my order waiting for me, her perfume wafting from the takeout bag.  Okay, that never happened anywhere but in my daydreams. Long story short – tacos are my motivation, my reason to push through the work-week.  I love the first time in a new taco shop, the first smell of the tacos and the particular ambience of the place, the kitsch, purses and belts for sale, candles and good luck charms, the endless supply of charming waitresses and of course the tacos.

As the name says, this is in the Southside.  And for those of you not familiar with the layout of Corpus Christi, which is perpetually confusing even to those who live here, the Southside is the part of town where all the new development is occurring.  It’s a little more caucasian than downtown and the Westside.  The police seem to spend a lot more time in that part of town even though they’re headquartered downtown.  There are tons of strip centers, and no meter maids.  All the buildings are less that 70 years old (most are less than 7).  Southside Barbacoa is different too. Spanish isn’t the primary language spoken, it is in a strip center (literally, right next to the Palace), and even though it is a barbacoa restaurant, they don’t have homemade corn tortillas.

None of these things are deal-breakers.  A taco doesn’t know where it came from.  The Hat and I settled in to see what this place was all about.  I can’t speak for the barbacoa, even though I had a bite – barbacoa taken out of context (sans tortilla, salsa, salt) can be misleading.  The chorizo and egg was good though.  The filling of the taco was above average but not spectacular.  The tortillas were the high point, fresh but with a little bit of crunch on the edges – and no loose flour which doesn’t bother me but which many find disagreeable.  The carne guisada was tender but not soft, and had just the right amount of tang so that the flavor popped, but didn’t resemble meat that had gone over.  The red salsa was unsuitable for human consumption – Pace or more likely a food service knock-off thereof, but the salsa verde was quite good.

The hat and I weren’t the only people there, there were a few take-out orders filled, and some apparent regulars including a cop, Loyd Neal and John Longoria.  We all know cops have excellent food radar, so maybe the politicians were using the cop as a bird-dog. The Hat and I headed out into the overcast morning, satisfied and looking forward to the next Friday, the next taco, if we can wait that long.

From the Hat

So it’s no secret I’m a Houston-phile.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Sparkling City.  But sometimes it does a body good to get to the big lights and enjoy the things that can only exist in the midst of a large aggregation of people.  The power of large numbers makes it possible to open anything from telescope shops to Scotch Tape Boutiques.  There are trade-offs though.  Houston, with a museum district as big as our school district, has traffic to match.  There might be a store for everything, but crossing H-town to get there and back can take hours.  Still, if you want stuffed cabbage and Matzo ball soup at 4:00am, you can get it.  If you need a lens cover for your German-made binoculars, you can get it.  And if you need a variety of stinky cheese, fine liquors, and the pate and caviar to go with them, you can get them.

And now Corpus seems to be seeing some move in that direction with the opening of Spec’s.  Spec’s opened this week Thursday and I admit, I had to sneak in around noon to check it out.  The place was pretty much what I expected.  It’s in a nascent stage with much growing to do, but I can see great potential.  The wine section seems to be extensive, but I’ll have to talk to an expert to know for sure.  The gourmet section is a start, but far from the Houston examples.  There’s some space on the shelves, but a conversation with one of the employees revealed that there’s much more to come.  I was impressed with the store and think that it will eventually approach the epic nature of Houston’s downtown example.  Way to go Spec’s, and CC!

-And now to the important stuff.  The Tacoteurs Friday tour stop was Southside Barbacoa.  I had to have the namesake and a chorizo con papas – both on flour.  The barbacoa was the low-fat version.  [I’d doubt it’s lowfat in any conventional sense of the word -iok] The mixed version, a fattier composition is only sold on weekends.  Made on-site in about 11 hours, it was very good.  My favorite though was the chorizo and papas.  It was sublime, loaded with chorizo and saturated potatoes.  It had that perfect vinegary taste I love in a good chorizo.  The torts were right up my alley, dense and with plenty of bite.  Both tacos benefitted from a fresh jalapeno green salsa, but I won’t waste any words on the red stuff.  All-in-all, a very good experience and I’ll have to go back to check out the mixed version of the barbacoa.

–Salud