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