Las Milpas – For Better or Worse
3036 South Port, Corpus Christi, TX 78405 • (361) 884-3050 Carne G – $2.10 • Chorizo & Egg – $1.65 • Coffee – $1.10
This morning we dined at Las Milpas on Port. Full disclosure: years ago my lovely wife did payroll for this place, and the kid even did some child labor there. This was back before my love of tacos plucked me from the strong field of amateurs here in Corpus Christi and dropped me into the flush position of professional breakfast taco enthusiast (sans pay).
I usually google these places when I start to put these posts together, and I try to link to urbanspoon.com. In the process I see a few reviews almost always varying wildly : “This is the worst place ever!” or “I named my first born child after the caldo”
Most of the places we review, after going through our rigorous statistical analysis, end up with a grade of a high B or a low A. Sometimes we’ll go weeks with each restaurant varying less than 2 percentage points from the prior weeks. You might think we’re padding our data, that we’re engaged in some kind of tac-ola. I can assure you we’re not, and I’ll stick to that story until the FCC (F the FCC, by the way) comes to indict me.
I thought it would make sense to shed a little light on tacotopia’s rating system. I modeled it after academic grades, the most familiar system I could think of. 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, 70-80 is a C, anything else is unacceptable. Here in the Texas Rivera our tacos are at a level that is so exceptional we can barely find a place that, judged objectively according to the most comprehensive and advanced statistical methodologies, isn’t really tasty. Sometimes I think, they can’t all be so good – is there a problem with our instruments? Is our math sound? Then I try to get a taco out of town and I quickly realize Corpus Christi is the Breakfast Taco Capital of the World.
But I digress.
So Matt the Hoople and I are early, even after a stop at the gas station and a full check of the oil, coolant, tranny fluid, and a fill-up. We opt to wait for the Hat inside, who showed up shortly with ‘Sea-Shell,’ his better half, who when averaged in brings the Hat’s score up pretty well in anybody’s book.
I didn’t really need a menu but I have to mention the menus at Las Milpas have huge photos of all the items with large print in black and gold. Blind people could read them from their heat signature. There are literally only four items on some of the pages, all laminated, and spiral bound. They’re so heavy they should put a ‘team-lift’ label on the back.
And if that weren’t enough, then came the tacos. The chorizo & egg, as well as the carne guisada, were a solid B. Not great, but very tasty. The salsa was good. The food was out quickly (except for the Hat’s), and the coffee kept coming. The real shining star were the tortillas – not only were the huge in diameter but they were thicker than the fog on the harbor bridge this morning. Resembling few things more than a pancake, they were very tender and fairly light – almost a little cakey. The outside of mine was pretty well toasted but you could hardly tell biting into it.
The place was clean, and the waitress adept. We did have to struggle a bit in conversation to keep from being drowned out by the flat screen TVs adorning every wall. At least they weren’t all tuned to Fox.
Shout out to Oscar Ramirez who put it in our heads that we should check this place out. If you have any suggestions, and maybe some time free early Fridays, let us know and you might be selected as a special guest commentator.
From the Hat
Something Shelly said this morning got me to thinking. She was busy with her huevos a la Mexicana when she said, “There REALLY are a lot of good taquerias in Corpus.”
She’s right, of course. But it’s more than that. Each one does the same thing in different ways and I’m always amazed by how different people like different things. Two people can see the same movie, eat the same meal, hear the same band, and not agree on any of them. I say, “Yay! New Star Trek Movie.” But it gets a resounding “Boo” from my friend Thomas. Sometimes someone’s in error, as is Thomas in this case, but mostly we have different priorities and those priorities shape how we experience something. I won’t go deep into, nor linger long in movieland for fear of being squashed like a bug by those who dwell there. So I’ll move it to the realm of breakfast tacos. I purposely did not order the chicharron taco this morning. This past weekend we went to Sonny’s where they have what I think are the best Chicarrones known to mankind. I didn’t want the lingering memory of another taqueria to cloud my judgement as to the chicharrones at Las Milpas. M. ordered a chicharron taco, however and I was curious how they were done. Were they the airy, out-of-the-bag kind, or were they my favorite, the dense and crispy, deep-fried-on-the-spot kind? Or were they the soft, braised-for-hours kind? My point is that some like them soft, others not, some stewed, others fried, and still others that find the whole idea of eating pig skin (or barbacoa, or tripas, or mollejas) repulsive. So what does my proclamation about how good the nopalitos and egg taco is mean to someone who finds the idea of eating cactus disturbing? What are we doing when we meet Friday for tacos then (blab) blog about it? Well, we’re visiting, and drinking coffee, and eating tacos. And this morning is no exception.
Las Milpas was brightly lit and chilled to hang beef. It was a first visit for me and thought I’d celebrate by ordering the barbacoa. Unfortunately for me Las Milpas serves barbacoa only on Saturdays and Sundays so I opted for the lengua con cebollas y cilantro on a homemade corn tarp, and a nopalitos con huevos a la Mexicana on flour. The flour tortilla was a sleeping bag-sized monster that if stuffed full would have taken a forklift to get off the plate. It was distinctive in my experience, for its fluffiness. The nopalito stuffing was good – with a load of eggs and a good mix of vegetables and cactus. Good ingredients, I think, but no fireworks. The lengua taco was on a smaller tortilla – thin and corny. As homemade corn tortillas go, it was good, but not a home run. The lengua, however was very good. Tender, roasty…a pinch of salt made it a very respectable effort. The salsa was delicious. It was an interesting, not-green-but-not-red color not often seen in a salsa. I found myself wanting something a bit hotter, but I think that might have been about me and not the salsa. The coffee was café good and I knew right away that I could not keep up with the waitress’s coffee deployment regimen and just gave in to the idea of a perpetually-full cup of Joe.
While we try to quantify the tangible qualities that make a place good or bad there’s so much that we can’t put our fingers on. Jalisco #1 is not excellent but well worth the trip. In any other town you’d be hard pressed to find anything better. It just so happens we aren’t in any other town, we’re in Corpus Christi. The Great Corpus Christi, a little town I like to call Tacotopia – Breakfast Taco Capital of the World. You might think different but if your tacos try to upset the natural order of things, they might become part of the circle of life.
My ancestry is Irish, with a little english, dutch, french-canadian thrown in for good measure. I am fortunate enough to have been born in Texas, and to have had a lot of interaction with the blended Mexican American culture of Texas. What I’m trying to say is I’m an outsider, but I’m not an ignorant outsider. I make these observations with a fair amount of experience – what with having spent more than a little time in Mexico. Mexico has had a profound effect on my life, both good and in one case tragically. So when you read what I have to say consider this: I am trying to be funny but I am dead serious about what I’m doing. I think the taco in all its forms is the perfect food. I have a deep love for tacos and for Corpus Christi where my family goes back on two sides for three generations.
All this said, I’m still a gringo. I think it helps me to make objective observations but there are things about which I know very little when it comes to Mexican Food. Take, for example, Menudo. I know what it is, I know what it tastes like, and I know what it’s good for but beyond that I’m still in the dark. So one fine Sunday morning I called upon an insider – Dee, my father-in-law – to bring his not insignificant experience to bear on the subject of Menudo.
know that it’s good, at least at Sonny’s. I got the small bowl and it was still pretty big, though it looks tiny next to the 500 ml bottle of Mexican Coke. Dee would frequently dip a rolled-up homemade corn tortilla into the soup and eat it. I ordered a Chicharron and Egg to go with it and it was really good – fried but not fried out. The service was good and they called Dee by name. It was almost as if we were eating at a friend’s house.
