Jalisco #1 – Survive or Perish
Survival in Tacotopia is not something to be taken for granted. You’ll notice a taqueria or two that we’ve reviewed where our record of the experience is all that we have left. When hunting for new spots we see little red pins on google maps pointing to places we know aren’t there. It stands to remind us that we could be just as gone, just as quickly, if we don’t watch our backs. I turn on the news at night and I’m always surprised at the degree of violence. It’s good to have backup when I show up at these taco shops, especially when I’m carrying around enough camera to supply a crackhead for, well, about an hour. Crackheads have an uncanny ability to adjust their intake so that however much they have it’s done in about an hour, but enough about crack. It’s not like I don’t have my own addictions: whiskey, tacos, eggnog, corned beef, troll dolls. The eggnog & corned beef I keep under control, seasonally satiating myself and then sublimating the craving. The tacos are another story. It’s just like in nature: when you want to find an animal, you go to the source of its food and wait. It’s dog eat dog, play or be played, we’ve got a president that accepted the Nobel peace price while waging two wars. Private Joker said it better in ‘Full Metal Jacket.’ “The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.”
Taqueria Jalisco has used a classic technique to defend it’s place in the Corpus Christi food chain. Boasting ten Corpus locations on their website it’s not easy to find a spot in the metro area that isn’t 4 or 5 blocks from a Jalisco, and that’s just in Corpus. Jalisco’s reach must extend further as one of their CC locations is #19. We ended up at the first, Jalisco #1, this morning. Dug in on Port, on the west side of Crosstown Fwy, Taqueria Jalisco sits between Carniceria Jalisco and the the Jalisco Bakery on both adjacent blocks like a cult compound. This is a neighborhood where you’d do well to live in a compound, though not nearly as dicey as some – and it’s caddycorner to the lot where the chicken trailer parks on weekends. Opinion is mixed on the quality of Jalisco’s food. Some locals will tell you to avoid them, but they are always busy with full parking lots and drive-throughs. An inquiry directed toward the lady at the counter determined that this location had been open for around 25 years. That’s no small papas. They must be doing something right in order to survive that long.
the 'ladybug' presentation
The Hat and myself walked in the front door, half expecting to find a butcher greeting us with a blood-soaked apron and a cleaver. No such luck, it was nice, tidy, and clean. The waitress was on point, and we couldn’t go 2 minutes without her offering to refill our coffee cups. The tacos quickly arrived in the ‘ladybug’ formation. The chorizo & egg was not bad: dry but not too dry, without a strong flavor of chorizo but still quite serviceable. The carne guisada was about the same – not bad, not great. The flour tortillas weren’t standout but they came hot, fresh and soft. The salsa was powerfully hot – and not at the expense of flavor.
The most impressive thing about the place is the signage, and not even the signage on the taqueria itself, but on the carniceria. It is a work of art, flawless in its execution. You see tags around this part of town but I could see no evidence that anyone had tagged that wall. Taggers are not entirely without respect for talent.
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.
From the Hat
We found ourselves at Jalisco because the taco joint we had selected was closed. Gallus gallus hadn’t even announced the day and we were standing in an empty parking lot on Ayers. I wonder what the street life thought at the sight of two Nerds brandishing iPhones, bringing technology to bear to locate a suitable substitute taqueria…”prey” probably.
Prey…Back in the day, I used to be quite the hunter. Bow, black powder, rifle or shotgun – it was a great way to spend some time, spend some money, visit with friends, and perhaps bring home something for the freezer. But I haven’t been hunting in more than five years… dove hunting a few times, but no deer. So I decided that I’d go out and try to shoot a deer this year. My uncle Bob sets up blinds on our place in Papalote and has taken a few pigs. He’s seen some deer, but nothing he thought about shooting. He hunts often so is looking for big impressive deer, or those that need to be culled. Me, I prefer the does. I’ll shoot a buck or an atypical of course, but does are so tasty and I’m in it for breakfast.
So I got up early and went and sat on a blind. I’d never been up in one of these tripod blinds and I must say that I felt a bit uneasy hoisting my butt 12-15 ft in the air and sitting on a swiveling chair – a swiveling chair filled with water my butt would tell you. Lesson one, take towel. From my gantry view, I could see and hear the brush wake up. I love the sounds of the dawn chorus. Foghorn Leghorn in the distance, coyotes yapping, the occasional mystery sound, and wild birds of all kind singing as if the coming sun had just thawed their syrinxes. It was steamy when I got there and there were mosquitoes as big as bumblebees flying around. That didn’t last long, though. A front blew in and it got cold, and my wet butt got cold. I hung a couple of hours and watched a feral hog and a doe, but didn’t get a shot at either.
I went back out that afternoon and put in another several shivering hours and was rewarded with a nice doe. The rifle was true and the deer dropped where she stood. I always feel kind of sad when I kill a deer. They’re really quite beautiful up close and she hadn’t done a thing to me. But I’m looking forward to backstrap and eggs for breakfast, not this morning, though. This morning it’s tacos.
We hadn’t reviewed one of the ubiquitous Jaliscos before and figured why not? You can’t turn around in Corpus without running into a taqueria, and there’s a good chance it’s a Jalisco. We chose the one on Port because it was fairly close. They had tripas on the menu, and chicharrones, so I had one of each. The tripas taco on a corn tarp was not stellar – but not cellar either. The tripas were ice cube-sized Borg ships cut from a frozen block then fried in very hot grease. Most were so fried that they had very little taste, but there were a few in the center of the cubes that were still too soft. The corn tarp was of higher quality than those al paquete, but did not hold up to being manhandled. Not my favorite execution of the dish, but I managed to assimilate it. The chicharron con huevos taco was better, on a better (flour) tortilla. The chicharrones were toothy and there were plenty of them mixed with the eggs. The vegetables making it a la Mexicana were fresh. Both tacos had ample filling. The red salsa was screaming hot. I think jalapenos. Ian may differ. It was good though. The service was excellent and my Bunn-driven coffee never dropped more than a half an inch below the brim. Tomorrow, venison and eggs.
Salud
‘The Hat’ and myself got a hot tip on a serious taco establishment from Louie at Executive Surf Club, who knows a lot about Movies as well as Tacos. A town like this is so overrun with taco shops you could eat at 1 or 2 a week for years and not have even heard of a place that’s about as good as they come. Linda’s is one of these places. I drove by a couple of taqueria’s we’ve reviewed before to get here but I didn’t recognize the place we I came up on it, and was surprised once I got inside. It was big, bright and clean – looking like it had less than 1000 miles on a remodel, though I hear tell of tacos being peddled from the same spot as far back as the 80s.
I know – last week with the tinfoil hat paranoia and this week with the paranormal. I can assure you I’m not crazy (of course that’s what any crazy person says). I do, however, appreciate some good juxtaposition and weirdness. Like the other day when I was driving by the Municipal Court and a guy was sitting on the bench with a full blown campfire next to him – on the bench! Taqueria Alteño had it’s own strangeness going on – and I liked it. There were elephants all along one wall, and roosters on the other. The elephants faced the door, the roosters faced the elephants. I looked it up and their trunks were pointing up which is an American superstition, perhaps related to the Irish idea of the horseshoe needing to point up to keep the luck from running out. And then I notice – the Del Mar East campus is shaped like a horseshoe, right over where my mother lived. Once we all arrived we noticed the tejano music turn to middle eastern. I suspect the strangeness is only beginning and that by the time we get back from the renfest we’ll be able to give the LHC a run for it’s money in tearing apart the fabric of reality.
