‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!’

Does anyone remember this line from Network? That’s how I’m feeling this morning. I don’t want to get into a list of the things that are bothering me – they have nothing to do with the topic at hand: tacos. But I am. I’m mad at the guy who fixed the roof that is as we speak leaking into 6 buckets. I’m pissed off at the jerk who broke into my truck, stole my bass guitar 6 months ago and destroyed my driver’s side lock in the process forcing me to open my passenger side door first 20 times a frickin’ day. I’m done with the republican party for being hypocrites and I’m livid at the democrats for not having their crap together enough to get a damned thing done when they have control over all three branches of government. And all of them for being lying bastards.  I’m mad at the tech who fixed my embroidery machine, because I had to get it fixed again after 1 day, and again after it was fixed the 2nd time.  I’m mad at whoever made my office smell like garlic chicken soup yesterday. And why the hell did they cancel Carnivàle and Deadwood and the Wire and Swingtown and Brotherhood when CSI Miami and Extreme Home Makeover are still on the air?  And black eyes to anyone who says Katrina was a natural disaster when it’s a disaster that would have been mitigated had the Army Corps of Engineers managed the levees the way they said they were. And you damned kids with your droopy drawers, I hope you fall down and bust your ass while you’re running from the cops after perpetrating some half assed wannabe gangsta caper.

And it seems I’m not alone in my seething hostility, in fact the whole world is up to their eyeballs in a seemingly endless flood of insufferable malarky. Just look at Epic Beard Man who ‘lost his composure’ all over the face of a guy whose mother should have taught him to respect his elders, or at least not to invite some mentally unstable veteran who is a good 10 inches and 50 pounds better’n’you, and that being 67 doesn’t mean he’s not gonna make good on his promise not return fire. And if you think it has to do with racial tension, you’ll see Tom ‘Vietnam’ Bruso fail to exercise common sense in this other video where he refuses to cooperate with some caucasoid police at a ball game.  I think he’s unhinged, but it’s understandable in this world of ingrates and schmucks (tacotopia readership, of course, excluded – you guys rock!)

This Can't End Well

There is one thing that soothes my delicate sensibilities when I’m ready to throw myself under the D-Town Tram like what almost happened to the whacked-out broad who gave my kid an impromtu anatomy lesson on Fat Tuesday before pelting empty cars with candy and beads before stumbling off and somehow avoiding injury, and that’s breakfast tacos.

This morning brought us to El Sol de Mexico, which occupies the property that used to house Elva’s before it shut its doors.  Casey Lain at House of Rock told me about this place when I was dropping off some posters for his upcoming songwriter series which will feature Joe Ely (Feb 27th), Monte Montgomery (March 11th) and Michael O’Connor on April Fool’s Day.

As you can see the interior is completely redesigned, and the soothing earth tone decor and the smells coming from the kitchen washed over me, extinguishing my burning hostility.  The waitress brought us coffee, and I think there must have been some kind of issue with the coffee maker because the steam from it must be what shrunk her clothes.  She was pretty, and very friendly, and it’s hard to be angry when there’s a pretty lady pouring you coffee (that’s why I’m never angry at my house).

The tacos came out, and we took out our remaining aggression on them. My carne guisada was very good, tender with a lot of cumino, and my chorizo & egg might be more aptly named chorizo and the vaguest suggestion of egg.  And the coffee was good.  And the tortillas were good.  What was I complaining about again? Things are great!  I’m dying to go to work! Hip Hip Hooray!  I love Friday mornings!

Our free taco winner for this week is:

Rosie Perez

From the first time the world saw her, in the beginning of ‘Do the Right Thing,’ the world has not been the same.  An unflinching warrior in the fight to be an actress in an industry that would rather she assume the role of an ethnic actress, Rosie looks better than ever at 45. And while we don’t have any Puerto Rican restaurants here in Corpus Christi, we do have some killer tacos.

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 an autographed dvd of ‘Perdita Durango‘ to tacos@tacotopia.net.

I hope you can pardon the irregular schedule, tacotopia has been closed during the holiday festivities but we have not been resting – we’ve been quite busy with family fun, travel, and of course eating great mexican food.  I will be dropping a few supplemental updates over the next few days to give you a taste of the new year.  This first one comes from Curra’s Grill, a little spot on Oltorf in South Austin.  Having grown up in (among other places) Austin, ate here back in the 80’s but it was a different restaurant and I think before that it must have been a convenience store.  For the past seven years though, whenever I would come back to Austin I would stop here.  I think my friend Otto brought me here and recommended the Avocado Margarita and I’ve been coming back ever since.

So today I took my wife to eat here.  The over the top waitress, Linda, had tight pants and strong convictions about what we should order and talked me out of the normal coffee in favor of their Oaxacan coffee.  She didn’t stop there, and ‘suggested’ I forego the carne guisada in favor of the chile colorado – a similar dish in that it’s meat and gravy.  The gravy is a rich spicy red sauce, though, and the meat is pork instead of beef.  I took Linda’s advice (I don’t think I really had a choice) and didn’t regret it.

The place wasn’t perfect.  We in Tacotopia, our sparkling taqueria by the sea, take homemade tortillas as a given.  This is not so here in Austin (even in South Austin) and the tortillas here were no better than you’d find in a grocery store, and not nearly as good as you’d find in a Stripes.  The corn chips, too, were inedible.  The prices were more than you would find at most of the best taco spots in Corpus.  Even the chorizo & egg if edible was only average.  The atmosphere was lovely, with local art crowding the walls, wobbly hand tiled tables, and a full bar – early in the morning.  The black bean frijoles refritos were excellent.  Two red salsas were brought to the table: a standard fresh red salsa and a salsa borracho made with roasted peppers and beer.  The chile colorado was a deep crimson and even in the leathery shelf tortilla it was delicious, bleeding from the back and making my plate look like an episode of CSI.  We finished off with the avocado margarita which sounds repellant, until you taste it.  Then you wonder why they don’t have it everywhere.

So now we gather our business together to get back to our home, and to get on with the implementation of our resolutions.  It may be the margarita talking but I have real hope for the year to come, for the decade to follow.  I believe I can do the impossible – get fit while continuing to eat tacos weekly.  Fate favors the bold.  Feliz Año Nuevo.

4033 Golihar Rd
Corpus Christi, TX

361-852-0040

Opens at 6:00 AM

Chorizo & Egg: $1.40
Carne Guisada: $1.85
Bottomless Coffee: 99¢

‘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.

The pretty waitress, resplendent in her crazy lipliner, was quick with the coffee and accurate with the order and we sat and hashed out schemes and told stories without ever reaching the bottom of the coffee cup. We’d both had harrowing weeks, and I for one don’t see it letting up over the weekend. Life is exhausting – moving from work to driving a kid around to cleaning out the garage to digging through boxes looking for tools squirreled away years before. If you work hard enough you can get ahead but more often it seems like you just barely keep pace and I for one am so tired at the end of the week that I could sleep through the weekend and not feel too guilty about it.

I see these young people out in the street when I leave for work as the sun comes up and they’re running – probably before they drive around 2.5 times as many kids as my wife and I do and get more done at work (and paid more for it) before coming home, eating healthier and getting less sleep. My cardiologist might disagree but if fatigue is the price of living the taco lifestyle I guess it’s a price I’m willing to pay, while I can afford it.

My bag is sinkin' low, and I do believe it's time

And pay we did today. The tacos at Linda’s were the size of a thanksgiving turkey and just as likely to put you into a tacoma (noun – the condition of fatigue following the consumption of particularly satisfying or plentiful meal consisting of tacos). The tortillas were flawless, I saw Kevin’s homemade corn and mistook it for a flour. The salsa was good, a bright orange purée though not as bright as that of Nano’s. The chorizo & egg was the standard ratio of Chorizo to Egg, cooked together but the quality of the chorizo was very good, and the eggs were perfectly cooked and with the neutralizing flour tortilla topping it off the combination of the three was nearly ideal.

All of this is before I got to the carne guisada, a great example of how it’s supposed to taste. The beef tender and the gravy savory. I saw the hope of completing the meal fading due to the size of the tacos and put some shoulder into the eating and pushed through to the end. In the end all I could find wrong with the place is the lack of a hand-painted sign, a liquor license, and a hammock.

One taco took a piece out of the other and left a bloody mess.