1336 S. Staples • 361-882-1077

The death of OBL marks the real beginning of the 2012 US presidential campaign season, a beginning that has been thankfully delayed. If it could be crammed into the last week of October 2012 I think the nation would be better for it, but I’ll take one year of lying, self-aggrandizing, slander and manipulation over two. My Fridays invariably start with a listen to the week’s Slate Political Gabfest while I drive into town, and then the blessed relief from the horror of politics as I pull my truck into the lot of a comforting and friendly taqueria.

I got an email from a taco enthusiast who works for Landlord Resources, who said I should check out Chema’s. A few days later I was at House of Rock, and David Loeb mentioned this spot to me. It’s in a place that has been occupied by a number or restaurants, none of which have I ever tried, but with all the recommendation I had to give it a go. It’s difficult to even see the front door from the street, so I had no idea what to expect. It is on old Staples, and so it could be made of cardboard and adobe with no roof if it’s like some of the nearby buildings, but once I walked in the door I was surprised to see a neat, spacious, and comfortable dining area. Over the next few weeks I went back twice – due diligence, and I can report with some confidence on the quality of the food.

The chorizo & egg was not bad. Not the best I’ve had, but serviceable. The carne guisada was dense and meaty, breaking off into little flakes of chewy beef. The tortillas were fresh, though not made to order, with a nice tooth to’em.

The tacos themselves are not in contention for the best traditional breakfast tacos in the best town for breakfast tacos in the world, but there are things make Chema’s stand out. If you notice in the photo, the breakfast tacos are served with lettuce and tomato on the side. This is the first for me, and I’ve eaten at a truckload of places in town. All the plates match each other, and match the pottery coffee cups, that have ‘chema’s’ hand-painted on the sides. The place is clean and the service is impeccable. Chema’s been there every time I have, and he likes to talk with the customers. You can tell before you even talk to him that he’s a man who takes pride: in the food, the restaurant, the presentation, and in himself. A transplant from San Antonio, he will tell you he’s trying to bring something different to the table. You’re likely to see him in white linen pressed pants, with a little gold on his fingers and in his mouth, standing with his chin up but smiling at everyone, and quick with banter. I went twice during lunch and the place was packed. You could hear people talking amongst themselves about how good the food was. Chema would bring out complementary tamales for people to sample. This is a nice restaurant – a good experience all around. It’s not fine dining, but it’s about as fine as you’re going to get for Mexican food done right – with pride and without pretense. Keep it up, Chema!

Our Taco Award Winner for this week is:

Chloe Sevigny

HBO‘s Big Love ended last month, with a finale that was a high water mark for the series, unlike many finales HBO has generated. It was a series my wife and I liked, but there was something about it that alway bothered me. Chloe Sevigny is beguiling, and yet played an evil shrew so well that it was difficult to see her for the rare beauty she is. Big Love was her return to the screen after she was blackballed for a controversial sex scene in Vincent Gallo‘s the Brown Bunny, a movie that started a feud between Roger Ebert and Gallo where the latter put a hex on the former, and considering – it may have worked, though Gallo cursed Ebert with colon cancer instead of cancer of thyroid.

Chloe was a bad girl, sneaking out, hanging out with skaters, smoking, going to all night parties and selling acid as a teenager. You may remember her as the accidental lesbian girlfriend in Boys Don’t Cry, or as the naive but willing secretary in American Psycho, or as the hottest girl in just about any Harmony Korine movie. She values acting enough to refuse to move to Los Angeles, staying instead in the East Village. When she’s not smouldering in front of a camera she dabbles in fashion design.

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 on the back of the original theatrical cut of the Brown Bunny to tacos@tacotopia.net.

Austin’s got a lot going for it. I should know, I spent most of my adolescence there. I went to six different schools around the city. I worked at Thundercloud Subs and Tower Records, and about 100 different print shops around town. I used to hang out at Liberty Lunch, and buy NO2 at the Smoker’s Needs next to Inner Sanctum, then sit and get a sandwich at Les Amis. I would walk nightly to the I Love Video on Airport (The first one, next to Eric’s Billiards). I lived on the South Side, the West Side, and Hyde Park. I’ve been rolled by thugs on East 6th. My family ran a high-tech recruiting firm, and I watched the birth of Austin’s tech sector from a unique vantage point. I can tell you a story about something that happened on almost every street in that town.

I moved away in ’95, moved back, and then moved away for good in ’02. The way I saw it, Austin was too big for its britches. The cost of living was too high compared to the average salary, and Austin sure loved itself. I go back once or twice a year now to visit friends and family and each time I’m astonished by the amount of change. Most of the things I knew are gone, torn down, and in their place stands a shiny new hipster tech startup or chipotle grill. In the 80s and 90s buildings were prohibited from standing any taller than the capitol building (source needed), but that restriction has been lifted and the height of the skyline has doubled in the last decade. You can’t swing a cat without hitting five food trailers, and you can’t drive five feet without getting stuck in traffic for half an hour while you watch be-dreadlocked college kids lament the tragedies of the world over local craft beer and some of the best bar-b-que on the planet.

Corpus Christi is in no eminent danger of patting itself on the back too much. I mention to people here that I moved from Austin and they look at me, perplexed, as if to say ‘don’t you mean you are moving to Austin?’ And while Austin has a long list of things we don’t (Indian restaurants, tolerant attitudes, bike lanes, glass recycling, Flipside, the Alamo Drafthouse, Boyar Automotive, the Continental Club, Threadgill’s, Miller Blueprint, Hut’s, Whole Foods, Multiple bowling alleys, SXSW) there are some things here that Austin just ain’t got. We’ve got the beach, and we’ve got way better tacos. They wouldn’t admit it; they do have a better variety of tacos, with asian/tex/mex fusion tacos, and whole wheat tortillas, and all kinds of stuff that might be better on a tortilla than by itself, but we have better tacos.

Take for instance the big daddy of the current Austin taco scene: Torchy’s. They weren’t around when I lived there, and though we in Corpus are a bit isolated, I do get wind of the prevailing taco trends – and Torchy’s has a lot of buzz. They were first on my list of taco shops to visit when I made the trip north to see the Lone Star Roundup. A bit hungover, and in need of some satisfaction I stumbled in to the low-slung building and got in line. This location is on South 1st, so it was not surprising to hear Spanish spoken across the counter, always a good sign in a taqueria. I ordered my ususal: a chorizo & egg, and a carne guisada.

“A what?,” said the entirely too cute girl behind the counter.

“Carne Guisada,” I repeated.

“Where do you see it on the menu?” she asked. Crap, are you kidding? After scanning the menu with bloodshot eyes and determining there was no Carne G, and my baseline for comparison was shot, I ordered a migas taco. She then asked if I wanted the chorizo & egg with cheese. No. I love cheese, but c’mon. Every breakfast taco on the menu doesn’t have to have cheese on it, as is the case at Torchy’s. I got my coffee and in minutes I had my tacos. The coffee was head and shoulders above what you’d get in any taqueria in Corpus Christi. As Jules would say, “some real gourmet shit!” and I got to drink it while reading a paper copy of the Onion News. The chorizo & egg was made to order, with the egg more fried than scambled. The chorizo was excellent. The Migas were good too, and the avacado was a nice addition. The salsa was tha-bomb, and loaded with garlic. The weak spot were the tortillas which were not quite shelf, but would get any tacotopia eatery disqualified. Some investigation revealed their supplier is El Milagro. This is Austin, they can’t be compared to what we have in Corpus Christi. While they have innovation, and demand, we have a foundation of history and tradition that cannot be beat, in spite of Texas Monthly’s unspeakable failure to include a single CC restaurant in their Best Mexican Restaurants in Texas.

So be proud, Corpus Christi, to be the breakfast taco capitol of the world. No one else may know it, but we do, and they’re ignorant.

Our Taco Award Winner for this week is:

Callie Thorne

You’ve probably seen her before. She’s played cold and distant as McNulty’s ex on the Wire, and she’s played psycho-sexual as the cousin’s widow on Rescue Me. A native of Boston, she now calls NYC home. And though she’s a beauty, she’s not just another pretty face, appearing with acting heavyweights Sam Rockwell and Eric Bogosian in the Phillip Seymore Hoffman directed play Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

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 on the back of a bootleg of the last season of Californication to tacos@tacotopia.net.

2754 Port Ave • Corpus Christi, Texas • 361-884-7010

Los Laureles is a little old cinder block building on Port. You can drive down Port on any given Saturday morning and you will likely find at least one new taqueria, or taco trailer. This is not tourist food, it it intensely local. So much so that I, the taco show host, with my intimate knowledge of the breakfast taco world, often feel profoundly caucasian with my pronounced arctic complexion and rudimentary Spanish.

A few months ago a took a drive down Port and made a list of new places to try out. Then a few weeks ago I was contacted by the catering manager for a touring country solo act whose name rhymes with Tim McGraw and called upon for assistance in finding a taco truck. Sure enough, I did find a few trailers, and one of them was on Port (though they expressed no interest in working a private event). In all this, I had noticed Los Laureles sitting humbly, and set out to pry loose its secrets.

I ordered a chorizo and egg, and a carne guisada, both on flour. The tacos came out before long and I went about tasting them. The chorizo & egg was good, and greasy. Some people don’t appreciate the grease but I do, depending on the grease. This was bright red and flowed out the back of the taco like a garden hose in spite of my pinching off the end. The napkins began to come in to play at this point. The carne guisada was like a burlesque performer: a little fat around the edges and more delicious than what is held out by the mainstream as ideal. It was fantastic. I got two different salsas. The red was nearly tasteless until it contacts air at which point it gets dusky and fiery. The green, on the other hand, entered with fanfare and stole the show. Both were really good, as were the flour tortillas.

The waitresses were cute, and not to be trifled with. The coffee came quickly in an impossibly small cup. I was the only guerro there, and crews of mexicanos were joking with each other before their day’s work while eating and reading the paper. This place gives off the feel of a restaurant that is steady, and not going anywhere, like Bill H, the guy downtown who drives the little vacuum cart. There’s nothing you could throw at him that he can’t handle, and then not bother to talk about with his crew at Cheers. If we could all only have that kind of conviction. I’ll be back to this place with friends in tow.

Our Taco Award Winner for this week is:

Carla Gugino

Carla Gugino is a chameleon, playing old and young, modern and retro, light and tragic. She was the redemption of Watchmen as Silk Spectre the elder though she was just seven years older than Malin Ackerman who played her daughter. You can see her in theaters now in Sucker Punch. She is a regular on Californication, as well as Entourage, Spin City (as well as R. Rodriguez‘s Sin City), Chicago Hope, and the show she led, Karen Cisco.  She has aslo been in American Gangster, This Boy’s Life… the list goes on. She’s just a little younger and a little hotter than the girl I confused her for at first, Rachel Weisz, who is hot enough herself to trigger smoke alarms, but there’s no mistaking Carla for long.

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 on the back of the Box Set of Battlestar Galactica to tacos@tacotopia.net.