The best decade for population growth in Corpus Christi was the 50s during which we added 60,000 people.  I’d estimate that we’ve added around 10,000 in the last 10 years. Young people don’t want to live here and our community continues to age as does the municipal infrastructure and the entrenched system of local politics. All this means to me is that I can look at this city and love it, and at the same time see so much of it that is crumbling and broken, from the 100 year old downtown plumbing to the many vacant buildings with absentee landlords who’d rather let the buildings crumble and depreciate than do anything with them, and urban blight that scars downtown (again with the downtown). Small business owners from downtown and the West side organize functions to drum up business, but even in the heart of one of the most successful blocks of businesses in the area I get very few walk in customers.

Our taco shop today is a place that resembles the city itself.  City Bakery is a place that was once great.  Long a hub of activity in the West side it was the place where local civil rights leaders met during the creation of LULAC and MAYO, demanding a fair shake for a culture that existed here for longer than the Republic of Texas itself. I have been told by ‘El Gran’ Dee among others that there would be lines snaking around the block in the morning to buy this bakery’s signature item, the biscuit, and that most of the wedding cakes and local restaurants’ commercial baking moved through this establishment.  Sadly, this is no more.  The restaurant shows every day of 50 years of wear, with none of the benefits of its toil and yet it is still there, still open, still operated by the same family.  It’s not a great place to eat, and it is confusing to think that it has managed to pass health inspections all these years.  Dee spoke of the utter lack of pretense in the decor, and how after eating here in the morning he felt seasoned to deal with any comer throughout the rest of the day.

How is the food, you ask? The menu is limited, written in stilted hand with 4 different markers on 5 year old poster board.  Half of the items have been crossed out, and one or two have been written in, crowding for space.  Like downtown, or the Memorial Coliseum therein, no one wants to tear it down and start with a clean slate, thinking it’s better to hold on to something broken than to let go of the past. It breaks one’s heart. The carne guisada was crossed out but I asked for it and the lady at the counter said she had it.  It was not good, but it was edible.  The chorizo and egg was a little better, but just a little.  A bit peppery, and I didn’t add any pepper.  The chile salsa was fair.  Shell’s water came with a 1/2 lb chunk of ice that might have come off a piece that had been in the back since the place opened.  While we waited for our food, which all of the attention of the two employees to prepare, a steady stream of kids in their catholic school uniforms and shuffling street people lined up.  No one grumbled about the wait, and the ‘ring for service’ cowbell was only politely rung once.  By the time our food came out (at least the first part, we ended up eating in shifts) there must have been eight people in line.

The tortillas, however, were very good – I’d guess made fresh to order – and the biscuits were excellent, made fresh and pre-buttered.  The Hat says he couldn’t recommend anyone eat there, but I could.  It’s got atmosphere in spades.  If you want to eat at a place you’ll remember, this is the place.  If you want to eat food you’ll remember this may also be the place, but not for the reasons you’d like.

Corpus Donuts

There was a good amount of space in the place, but only a few tables – and the lighting was very low, like a brownout, but the lighting didn’t hide the dirt that well.  The hat said it looked like a bar. There were two big stacks of professional PA speakers (Peavey 2x15s on top of big Cerwin vegas).  When I asked, I was told that they rent the place out for dances – explaining a lot.  I knew we were doubling up today but I still had to try both of my standard tacos for the sake of science so I got a Carne Guisada and a Chorizo & Egg.  Everything was fair, nothing outstanding.  If you’re looking for a place to impress people from out of town how good food can come out of bad places this might be a contender.  If they’re not from Corpus they won’t know that these tacos aren’t top notch, because in comparison to what most cities have they are.  On the way out, the Hat bought us all a round of Donuts, and they were top notch, very fresh, and glazed with just the slightest hint of lemon.

Tacos from Corpus Donuts

Next we headed to the Donut Hole, a place we’ve tried at least three times to sample and were deflected on each attempt.  The Hole is legendary in local taco circles, and was one of the first recommendations we received.  I mentioned it to my wife, not knowing any better, and commented that it was a strange sounding place to have tacos.  My wife informed me that it was a little dive, it’d been there forever, that she had been going there since she was a teenager, and that the tacos were great.

Well, she wasn’t kidding.  The place is a little dive. Looking at the building it’s unclear if it’s open for business or if it’s a derelict superfund site.  It’s situated across from Wynn Seale Middle School, right down the road from the abandoned Butter Krust bakery.  We both pulled our trucks into the lot and finding nowhere to park, and barely enough space to drive around it, we pulled up next door and walked over.  A guy speaking jibberish (or aramaic, my aramaic is a little rusty) walked up asked me for the time, and asked the hat for a quarter before wandering off to alert the illuminati that we were falling right into their trap.  A dim, yellow light was leaking out the back of the building, and looking through the doorway I could barely make out the interior – which looked like a country blacksmith’s shop.  We knocked and were told to come back in 20 minutes (this was at 7:20 meaning they open at 7:40).

I was ready to give it up, and to try it on a day where the gloom wasn’t so oppressive.  I wasn’t sure if it felt more like a scene from ‘Conspiracy Theory’ or ‘From Beyond’ but I didn’t have a good feeling about it either way. The scene it reminded me of most was in Cronenberg’s ‘Naked Lunch’ when Bill Lee breaks the typewriter, brings it to the blacksmith shop and they melt it down and make it into a new one.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they were sprinkling the tacos with the powder from the Aquatic Brazilian Centipede. This was a dangerous place, as ‘King Crimson’ says, and I had the kid to worry about so I whisked him away and deposited him at his school, where he would be protected by the holiness of the Catholic Church.  Then, as I was pulling away I received a text from Kevin who had the same idea as me.  Give it one more try.  Acting against my better judgement I headed back, and picked up a brown bag from the second window.  The holy grail of tacos, I had it right in my hands.  I raced over to the Hat’s house to we could examine the goods in safety (who am I kidding, if the Illuminati wanted to know what tacos we were eating, they would already be in the house – which meant they probably were in the house, as they know all.)

Well, it was all worth it.  The tacos were every bit as good as they had been described.  The carne g, their signature item, was rich and the beef dense.  The chorizo & egg amazing, with a strong and salty flavor you can only get from a grimy kitchen.  The tacos were the size of, well, a giant taco, and the tortillas achieved a perfect balance of tenderness vs tensile strength.

As we talked ourselves down, and tried to rid ourselves of the feeling we were being watched, we made plans for next weeks trip – to another hole in the wall with ample history.  Tune in!

From the Hat

Before I get to taco news today, I’d like to give a shout out to South Texas Public Radio for hosting a night of fine food and wine.  Shell and I are regulars at their yearly Classic Brew event, a food and beer gig with live music but had never been to their Food and Wine Classic.  The dress was everything from black tie to CC formal (jeans and sandals) – definitely a good place to break out the Black Leather SRV hat.  There was plenty of gourmet fare for all.  My favorite was a lobster taco with pico de gallo and avocado ice cream on a handmade corn minitort.  Delicious and beautiful to look at.  Close runners-up were a ginger-soy beef (or was it lamb) in a fried filo dough cone, and a sweet frau gras mousse also in filo.  I’m sure there were plenty of good and great wines, but after half a dozen samples of different Carmeneres, my taste buds might have been compromised.  We had a good time and will be back.  It might not make my bucket list, but definitely one of my 40 things to do in Corpus.

It’s a great thing when dozens of fine restaurants are gathered together, dishing out their wares to the grazing multitudes, but sometimes one has to work a bit harder to quell that hankerin’.  In fact, sometimes it seems that there might be someone working against you in your quest.  Today started innocently enough.  Last night’s Wine Classic had decided not to drive and ended up crashing on my heartburn.  It was still there when I woke up so asked it if it wanted a taco.  It did and before long my heartburn and I were on the way to Corpus Donuts, formerly Recios.  I had it from fellow taco fan and go-to expert in local taquerias, Johnny H. that if it was still the same people, this place had a good brisket taco.  I could tell my heartburn was looking forward to it too.  I think because it was a donut shop, that Ian decided it would be a good opportunity to make a theme of it and hit the infamous Donut Hole as an added bonus feature.  So I only ordered the brisket figuring I’d save myself for a good showing at The Hole.  In all honesty, I was not really impressed when the plate was plopped down in front of me.  After the display of beautiful food last night, the lonely grey slice of fatty brisket in a flour tortilla was not impressive.  But upon removal of some of the fat and proper application of barbecue sauce and salsa, it ended up being good.  The brisket had a good mesquite smoke flavor with a soft texture that comes from many after-pit hours in the oven.  The tortilla was good, toothy, and held up to the barbecue’s frontal assault.  The coffee was okay, but not the usual café fresh I expect.  The hot, fresh glazed donuts were very good.

Tacos from the Donut Hole

Here’s where it gets tricky.  Last time, The Hole was rained out and we went elsewhere.  Just what The Hole wanted, too I’m sure.  Today, when The Hole discovered we were back, we were put off with a shout from inside the closed building, “Thirty more minutes.”  Tacotopia runs a tight ship and we couldn’t wait so I resigned myself to my one brisket taco and vowed to return to The Hole in victory.  But all the way home I had a gnawing feeling that we were being duped; that there was a conspiracy to keep the Hole’s secrets from the likes of us.  Or maybe that The Hole would only accept our calling on its terms…I decided to go back…as it turned out, so had Ian.  He was ahead of me so he volunteered to brave The Hole alone and bring tacos to the house.  I left it to his judgment as to which taco I wanted.  Turns out that he made the right choice – the lengua.  The taco was astounding!  At first I didn’t know what to think of it.  It didn’t really look like any lengua taco I’d had.  Tender roast beef with that unmistakable taste of cabesa.  Stringy almost like the best pot roast you ever had.  Half way through it I remember Matt, a Surf Club acquaintance had told me that the Hole had the best Lengua he’d ever eaten.  I can say now that it’s the best I’ve ever eaten too.  Wow!  The torts were good too and a splash of the atomic-hot green sauce made it a great taco experience.  Too bad no coffee.

Salud

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.