Guns and Tacos

Pollos Asados El Regio

September 24th, 2009 in Tacos! by Jay | 2 responses

Unless you’re from Yugoslavia or Dallas, or currently playing Second Life in your mom’s basement, you probably know about Airline Road. This place has all of the best elements of Mexico. Panaderias, refresquerias, carnicerias, ostionerias, and taco trucks. Looking for a giant tres leches cake? A pinata? A michelada or bounty hunter?

You’ve come to the right place, cabron.

Night chicken disco.

Though there are usually several taco trucks in the area, I arrived at the El Regio truck late in the day, after most of the daytime stands had driven off to count their dollars and watch cockfights or something. So it’s time for some chicken.

Pollos Asados El Regio always seems to be there. A massive yellow/orange trailer with gleaming stainless and neon lights, with a giant cartoon chicken (of course) plastered on the exterior, the El Regio truck is both a graphic designer’s nightmare and a chicken lover’s dream, visually overshadowing any nearby taco trucks in its realm.

I stepped out of the giant car, crushing a small scorpion with my boot heel and ensuring that my windows were down so that everyone in the area could hear “As the Levee Breaks” blasting through the speakers as I made my entrance into the chicken stand parking lot.

I reviewed their extensive menu, which consisted of these items: A whole chicken and a half chicken. Now I prefer dark meat, but I’m not going to tell him that because my Spanish is terrible, and last time I did that I was forced to do some kind of pantomime. I didn’t want to do the air guitar thing with my leg again, so I just ordered a half chicken.

So listen. You can go to nice restaurants all day long without finding chicken that is genuinely slow-smoked. I don’t know how they get away with this. I mean, eating baked chicken is like sitting through a horror movie with no frontal nudity.

Pollos Asados El Regio really smokes this stuff, and they smoke it well- all the way through. Remember your buddy’s barbecue a couple of years ago, where you were really hungry but it took four hours for the chicken to be ready, and by the time it was ready you were too drunk to eat? It’s kind of like that chicken, except you get to eat it instead of just savoring that smell while you told jokes you couldn’t remember the punch lines to and hit on that guy’s daughter while he was right there.You remember.

The red achiote-rubbed, pleasantly blackened chicken is served with a liberal quantity of grilled whole onions, Mexican rice, fresh lime slices, corn tortillas, creamy jalapeno salsa and borracho beans. I’m not sure if that’s what they call these beans, because it was more of a stew; complete with beans, chunks of beef and gristle, carrots, and a fatty chicken broth. Once I tried it, I wanted to buy a gallon of it.

This chicken was outstanding, and in my opinion could go toe-to-toe with any four-star restaurant in town. I wanted to eat the bones.

Dinner of Campiones.

I’m not big on rice- it’s one of the few things I occasionally leave on my plate. But real Mexican rice is amazing stuff, and I don’t use the term lightly. Cooked perfectly with chicken broth, it was a staple to be reckoned with. Obviously,  I made chicken tacos with the rice, onions and chicken, and dipped it in the soup like real caballeros instinctively do.  The creamy green salsa was great as well, but wasn’t as spicy as I’d hoped. I was out of bear mace, so I dumped some Blaire’s After Death sauce on it for added taste bud masochism.

What a meal, and for an easy five bucks, I could spare some dinero to wash it down with a giant can of Tecate. That’s what Cente would probably do.