Guns and Tacos

Ruby’s Taqueria

February 10th, 2010 in Tacos! by Jay | 2 responses

I came across this unusual taco truck  in a rural area north of the Houston metro. It was impossible to get to, in this odd corner where Huffmeister and Hempstead Highway converge. The unpaved driveway was situated in a manner where you couldn’t get to it without breaking a couple of traffic laws.

It was a beautiful sunny and cool Texas winter day. A huge hand painted sign read, “TACOS OPEN”. Along with the taco truck, this lot contained an abandoned snow cone stand and a beautiful blue vintage Mustang with a torn, battered tarp obscuring it just enough so that I could clearly see blue, chrome, and awesome.

A long-legged black chicken doted around, searching for gizzard grit amongst a pile of bottle caps. My dining companion, who we will call Penelope Cruz, entertained the thought of ordering a chicken taco just to see what would happen. I explained to her that it was probably a fighting breed rather than a poultry bird.  She was impressed by my vast knowledge of avian genetics.

Penelope Cruz then tried to befriend the hen, and if you don’t know chickens, trying to play with a chicken is kind of like playing that pop-up Orbitz game where you try to hit home runs over and over again. Or watching Ghost Hunters.

I ordered fajita and pastor (pork) tacos and a bottle of Joya; a grapefruit-flavored drink similar to Fresca but only distributed in Mexico. You can kill four men with this thick glass bottle before it breaks.

Four.

I once learned a valuable lesson about these non-twist bottle caps. Back when I was exploring Tijuana looking for a place to live, I came across this seedy bar called Carmen’s where there were people sleeping on the tables.  I bought a raffle ticket for a buck or two, and won a bottle of El Presidente brandy, accompanied by a large glass bottle of Coke. I put the edge of the bottle on the bar and tried to ‘slap off’ the bottle cap with no luck.

A guy that looked exactly like Danny Trejo snatched the Coke bottle from my hand.  I thought he was going to swing it at me, but instead he snapped off the bottle cap with his teeth and handed it back to me in one fluid motion.

It was the coolest thing I had ever seen in real life.

A bottle of brandy and a few beers later,  I thought I’d give it a try. Why not? Uncle Sam was paying for my dental work anyway. I bought a Pacifico, gripped the edge of the bottle cap by my teeth and…

CRACK!

I broke the entire neck of the bottle off , cutting my face pretty good in the process. I spent the rest of the night holding a wad of napkins against my face and dripping blood and beer on the floor, reveling in the fact that I now looked like a local in this shady Tijuana cantina.

I have since mastered the art of opening bottles with my teeth, but I prefer to use a bottle opener.

Anyway, back to the taco truck. A screened-off dining area was handcrafted around the south side of the trailer, and the interior was outright quirky. Framed religious prints, a combination of plastic and live plants, and an awkwardly situated Foosball table were the key design elements here.

Wooden seagulls were strung up across the ceiling, each with a fancifully-folded dollar bill in its beak. It was all pink, yellow, and girly looking, like a blender full of Barbies.

The gal in the trailer dinged a bell to let me know the tacos were ready. The sliced limes were larger than key limes, but smaller than your average lime found in your local market.  Both the pastor and the fajita were dry and bland, to the point that saturating them with lime juice provided only slight improvement. The red salsa was a dark maroon, and had an unwelcome sweetness that had to be countered with the application of table salt. The salsa verde was bland and uninspired. Yes, I am using the term “uninspired” when discussing taco truck salsa. So what.

Ruby’s Taqueria has an extensive menu, and before dogging it too much I’d like to stress the fact that a lame taco truck taco is still five times better than any Taco Bell menu item.  If you’re in the area, I implore you to stop in just to take a closer look at the dining area. It’s something special, and I wish I hadn’t fought sundown to grab the few photos I did. Ruby’s is open 24/7.

Now if you’ll excuse me, someone’s got to teach Penelope Cruz how to hotwire a Mustang.