Guns and Tacos

Taqueria Mi Jalisco

August 5th, 2009 in Tacos! by Jay | one response

I started heading Northwest. Ended up on Fulton, then just kept cruising until I found a taco stand. It was a hot day, and I was kicking the Reggae Show on KTRU.

If the taco mecca is on Irvington, the taco graveyard is on Fulton. I found close to a dozen taco establishments that had closed down, including a Taco Zone, Taco Town, and Taco Loco (The Taco Loco was barely open).

When I got to Berry Street, I found a king-size, super shiny black taco truck called “Tacorrey”, which advertised “Sabor del Norte” or “Taste of the North”.  I walked up to the front, and the owner was hanging out with a police officer. I waited at the front window for a few seconds and reviewed the menu. Nobody came to take my order, so I hit the bricks.

Walking back to my car, I saw a small white taco stand that glimmered in the sun like a Los Tucanes CD hanging from a rear-view mirror. It’s amazing that every huge taco truck has a smaller, better, and cheaper taco truck nearby.

Those aren't sunbeams. A good taco truck always looks like this.

I ordered three tacos; a suadero, a longaniza, and of course the al pastor. I tried to use my best Spanish, but  since I  was drooling all over myself, she had a hard time understanding me at first.

These were served with key limes, a grilled jalapeno, and a magnificent sweet grilled caramelized onion.Total cost was $3. Fantastic.

I’d like  to go into a long, drawn out explanation of what suadero is and act like I already knew, but instead I found a blog by a fella named Ian Froeb who figured it all out for me. In other news, there are  tacos in St. Louis. (Just kidding.)

Look, I stole Ian's cow chart.

This stuff is delicious. It was a little bit tough and charred (in a good way), and the fat content was significant. I knew on the first bite that I had a winner. This would be my favorite of the three tacos.

Next I had the longaniza. This meat is a lot like chorizo. This might sound awful on a taco by itself, but longaniza is more substantial than the chorizo you may have had in breakfast tacos. This was a good taco as well, though I wouldn’t want to eat more than one.

Then I got to the al pastor. I wasn’t happy with it, but when it comes to al pastor, I’m like one of those rock stars on The Smoking Gun with the 18-page backstage riders.

I’d like to add that these were not your ordinary double-stack corn tortillas. These weren’t processed into blandness like the tortillas you see in a grocery store. They were bright yellow, toasted, and tasted like corn. You know, like they’re supposed to.

The red salsa was oil-based, similar to the salsa found at La Mexicana on Montrose and Fairview. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t crazy about it. The green stuff had a hummus-like texture, and had a “sink-in” spiciness that was nice and hot.

They were out of orange soda, so I ordered a coke. “Mexican Coke!” she said proudly, as she charged me the $2 gringo price. So Mexican Coca-Cola is made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Big deal. But it is cool that you could crack a human skull with that Coke bottle without breaking it.

Then I realized that I had forgotten to take pictures of the tacos before I wolfed them down. Damn. I had to go back and buy some more suadero tacos so I could bring them home and take pictures for you.

Suadero tacos with key limes, grilled onion, jalapeno, cilantro, raw onions. Two bucks.