The thrill of eating tacos for breakfast is similar to that of eating waffles for dinner: slightly rebellious and definitely not to be allowed all the time, but a good way to change things up. At the roadside stand Rosie's Tamale House in Bee Cave, Texas (near Austin), floury tortillas wrap up cheesy eggs, bacon pieces and fluffy potato slices—that's the trademark breakfast taco order.
Of course my eyes gravitated to the "Suicide Taco" which includes all of the above, plus chorizo. With contents overflowing, this one can barely fold into the typical taco posture, leaving you a second course of leftover innards. Breakfast tacos are only available here between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., after which you will be restricted to regular tacos.
If you went to yesterday's Cinco de Mayo street fair in New York City's Harlem like Olia, you may have been face-to-face with this massive rotating tower of al pastor, or marinated rotisserie pork. Aside from feasting on tacos al pastor, Olia ate many otherdeliciousMexican foodstuffs that make me feel like a failure for having spent my whole Sunday doing laundry and catching up on work.
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Black Bean Tostadas with Corn Relish: The interplay between hot and cool, the balance of savory warm filling, and the spicy bite of a good salsa—all good things.
Poblano Tacos: These tacos filled with roasted poblanos contain no meat, but still pack lot of flavor.
To continue our Cinco de Mayo madness, our celebration of Mexican food and drink, we thought it would be fun to ask all you serious eaters the following muy importante question: What's the best Mexican food town in America?
Many cities have a case to make. Folks in Los Angeles swear by their impressive array of tacquerias and Oaxacan restaurants. Those in San Francisco claim their city gave birth to Mission-style burritos. My friend Robb Walsh of the Houston Press swears by the taco trucks, Tex-Mex specialties, and myriad regional Mexican restaurants in Houston.
Other folks, like cookbook authors and enthusiastic eaters Cheryl and Bill Jamison would put forth Santa Fe as the king of all Mexican food towns in the U.S. And our own Chicago correspondent, Michael Nagrant, would of course put Chicago and its Mexican food ahead of all other comers, led by the formidable and impressive Windy City chef Rick Bayless.
Finally, the good people of San Antonio swear up and down that their city is the place to eat Mexican food in the U.S. And maybe, just maybe, you think you could make a compelling case for a city that's not mentioned above. You'll get your chance to put forward your favorite right now. Vote after the jump.
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Best Tacos in Chicago: when it comes to finding the best regional Mexican dining outside of Mexico, Chicago is the best spot in America.
Chi-Mex: A New Frontier: Mexican Inn turns out to be a very inspired delicious meshing of cultures, a unique Chi-Mex blend, and holds the middle ground between Bayless and Taco Bell quite nicely.
Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, Julie Besonen hips us to a couple of Santa Barbara taquerias that sound awesome, including El Bajío for its "sensational seafood soups, fresh moles and well-seasoned, slow-roasted meats," and Los Arroyos, "famous for warm, freshly cut chips and creamy guacamole heaped in a molcajete."
Houston Press food critic Robb Walshdiscovers a pupusa truck at South Post Oak Road and Tidewater Drive (map): "A Salvadorean lady named Elisa churns out pupusas at an amazing clip. I watched her make a dozen in five minutes."
The cool graphics on the truck (including what what Walsh calls a "funky chicken") are almost worth the price of ignition alone.
Rick Bayless, chef/owner of Chicago's Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, has me brainwashed. Inspired by his example for the last few years, I’ve been telling everyone that you either go regional Mexican or you go home.
If the shadow of a Chipotle and their swaddled infant-sized burritos fell across my path, I’d consider taking a shower. Scarfing down Oaxacan moles and Yucatecan puerco pibil meant I was living right; chewing on chimichangas and noshing on Nachos Belgrande, not so much. Then a few weeks ago, I discovered Mexican Inn.
Mexican Inn is a 47-year-old corner joint located in the shadow of the Chicago skyway. It’s in a south side neighborhood called the East Side, an island of land separated from the rest of the city by the Calumet River and surrounded by behemoth factories with flatulent smokestacks. The East Side is closer to Indiana than it is to downtown. It’s a place most Chicagoans never stop for, though many drive through when the tollway gets backed up.
What is it about taco trucks? Does anybody not love them, aside from competing Mexican restaurant owners? Do four-year-olds love taco trucks?
I decided to find out. I took my four-year-old daughter, Iris, to Tacos El Asadero this week, and I think it's fair to say Tacos El Asadero is now her favorite place in the entire world.
El Asadero is Seattle's best-known taco truck—a bus, actually, where you can sit inside and enjoy your taco, mulita, or torta while staring through filmy old bus windows. We stepped inside and ordered several tacos at $1 each. Iris's favorite was the lengua, tender braised beef tongue. She entertained other customers by singing, "Lengua, lengua, lengua," to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Then she stole one of my tortillas and created her own taco with a mix of lengua, carnitas, and carne asada. "I'm eating a real taco!" she declared, dropping meat on the floor of the bus.
There are at least a thousand taquerias in Chicago city proper, though only about ten of them actually sear their meat and season it properly. Still, ten is a pretty hefty number. Hell, growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, we didn’t even have one good taqueria, only a second rate Chi-Chi’s serving up enchiladas “Cancun” filled with fake crab meat and krill-sized shrimp. Faced with this gluttony of “local” options, I wondered why I was driving 40 miles to check out a suburban taqueria. But I try not to leave any stone unturned when it comes to food tips, and I'd heard from a good source that the folks at Bien Trucha were tearing it up.
Ordering a boring burrito at Charlottesville, Virginia's Aqui Es Mexico would be pretty sad considering that its other mouthwatering burrito offerings include beef tongue, fried pork, and lamb, but it's listed on the children's menu mostly to appease picky young eaters. Adults, don't even think about it.
Posted by Zach Brooks, November 14, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Who doesn't know what a burrito is? Taco, of course. Quesadilla? No problema. Torta? Well, they don't have those at Taco Bell! Even if you are familiar with the Mexican Sandwich that is the torta, (not to be confused with the Spanish egg "torta") you probably don't know the torta. Why? Because no two are alike, and every region/state/restaurant/bodega has their own version. Meat or no meat? Sliced avocado or guacamole? Black beans or refried beans? The permutations are endless, and you'd be hard pressed to the find the "perfect" torta. That is, until you try the version from La Casita Chilanga, a tiny torta specialist on Middlefield Rd., the "Little Mexico" of Silicon Valley.
Ed Levine made ethnic and cheap eats safe for America, or at least New Yorkers, anyway. In some ways, his seminal work, New York Eats, put pastrami and pizza on the same table as foie and truffles. It's precisely why I've been excited to contribute to this site, as my personal philosophy is that haute cuisine and the antiquated starred review system panders to people who are more likely to equate the cost of a meal with the quality of a meal, the same people who shove food in their mouth but never taste it, the folks rocking mediocre Cristal because that's what Jay Z clued them in to. I believe that the Italian beef sandwich should be as vaunted as a Waygu beef, and that's why I'm here. So in the vein of Mr. Levine, I've put together a short primer below on some of Chicago's truly best and relatively cheap ethnic joints that are as relevant as our four-star palaces like Alinea and Charlie Trotter's.
Citing safety and health concerns, along with cries of "unfair competition" from brick and mortar restaurants in the area, the City of Salinas is considering an outright ban on "mobile vendors" or a severe restriction on their business. In January, the city set a cap on the vendor permits at the current count of 31 and no new permits will be issued causing a gradual fade-out of taco trucks in Salinas. Next week, an as-of-yet unpublicized proposal is scheduled to go before the city council that will further restrict the taco trucks. The proposal could include possible time restrictions instructing taco trucks to only operate between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., could require that the vendors move their trucks every 15 minutes to one hour, or could cause taco trucks to have to move off of public streets and on to private property zoned for the business.
Remember last week's story about Costco selling Mexican Coke? This morning, because we love soda with real sugar—and you, too—an update:
alaina: mexican coke sighting at napa wal-mart lia: link please! lia: or did you see? alaina: no link, i saw it myself! lia: no photo??? alaina: it's a coke bottle alaina: no lia: also i did not think "napa" and "wal-mart" were allowed to be in the same sentence alaina: me neither
(Alaina is in Napa attending Taste3, the annual conference sponsored by Robert Mondavi Winery that "aims to push the exploration and marriage of wine, food and art.")
New York has a well-deserved reputation as a serious eater's paradise as you'd be well-pressed to find somewhere to live in the city that wasn't at most a five minute walk from something delicious. You can find almost everything here you want to eat here—except, strangely enough, good Mexican food, as all my friends transplanted from California, Texas and Mexico moan about endlessly. Time Out New York's Rose Palazzolo says they're all wrong and shares her list of the "tiny taquerias, restaurants and delis throughout the five boroughs" where you can get authentic South of the Border food for not much money.
(The most astonishing thing? There are three entries for Midtown Manhattan, which is generally the city's culinary wasteland. One of them is described as being inside "a dank food court"!)
If you like the Real Thing better made with real sugar and you happen to live near a Costco, you'll be happy to know that they're selling Mexican Coke: $17.99 for a case of 24 twelve ounce bottles, which comes out to 75c each. How'd Costco manage that, you ask? According to SFist, they've "conformed to CA and U.S. rules, such as CRV (the sort-of deposit you pay for the bottle) and "nutrition" labeling, so everything appears to be nice and legal."
Coca-Cola Corporate in Atlanta says there is "no perceptible taste difference" between Mexican Coke made with real sugar and US Coke made with high-fructose corn syrup, but as anyone who's ever had the two can tell you, that's wishful thinking—drinks made with real sugar have a clean sweetness and light mouthfeel to them, while those made with corn syrup have heavy mouthfeel and a cloying sweetness.
Who can imagine New York City without the Mission burrito? Like the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridge or the bagel, the oversize burritos have become a New York institution. And yet it wasn’t long ago that it was impossible to find a good burrito of any kind in the city. As the 30th anniversary of the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel approaches, it’s worth taking a look at the remarkable sequence of events that takes place between the time we click “deliver” on the burrito.nyc.us.gov website and the moment that our hot El Farolito burrito arrives in the lunchroom with its satisfying pneumatic hiss.
The director Robert Rodriguez has a new movie out, Grindhouse, which I haven't gotten around to seeing yet, but I did love 2005's Sin City, his adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book. Turns out if you get the Sin City DVD, one of the special features on it is the second episode of Rodriguez's 10-Minute Cooking School, for his Sin City Breakfast Tacos:
He makes his tortillas from scratch, and uses both lard and butter! I may have to fight his new girlfriend Rose McGowan for him.
The Houston Press' Robb Walsh recently visited local taquería Mexico's Deli, where all the sandwiches have jailhouse-themed names like the "fugitiva," the "convicta" and the "tortura":
In the 1970s, [owner] Alex [Garcia] explained, he opened his first taquería in Mexico City. Spoofing the hit musical La Cage aux Folles (The Bird Cage), he called the restaurant La Jaula de Tacos (the taco cage). In keeping with the "cage" theme, the tortas were named after prisons. The incarceration tortas were a big hit, and Alex went on to open four more restaurants in Mexico City. But his mini-chain collapsed with the devaluation of the peso during the Carlos Salinas de Gortari regime. So Alex came to Houston to start over.
On my third visit, I tried a Mexico City specialty called a pambazo, which is a torta made on bread that's been dipped in a chile sauce. Mexico City's pambazo is stuffed with potatoes, chorizo, sour cream and cheese. I ate the incredibly messy sandwich with a knife and fork. Alex told me that in Mexico City, people eat pambazos with their hands, but only outdoors, usually at the bullfights. It's sort of the equivalent of a Texas chili dog, but with the chili on the outside of the bun.
I'm not much for bullfights but I would really like a pambazo for an afternoon snack, right about now.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 26, 2007 at 5:24 PM
Raul Gutierrez has an amazing photoblog (one of my all-time favorites, as a matter of fact) but the reason I'm linking to him today is his text blog post on how to buy good tortillas: "Good tortillas have 3 ingredients: corn, lime, water. That's it. If anything else is listed in the ingredients you your tortillas are no good. If your supermarket doesn't have tortillas with these ingredients (and these ingredients only), go somewhere else." And yes, he gives you good advice on where that somewhere else should be.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 1, 2007 at 4:59 PM
Korean-Mexican Fusion: Kalbi Tacos? eat drink & be merry lives in ethnically diverse LA and ruminates on the fusion of cultures by... making tacos with korean bbq ribs instead of carne asada. YES.
(Also: someone please get the Pushcart NYC guy to start making these for me? Kalbi rolls are great but now that my mind has been awakened to the possibility of kalbi tacos, it will not rest.)
We've gotten our hands on a video camera at Serious Eats world headquarters. I thought it would be fun to produce short video blog entries with it. We're calling them "Edibles." Here's the first one.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 25, 2006 at 12:47 PM
Lately, I've been trying to expand my ice cream horizons, and there's no better place to do that than the freezer case at Whole Foods. It has the biggest selection of designer ice creams I've ever seen.
Haagen Dazs is my gold standard, so that should give you an idea of my frame of reference. But there are two brands I've found at Whole Foods that you should definitely check out:
Made in LA, Palapa Azul is a mexican-style ice cream that tastes more like gelato (less air, lower in fat) than premium American ice cream. i've had three killer flavors: flan (with pecans), caramel (with bits of brown sugar cookie) and the most intriguing one of all, sweet corn ice cream. The sweet corn is not quite as smooth and creamy as the other two, but it has a lovely, strong, sweet corn flavor.
is a high-end gelati and sorbetti purveyor in Philly. I've been to their little shop and the gelati and sorbetti are just about as intensely flavored as any I've had in Italy. At Whole Foods you can buy pints in a variety of flavors, including Thai Coconut Milk (a bit too sweet for my taste) and Bitter Chocolate (blessedly bitter) gelati, and a tangy Lime Cilantro sorbet.
Which brand do I like better? If money were no object I would go with Capogiro. Its ingredients are probably superior and its texture is ultra-smooth. But I'm not rich, so money does matter, and for that reason I'm going with Palapa Azul. Capogiro costs an astounding $9.99 a pint, while Palapa Azul costs $4.29, or less than half.
As to whether either of them is better then Haagen Dazs, I couldn't find any identical flavors to directly compare. I thought every ice cream maker makes basic vanilla and chocolate. Guess not.
I don't know who Cindy Price is, but she wrote a great mouthwatering story in today's NY Times about her search for the ultimate taco along Route 1 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Cindy hit 28 taquerias in five days. That's some serious taco eating. She started in LA, and hit my favorite taqueria there, El Taurino. El Taurino is a little scary (the last time I was there an armed guard kept watch over the dining room), but the tacos there are fantastic.
She headed up to Santa Barbara, where before she tried the late Julia Child's favorite taqueria, La Super Rica Taqueria, she posed the following question: "Do rich people eat tacos?" I actually think the question is a food rorschach test for rich folks. That is, if they don't eat tacos, they are only rich in a material sense. Anyone who doesn't eat tacos cannot be spiritually enriched.
But this is a question I would like everyone to ponder: "Do rich people eat tacos?"
In her story Cindy also mentioned the phenomenal taco blog
Of course my eyes gravitated to the "Suicide Taco" which includes all of the above, plus chorizo. With contents overflowing, this one can barely fold into the typical taco posture, leaving you a second course of leftover innards. Breakfast tacos are only available here between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., after which you will be restricted to regular tacos.
To continue our 
Rick Bayless, chef/owner of Chicago's Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, has me brainwashed. Inspired by his example for the last few years, I’ve been telling everyone that you either go regional Mexican or you go home. 
