Guns and Tacos

Tacos El Mapache

August 18th, 2009 in Tacos! by Jay | 2 responses

A large raccoon advertises tacos for El Mapache.

I took a spin outside of the West Loop Sunday morning on my way to work to scope out some taco joints. This area has a large South American population, so you’ll find a combination of taquerias, taco stands and pupuserias. What is a pupuseria, you may ask? A place to get pupusas, of course. But I’m not here to eat those.

I pinpointed a few prospective taco eateries, and plugged them into my cell phone. Bleep, bloop. The majority of the places I found were around the intersection of Renwick and Gulfton.

I headed to my part-time gig at Top Gun Range, and noticed that my fellow foodie friend Eugenio was there. Outstanding. This means my chances of eating bullshit for lunch will be greatly reduced.

Eugenio had some old college friends in town, and they had no lunch plans.

Tacos are their lunch plans now, I explained.

We all sat down and E. ordered for us. I never have a problem with this, because if someone orders for the group, it probably means they’re buying. He ordered three tacos al pastor, three chicharrones tacos, three chicken tacos,and three lengua tacos. This guy is a Spartan.

The friendly waitress, relieved that there was a Spanish speaker among us, brought us each a small bowl of excellent frijoles (gratis). The corn chips were thick and were sprinkled with a red powder, and there were two salsas, a bright orange salsa rojo and a fiery green sauce.

Then the tacos arrived, and man, they sure looked good. All of the tacos had a big pile of fresh and finely cut cilantro and onions. The corn tortillas were not homemade, which was a bit disappointing, but it occurred to me that if they were to make all of these tortillas on the spot, it would have taken a long time to make. Also, I knew the impressive salsa would go well with each and every one of these. Here’s a short summary:

I'm revising history. Food of the gods= nectar, ambrosia, tacos.

• al Pastor – Well seasoned, but not too much marinade, so you could really taste the pork. It had a barbacoa-like consistency.

• Chicharrones – Folks keep telling me how good well-made chicharrones tacos taste when done right. I’ve never enjoyed them, so I guess they’re just not for me. It’s just a bunch of orange greasy chunks of fat. Eugenio and I decided that they had probably pulled it from the menudo pot. These could be good chicharrones tacos for all I know. I just don’t like them.

• Pollo (chicken) – It was a little dry, but still enjoyable. Once I dumped a bunch of that green salsa on them, they were fantastic. I always prefer red salsa on beef and green salsa on chicken.

• Lengua – This was fantastic and unique. Their lengua had the same barbacoa texture and consistency, a bit more substantial. That bright orange salsa went with them perfectly.

If you’re eating tacos, and something seems to be missing, squirt lime juice all over them. Hell, squirt lime juice on them before you take your first bite. If you don’t have enough limes, let them know.

We devoured these tacos like the true barbarians we are, and then we went to the range and fired automatic machine guns. After all, it was Sunday.