Taco Shop 101: Your Guide to Border Town Food

Visiting a border town for the first time? Feeling like trying some tacos? There are thousands of these beautiful places out there, each one having something unique about them, but all with the comforting promise of amazing late-night food.

The following list is a guide to all things taco-shop. I’ve asked fellow taco-fiend and San Diego local Mariano Diaz to contribute and we’ve come up with the following items that although are not hard and fast rules, are definitely consistent with good taco shops.


The quesadilla is a good indicator as to the consistency of the food.

The quesadilla is a very simple preparation but it illustrates perfectly how your chosen taco establishment approaches its food. If the quesadilla has a ridiculous cheese-to-tortilla ratio, more often than not you’re in for some over-stuffed burritos and some grease. That may sound good to some people but those people are misinformed and prefer to conquer their food as opposed to enjoying it.

Rice and beans...the make or break.

Rice and beans are also good indicator as to the quality of the food. Are your rice and beans good? Are they worth adding to every bite of what you’re eating? These are hard to mess up. If the rice is funky/dry or the beans are not smooth (or acceptably chunky) keep looking.

The flour tortilla.

The flour tortilla should be dry to the touch. It should not be rubbery and oily like a “Mission” tortilla from the grocery store. After touching the tortilla it is better to have to dust your hands off than to wipe them off. A good tortilla will taste home made--it should be flaky and not plastic-y-- It should also hold up to whatever is put inside of it.
Bonus: if you can smell them cooking the tortillas.

Burrito Physics

(Deep Breath)...Ok...
Sorry, Chipotle...you have no idea how to make burritos. Whoever decided to make them grapefruit shaped was either not Mexican or was trying to be all culinary and avant garde to disastrous results. There’s a reason why every other actually Mexican establishment makes their burritos with a more elongated shape and not like a cannon ball and it comes down to physics. When a burrito comes a little less stuffed and in a little more cylindrical shape, they don’t fall apart and leak everywhere after the first couple bites.

When your burrito is all stubby and gumpy-looking, all it takes is about 3 bites to expose a giant mass of whatever-rice and mediocre beans, ready to drip out on to your tray...like you cut open the stomach of some food-beast. My theory behind Chipotle’s tragic burrito shape is to make it look bigger and chunkier for their American demographic...but any American with stereoscopic vision and a little depth perception can see that it’s just folded wrong and a little over-stuffed. A well-folded, properly filled burrito will last to your last bite without calling for a knife and fork.

You should not have to make weird motions with your face/head and crane your neck to eat a burrito.

If you do hate yourself and enjoy burritos the size of your forearm, it should be a choice and not the only choice. You shouldn’t have to rest the second half of the burrito on the table as you’re holding the front half---like it’s some sort of giant amazon slug that you’re fighting with your face...save those burritos for 7-11 and “Man vs. Food”.

Cheese.

The cheese should not look like it came from a bag of pre-grated cheese. if you get carne asada chips and it looks like the cheese came from Applebee’s, they got lazy.

Also the “cheese sauce” thing is suspect. Leave this to Taco Bell and their ilk...if there is cheese in what you order it should be an unassuming addition and not “smothered in creamy Santa Fe cheese sauce”. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. “Cheese sauce” means dehydrated cheese and a bunch of fake tex-mex spices in a nacho cheese cauldron ladled on with a giant homeless shelter spoon. NOT REAL MEXICAN FOOD. “Cheese sauce” should be regarded with suspicion, disdain and always be put in spiteful quotation marks.

Without jamaica, you can't get a 10 out of 10

Jamaica (pronounced ha-may-cuh) is a juice derived from hibiscus flowers. It’s bright red and it should be right next to the Horchata (cinnamon milk drink) and Piña (pineapple juice) in dispensers that circulate the mixtures as they sit. They’re all sugary and amazing. If the taco shop doesn’t have these, it doesn’t necessarily lose all credibility, but almost. These drinks go hand in hand with taco-shop food and if you want your taco experience to be truly complete, it should be with a big styrofoam cup of one of these drinks.
Bonus: if the drinks are in glass jugs.

Breakfast Menu.

The breakfast menu should have the basics: breakfast burrito, chorizo (spicy sausage) and machaca (pounded/crushed meat), all with egg. If they have good chilaquiles (tortilla chips, eggs, green/red sauce, cheese, sometimes chicken) then they get an automatic win.

With chorizo, it is perfectly acceptable to find glowing deep-orange juice leaking from your burrito. It may be alarming at first but just embrace it.

With machaca, it shouldn’t be watery or overly liquidy.

Both machaca and chorizo burritos will come extremely hot...like 500 degrees celcius. Bite the top off and give it a second to cool.

Tortas.

Tortas (sandwiches) are some of the tastiest items on the menu. The problem with tortas is that the bollios (rolls) they come on usually get soggy very quickly. These are acceptable to eat with a knife and fork but if you are able to pick them up and eat them without them falling apart, you’ve found yourself a good taco shop.

By the way if the torta isn’t on a bollio, I can’t speak for the integrity of that taco shop.

If the burrito isn't wrapped in yellow paper, it’s suspect.

Yellow paper. Any good taco shop I’ve been to has used yellow paper to wrap their burritos. I don’t know why it’s yellow, I just know that every taco shop worth it’s salt uses yellow paper for everything. If the burrito is in some weird hotdog foil, tread lightly-- it may be good but there’s something weird and off-putting about a burrito not wrapped in this ubiquitous packaging.
Bonus: Burrito-sized bags.


Don't look at the menu, it'll hypnotize you.

Good taco shops usually have pretty extensive menus. Standing at the counter is not the time to read the menu-- it will hypnotize you and reduce you to a nervous wreck while holding up the line. Trying to figure out what combination of amazing food you want when each combination is good and there are million of them will paralyze your mind and you’ll just end up getting what you always get anyway.

The time to read the menu is after you’ve ordered and are sitting down. Plan ahead--study it carefully as you eat so that next time you can try what you find appetizing. It never hurts to start with the basics: bean and cheese burrito, California burrito, carne asada chips/fries, etc. It takes time to fully experience a taco shop. If you want to try something new, you’ll be back and it might become your new default taco shop.

We hope these tips will help you in your taco shop search. One thing we can say is once you think you found favorite taco shop, another one pops up in your field of vision, beckoning you with it’s yellow and orange hues, glowing in the night on some corner or in some strip mall.
Happy searching.

Short Story-Taco Shop Rockabilly Boxcutter Part Dos

Deciding that hiding in my fries was no longer an option, lest I get rockabilly blood in them, I left the fork standing stabbed in the heap of meat and potatoes and turned around. I turned around, as a matter of fact, just in time to hear the box cutter flick into a locked position. Without thinking I jumped on Chavo’s back like a papoose—I had to prevent the razor blade from finding it’s intended home, which I assumed was a vein under a dingy tattoo somewhere on rockabilly’s neck. Had I been a second later, the pin-up girl tattooed over his jugular would have had a c-section. I’m not a good Samaritan, but one of us had to be responsible, as I could tell Clinton, Fidel, and especially Ela were more than willing to jump in and fight like crazed, bloodthirsty chimps. I love a good story, but I don’t like being an accessory to an assault such as this.


I succeeded and was able to restrain Chavo, keeping him firmly planted in his orange booth. I looked at rockabilly and his friends. If not for the Jack Daniels, their eyes would have been wide in terror. “You guys should go,” I said. They took a couple seconds to deliberate, then backed out of the taco shop like a bully and his goons from a 90’s movie. Jotos they called us.

Chavo was sitting in the booth silent. He was staring at his plate, trembling with anger. I began to console him, telling him it’s probably better that no one was injured or sliced but it was like talking to an angry statue, a shell shocked, angry statue in a taco shop. There we sat, not exactly reeling from the situation, but letting it sink in. Some of the taco shop employees had been staring the whole time, bewildered, while others were going about their work, quietly chuckling at the ones staring…they must be the new guys. I wanted to get everyone together to leave—I figured it was best. Then that drunk girlfriend of rockabilly’s came stumbling in. Why? Why do drunk girls always do this? What could she possibly contribute to the situation that would be in any way constructive? “I just want to say,” she slurred, “it’s cool, ok? Everything’s cool, ok? Like…everything? Everything’s cool.” Thanks for that, drunk girl.

It wouldn’t have mattered to Chavo what she said (or tried to say in her stupor). He sprang from the booth, with me swinging from his back like a cape, as he pointed at her with both hands saying, “You ain’t shit to me! GO! JUST GO!” To which she so intelligently replied, “No, I just came back…I just came in here…to tell you guys that like, it’s cool, ok? Like, we don’t need to do this…everything, you guys, it’s cool…” Jesus, please. Didn’t she just witness her boyfriend’s near-death experience? I spoke to her like a parent would speak to an illogical, tantrum-throwing child and said, “If everything is ‘cool’ then how about we all leave? You should go and so will we. Sound good?” She didn’t like my response…I’m not sure what she was looking for. No one is ever sure what drunk girls are looking for. She left, frustrated that we wouldn’t acknowledge the “coolness” of the situation.

We left as well. Ela was saying something like “Oh, I would have jumped on that bitch so quick.” I later found out she had caught more than one case for assaulting a grown man with her car keys. Chavo got into my car, still angry, and I’m sure still in withdrawals. I looked at him and said “Later, we can laugh about this…right now, let’s call it a night. I’ll drop you home.” We all parted ways, and drove back to our respective houses. Some of us were chuckling, some of us pensive, some of us trembling in anger. I never again saw the drunk rockabilly guy whose life I saved that night. All I know is this is exactly why I don’t drink.

Short Story- Taco Shop Rockabilly Boxcutter

I can’t exactly say it was “just like any other night”. Around this time every night was different. This particular night finished it’s sick pageantry in Umberto’s Taco Shop, a small hole in the wall with a neon green cactus unconfidently flickering and glowing from the roof, making a green, cactus-shaped halo in the haze of that night.

I was with a group of true hooligans whom I had recently met through a mutual friend and a common hobby in making music. Chavo, Clinton, Fidel, and Fidel’s girlfriend at the time, Ela, were sitting in the orange booth closest to the counter. I was sitting in the yellow booth behind them, as there was no room left in their booth. When we were all together (this cohort being a smaller version of the usual mob we traveled in) if we were to have a trademark, it would be loud, unsavory conversation. These conversations were an exercise in spreading negativity the way a priest flicks holy water onto his congregation on a holy day—but instead of holy water it would be filthy, unholy stories of sexually deviant liaisons under the influence of street drugs, and hypothetical situations involving Marvel Comics characters wrapped up in domestic abuse problems.

Grimy, sour drops of the trash juice-like ideas and memories were flying everywhere, dripping down the windows, infiltrating people’s minds and staining anything in there. Whatever armpit of the human experience, whatever unique cocktail of shameful malaise we were discussing that night, if you were to believe in karma, would surely bring back some foul returns and rotten lessons. Sometimes all I could do was listen in amazement, having little in my comparably bland life experience to top some of these tales. What I did have, however, was an unfortunately adaptable imagination and a sick sense of humor, both of which were coming in handy that night.

I can’t blame the rockabilly guy and his friend for getting mad. I can’t blame the rockabilly guy’s girlfriend for covering her mouth and furrowing her eyebrows. They were in perfect view, as the taco shop was otherwise empty and I was actually facing them in my booth, picking at my carne asada fries, loudly participating in whatever audio pollution that was being broadcast behind me; I didn’t even turn around to talk most of the time—just speaking loud enough to be heard. At this point in time, I think I recall us imagining Wolverine coming out of the closet to his wife, each of us taking turns imitating him with his raspy voice, confessing the things he had done behind her back. From their spot in the taco shop, about 3 booths down, the rockabilly guy asked, “Gentlemen, can we change the subject please?” He said it in the tone of voice of a drunk golf course security guard and the way he said gentlemen was particularly grating. I could tell by his sideburns and the way his small-brimmed fedora was cocked that the world had wronged him in some way, and that Social Distortion’s albums and hard alcohol had gotten him through it. All he wanted that night was to smoke cigarettes in front of Bar Pink, and then to cure his drunk-munchies in peace. Who were we to rob him of his 1 a.m. solace? We were just the right people.

Needless to say he was flatly ignored and the spewing continued. And it continued, and it continued. How we were able to be so offensive so consistently, without a lull in the conversation, while still inhaling Mexican food is beyond me. There is little time to analyze these things when carne asada and offensive conversation are using your mouth as a revolving door. It got to the point where they had to get up and leave. They were standing outside, glaring through the window at us. Believe it or not, their reason for doing this was still lost on me. I gave my fries a break and sat up on the table to face my friends. We chatted, laughed and enjoyed our college-age youth as many college students do: with little regard for those around us. I noticed Fidel looking out the window, doing the “I’m talking about you to someone else while looking directly at you” thing. “Oh no,” I thought, “this is going to turn into one of those stories.”

They came back into the empty taco shop, getting ready to prove me right. Led by the Mike Ness look-alike, they lumbered past me and stopped at the table behind me. One of them aggressively put his hands on the table amidst the yellow paper, Styrofoam plates, and burrito carcasses. “Is there a problem gentlemen?” Again with that gentlemen thing. Chavo, having recently quit one of the more gripping and addictive of the devil’s vices, and still living in Temecula, was in no mood to have his conversation questioned, however depraved it was. At first I just plunged my fork into my carne asada fries, wishing I could follow the fork and hide amidst the melted cheese and jalapeños. Rockabilly’s friend put his hand on Chavo’s shoulder and said, “You need to calm down.” Chavo, with lightning fast ese anger twisted the poor drunkards arm and held him by the elbow, pulled him closer and said, “No, you need to calm down and not touch me, I’m a grown-ass man.” Chavo was an electrician. This is why I’m assuming Chavo had a folding box cutter in his pocket. Ghastly things, those folding box cutters.

Stay tuned for part dos.

Taco Shop Conversations

I'm back in the states now-- sitting at a taco shop waiting on some Carne Asada fries. It's ironic but all that time in Southern Mexico made me miss my border food. Granted, we were eating really good food but there's something about burritos wrapped in yellow paper, weird combinations of ingredients and the bright colored booths with local ese gang grafitti scrawled on them that will always hold a special place in my heart.

The people that work at these places are saints. So many idiots (including me and my friends) come through here acting really assenine. The people behind the counter just unflinchingly take orders and serve the food, watching a futbol game or novella on a tiny tv behind the counter. All the while, people of all sorts come in and out, ordering their usual order-- people usually have a "usual". Right now mine is a bean and cheese burrito with guacamole, rice and lettuce--just to change things up (although carne asada fries are in regular rotation).

Even now there's a guy in here telling his friend about his encounter with the cops, how he told them he was just "looking for the va-jay-jay". I'm sure I've been overhead saying some outlandish things myself though.

These are little border town sanctuaries. In san diego, someone might recommend Santana's. They're alright but since they changed their name to MXN (so stupid) you can taste a difference.

Everywhere neighborhood (that's worth anything) has a couple local hot spots. Right now I'm at Rojelio's- a recent find. Speaking of Carne Asada fries, this place has the best. I usually get carne asada chips because I don't like how the fries get all soggy and with all that carne asada, guac, cheese, and whatever else, you need something crunchy that your teeth can keep track of-- at least I do. Rojelio's, right in the tuck a few strip-mall doors down from Vons on College and El Cajon has fries of the perfect crispiness...automatic win. Extra points for having Sope's (not that good here but impossible to find). You'll notice after a while that you go to different taco shops for different things- some have killer taquitos, some have the best California Burrito.

If you talk SD taco shops you'll always get a different answer as to who is the best but you can't deny the sheer number and consistency of the "Berto's". There are so many Berto's. Basic Berto's such as Alberto's and Roberto's all the way to exotic things like Filibertos, Alanbertos, and Rolbertos. You always know "______-berto's" is going to be open and you know they'll serve the clientele.

I'm finishing up my jamaica and just slammed my plastic fork down on my yellow paper-covered plate which means our time together is over. Until next time...

A Case of the Mexican Mystery Bumps Pt. Tres

We sat in the waiting room/pharmacy thing, periodically checking the multitude of hives on my skin, watching the other sunburned, awkwardly-dressed Americans enter with similar afflictions to mine.  A rather…how you say…rotund couple walked in.  The lady—let’s call her Mrs. Skandunis—seemed to have a similar skin rash to mine.  She and Mr. Skandunis walked into the exam room.  A little bit later, Mr. Skandunis walked out looking a little stressed.  The nurse asked him, “How is she?” to which he replied, “Welp, she’s getting a shot in the butt so she probably feels like a pin cushion.”  Dear America, this is why people hate us…no one wanted to imagine your fat wife with her mumply ass showing, syringe stabbed in there like a toothpick checking if an angel food cake is ready to take out of the oven…not only that, you said it like we’re the ass holes…a simple “She’ll be fine” would do, thanks.  Poor Mrs. Skandunis.

I tried to figure out where the Skandunis family was from by identifying their accent.  I decided they were from somewhere east of California and west of New York.  Somewhere where they look at you funny if you ask where the recycle bin is.  Somewhere where when you ask them if there is anything good to eat around here they say “Arby’s”.

I thought to myself, “Man…a shot in the butt…that would suck.  After all this, at least I don’t have to get a shot in the butt”.  I assumed the butt is where you have to give the shot if the arm is too jiggly to find the vein.  The doctor finished up in the exam room and came out to check on me—he seemed pleased with the progress of the bumps and said I could go.  I told him that the bumps were going down but I was still itchy.  I was itchy enough to kick all of the inexpensive medication off the shelf next to me.  No, this couldn’t be it…I needed something for the itch.  He seemed really worried at first, then he composed himself and said “Well, let’s give it 10 more minutes…if you’re still itchy by then, we’ll give you another injection for thee itch…and if that doesn’t work then…pfft…that’s the strongest thing we have”.  He should have stopped at the “we’ll give you something else” part.  ­­

10 minutes later, he came back to check.  I told him the itch hadn’t gone away.  He said  “Ok, come back in and we give you another injection.”  I followed him in and got my other arm ready for the injection.  He said “This one is going to be in the butt so uh...”  So much for my “I’m glad it’s not in the butt” rhetoric.  I got my upper cheek ready for the injection and it went a lot quicker than the arm…I guess the butt is less complicated.  He finished up and said I should feel “very comfortable” in the next couple hours.  I could tell by the way my whole face relaxed the minute the medicine went into my bloodstream that he meant I would be completely out of it for the rest of the day.   He gave me a prescription to keep the reaction from coming back  I paid and the nurse had to go get some change out of her wallet and we were on out way.  The remainder of the day was spent at Sayulita and could best be described as a haze.  The next morning my body was clean and I was free from those damn bumps…at long last.

Or was I?

A Case of the Mexican Mystery Bumps pt. 1

More bumps.  “Dammit,” I thought, “These beasts are eating me alive.” At this point I still thought they were bug bites. I was in Mexico, in a sailboat, anchored off the coast of Punta Mita with my girlfriend, her dad and his girlfriend. I didn’t know what time it was but I assumed it was something like four in the morning. I think I just use four am as my default “I shouldn’t be awake” time. Anyway, I sat up in bed feeling across my skin scanning for more bumps.

They started on my feet about four days before when we’d gone to San Blas…you know from the Maná song? Me either. We’d gone to eat fish tacos with a guy named “Pompis”. If you don’t speak Spanish, that roughly translates as “booty”. We walked through some brush at the apparently haunted “Playa de las Brujas”. I figured my pink-marshmallow gringo skin was all too appetizing to some San Blas mosquitoes, hence my bug bite logic (or it was beach witches).

Anyway, I sat up in bed and sharply sighed “Ughh shit” I’m sure I woke up my girlfriend. I mean, she was awake at this point but since she sleeps like a Mexican Disney princess, I’m sure I was the one who woke her up. Sensing my girlfriend awake I said “I found more bumps”. Poor girl, what could she say besides “Aww, I’m sorry” I mumbled some more cuss words at those conscienceless card-cheats who called themselves mosquitoes who I thought were filling their bodies with my tasty blood.  It must have been really tasty because the day before I had been invited to try a wine called Mylagros Di Christi which in some romance language means something like “Tears of Christ”…yep, it tasted like a mixture of cedar from Fidel Castro’s personal humidor and divine tears.  I digress…the bumps…I slathered on some of “Padre Francisco’s Milagro” cream which is supposed to help with things like this.  Smelling herbal and desperate, I violently fell back to sleep.

The next morning I woke and before doing anything I angrily slapped at my skin…bumps.  Goddamn bumps everywhere. At this point they weren’t the type of bumps where if someone saw them they’d say, “heh heh…looks like you got some bites there.”  They were more like welts…and if someone saw them they’d say “EEEHHHH?!” while sharply inhaling—which is exactly what my girlfriend and her dad’s girlfriend did…in unison.  It looked like I had an accident making a poison ivy smoothie.  Hands, arms, legs, covered in pink welts.  These were no bug bites...

Stay tuned for part dos...

Body Hacks- Ginseng

This is the first of a series of posts called Body Hacks.  Things you do for yourself or things you can eat/drink that are beneficial to you in a natural or diy way. Keep in mind I'm not a doctor...consult your doctor before doing anything ever.

Today, we're going to talk about Ginseng.  Historically, ginseng has been prized as a sort of wonder-herb.

According to them,

Ginseng is known as an adaptogen, which means it increases resistance to physical, chemical, and biological stress and builds energy and general vitality.

In other words, it's a multi-purpose herb that fortifies everything and helps your system adapt to whatever stress it comes across.  Sounds good to me.  It is known for aiding energy levels and has also been shown to increase libido and sexual performance (A 2002 study by the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine published in the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences).

It is usually consumed as a tea, a tincture, or raw although you can find it in health-food shops in powdered form, as well as in capsules.  My favorite way to take ginseng is with a tincture-- just add a few drops to whatever you're sippin' on and enjoy.

Here are some sources to read a little further:

Beginner's Guide to Ginseng

Health Benefits of Ginseng

AltMedicine.About.com - Ginseng

Wikipedia - Ginseng

Stay tubed for more body hacks.

Home Made Poptarts??

I saw this over at The Smitten Kitchen.  You should probably go to this blog now and learn something.

If you insist though...

Deb over at Smitten Kitchen had not had a Pop Tart until college.  When she had her first, she was sorely disappointed.  Inspired by that, she set out to make a flaky, warm, home made version.  She doesn't stop there--she includes recipes for multiple fillings including a more savory filling.

Although the frosting part hasn't been perfected, (how the hell do they get it like a candy coating on the store-bought ones?  Probably all the mind-control chemicals...) these look like they'll blow those jellied cardboard squares off the supermarket shelves.

Like I said, go to this blog now.