Friday, December 11, 2009

Well, okay... Taquería Los Potrillos

There's a little taqueria on Starcrest, just east of NEISD's sports fields, that I'd been to once before. I have only a vague memory of that earlier experience; I remember that I had the migas, because they don't offer chilaquiles, and my impression is that I was unimpressed. I assume that, because I hadn't ever been back to it.

It's generally a little out of the way for me in the mornings. Rick and I go to the gym four mornings a week, usually -- we play racquetball two mornings a week, and two mornings a week we work out on the machinery ... although it gets easier and easier to find other, more pressing things to do on those mornings when we'd normally be straining at firming up those abs and biceps and what-not. And afterwards we go for tacos. Except, as anyone who's read anything in this blog likely knows already, there just ain't much in the way of good Mexican food to choose among out there in Loopland.

So I guess I'm settling, to a certain degree, when I say that this morning, Taqueria Los Potrillos impressed. Maybe it's because I departed from my quest for the perfect chilaquiles and ordered what turned out to be remarkably good potato, egg and cheese tacos (only 2 -- I'm trying to lose some weight; an effort limited in its success by my constitutional need for tacos).

The place is large and unpretentious, and noticably clean. The tables are far enough apart that you don't feel crowded, and there's plenty of space for servers or customers to move about it. The service was cheerful -- a marked variance with Los Roberto's [sic], which I blogged about yesterday -- and attentive. The chips and salsa they brought us right away were excellent; the chips were a fresh-made mix of corn and wheat tostadas, the salsa was picquant and fresh, with a roasted-pepper flavour that we both enjoyed. The coffee was excellent and the waitstaff replenished it regularly, without waiting for us to wave coffee cups in the air or go to the counter and ask about the possibility of another cup; again, a marked departure from other places I could name (again).

Rick went with the carne asada tacos; they're billed on the menu as "beef fajita," but it was carne asada, and he loved it. It looked pretty plain to me, but it was what he wanted. I, as I said, went with the quintessential breakfast taco combination, potato and egg with cheese.

I don't usually order it because, in too many places, it is served as an egg, unseasoned, scrambled on a dry grill, with a few chunks of too-far-gone boiled potatotes thrown in at the last minute. Or -- and here is the influence of national fast-food chains that have adopted this simple fare and dumbed it down to the mass palate -- a tasteless egg scrambled with those prefab "hash brown" potatoes made infamous by Arby's and McDonald's. But Los Potrillos have maintained the traditional way of fixing this dish, which properly done is every bit as good as chilaquiles. The potatoes are diced small, not shredded, and after cooking on their own are mixed in with the egg and seasonings, then folded into a tortilla -- flour, in my case -- sprinkled with sharp cheddar cheese, and served hot. Personally I might prefer jack cheese, or a mix of jack and cheddar, but cheddar by itself is acceptable. And, personally, I thought the tortillas could be a little better, but there was nothing actually wrong with them. And did I mention how good the salsa was? Yes, I did.

What does that mean?
Taqueria Los Potrillos on Urbanspoon

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Breakfast Taco Update: Los Roberto's (sic) Taco Shop

Breakfast tacos are the paradigmatic food of San Antonio. Oh, I know, some people think it's enchiladas, and it's true that those staples of Mexican food remain popular the length and breadth of this wonderfully lame city. But in my lifetime, they have been surpassed by the equally humble breakfast taco.

Breakfast tacos have a wide variety, from plain old bean-and-cheese or papas-y-huevos to more elaborate concoctions, including my favourite, chilaquiles. They are available for very small money in hundreds and hundreds of shops all over town, and have even begun appearing, in more mundane, even dumbed-down forms, in national-chain fast-food establishments like Taco Bell and Jack-in-the-Box, and other places that sell foods adapted to the homogenous and undiscerning palate.

So how is it that Loopland -- the wide swath of relatively new-built city between the Loop 410 and Loop 1604 -- can stubbornly maintain so depressing a dearth of quality comida tipica?

This morning my friend Rick and I made a second visit to Los Roberto's (sic) Taco Shop on Bitters Road. Last time we were there, I ordered a "Texas burrito"; I don't remember now what was in it, only that I didn't care for it. But I was willing to put that down to a poor choice on my part, so we gave them another chance to impress.

Los Robertos is a typical small restaurant of the mom-and-pop variety, which despite the shopping-center location offered the promise of distinctive food prepared to old family recipes. Rick went for the carne asada tacos; I tried the chilaquiles plate, which came with potatoes and beans. (I've noticed -- and I think I've even mentioned it before in this blog -- that more and more places seem to be abandoning Spanish rice in favour of potatoes, especially at breakfast. Besides being, to my mind, inauthentic, the potatoes-and-beans combination lacks the nutritional value of rice-and-beans. Since so many people eat so many of their meals away from home these days, this is an ominous development. But that's another gripe.)  Rick's tacos were "just okay -- no more than two and a half out of five." They were overloaded, he thought, with guacamole and pico de gallo.

My order was not as impressive. The chilaquiles themselves were about as good as his tacos: too many tortilla chips, cut too long for comfort, and not enough of the other good things that make the dish my favourite. The tortillas were fair, and the beans were actually the best thing on the plate. And the coffee was on the high side, qualitatively. If I left it at that, the place would actually be worth going back to if I were in the area at meal time and didn't have any strong desire to experience true quality.

But the potatoes were absolutely the worst I've had in years and years and years and years. They were plain ol' straight-cut french fry potatoes, frozen I suspect, and cooked an insufficient length of time in old oil that wasn't hot enough to do the job properly. And they were served almost cold. It amazes me that the cook could think that anyone would like potatoes prepared that way. I even tried adding salt to them, to make them palatable, something I almost

never do, but it was no use; they were just too badly prepared.

A sad day for Mexican food in San Antonio.

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