Meh...

El Jarrito Café
2014 Blanco

(just south of Hildebrand)

I was reminded recently of my intention to review all the restaurants along what I call the Hildebrand Corridor: that stretch along the road, a few blocks wide, that runs from Fredericksburg to McCullough, and harbours a couple dozen taquerías. It's been a while since I expanded on the series of reviews, and I'm sure no one would notice if I never finished it.... But, being embued with a revived, even if momentary, sense of commitment to worthless tasks, I resume with a report on my visit this morning.

This is probably the third time I've been to El Jarrito. It hasn't impressed on any occasion, but it had, on previous visits, been at least okay. Today it was less than that.

First, the good: there's plenty of parking. A large lot on the north side of the building, and street parking on the side-street to the south. And the prices are pretty good, just enough to warrant a rating half a chili pepper above average. And the portions in the tacos are pretty good as well. The coffee was not at all bitter; I even thought it was a little weak, but I kind of like it that way. Most people probably wouldn't. The food itself is still just so-so.

I ordered a machacado taco con huevo in a corn tortilla, and a fajita ranchera taco in a flour tortilla. Both tortillas were acceptable, and I might even go so far as to say that the corn tortilla is better than your average of that type. The fajita ranchera was liberally dosed with a very spicy red salsa, which some people might find overwhelming; if that's you, it can be ordered without the sauce and you can add just as much as you like. Me, I enjoyed it.

last city inspection: November 2013
14 demerits
about ratings

The machacado taco ... well, I don't know what that's like. The first bite made me wrinkle my brow to identify the unusual flavour I found. What was that, I asked myself? I knew I'd had it before.... Took another bite and thought, Yes, I've had this before. It's not really objectionable, like, say, peanut butter and mole, but it was really odd for machacado. The texture was all wrong, too.

A third bite -- and by now, I'm halfway through the taco -- and it comes to me: it's not machacado, it's chorizo. Not my favourite breakfast meat, nowhere near machacado in the rankings. So as a taco of chorizo con huevo, it was alright, just not what I ordered, and not what I wanted. And I'm not the sort to send back a half-eaten taco.

A wrong order happens from time to time, and I try not to fixate on it; it's worthy of a mention, but not necessarily a downgrade of the rating. But in other ways the service here was less than good. It took longer than it should have for us to get menus, and the waitress never came to refill my coffee cup or my friend's ice tea. 

As for the atmosphere in the place: in many ways it is your typical Tex-Mex taquería: brightly coloured walls, with an icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a few Mexican landscape pictures. But these were a little on the tatty side, and the walls seemed to have need of a good cleaning. The noise was obtrusive, too, even though the sound on the television was turned down fairly low; there seemed to be a stereo playing somewhere in the back, to go with all the conversation bouncing off the hard surfaces. I thought it was just a little too loud. Not Rosario's-loud, and certainly not Lukë-loud, but too loud for comfort.

In short ... with so many better places so close by, I wonder that this place is still around.