Take me to your Liter: Taco Review #6 - The "tryin' too hard taco"

Orlando's New Mexican Restaurant in Taos NM has great food - no question about that. The enchiladas...awesome. Tamales....crazy good. Tacos?......hmmm, never had em - so how bout a taco review? When Jen and I have guests that visit us from out of town that are jones'n for some real NM comida - we always end up at Orlando's. Very cool, friendly, funky place that, most importantly, has good beer.

Lesson #1: when you go to a Mexican restaurant, always order tacos (never burritos, fajitas or enchiridos) Lesson #2: when you go to a NEW Mexican restaurant, NEVER order tacos (always enchiladas, tamales and posole). So with those words of wisdom always in the back of my mind, I broke the rules and went for the tacos the last time we went to Orlando's. Was I high? Maybe. But that don't matter, because even if you ARE high, you NEED to follow those rules.

Shredded beef tacos (or machaca) are a good substitute for the traditional asada, al pastor or carnitas. At Orlando's they offer up the shredded beef taco plate on trendy blue corn torts. So dude, blue corn? Everybody knows that, for some reason, blue corn torts are usually drier and denser than the regular torts, but hey, this is Taos and if you don't have blue corn "this" or blue corn "that" on the menu, you might as well close yer doors, because there ain't a single Texan that's gonna eat there - and that's usually half the town's population. (yes, unfortunately New Mexico drew the short straw when they were handing out statehood - and we got stuck next to Texas). Also, the place would have NEVER appeared on one of Bobby Flay's cooking shows - don't remember which one since that Food Network whore has about 40 different shows.

So blah, blah, blah - what about the freakin' tacos? They showed up on the table and they looked pretty bad-ass. Three fatties - much larger than your typical Mexican taco - I guess that's to hold all of that filler material (i.e. lettuce and tomato). The shredded beef was really, really good - and that's important - but you gotta consider all the various taco parts - you don't get an automatic taco "5 tort" rating just because your meat kicks ass. The veggie parts were a little much but doable. Jack cheese, check. But the two taco components that are really important were really bad: 1) shitty blue corn torts that tasted like warped particle board (which completely disintegrated after two bites), and; 2) the salsa. Although it was pretty tasty and perfectly fine for chips, it was not spicy at all and when I asked for a side of jalapenos the waitress said "we don't have jalapenos".........what the? .....you DON'T have jalapenos? Naturally, I thought she was joking and I was waiting for her to crack a smile and say "ha ha - just messin' with you white boy, of course we have jalapenos, I'll bring some right out". So I'm like totally blown away and about ready to cry so I say "OK, well how about some hot sauce"? She said "we have Cholula and Tabasco" Again, I'm thinking "where the fuck am I?" - I mean, Cholula? That shit is for little grannies that have bleeding ulcers and chronic ARD.....and Tabasco? Don't get me wrong, I like Tabasco, but c'mon I don't want no damn Cajun juice on my tacos (as a side note here: a fellow taco eater/expert that I work with, Armando, loves Tabasco on his tacos - I know, that's really retarded but listen to this - he's the cousin of Orlando, who owns this place - I understand now, since I know retardedness is genetic)