Taco Review #2

Guadalajara Grill (Norte) - Taos, NM

A curious fact: insert the letter "c" in Taos and you get "Tacos". Man, that would be pretty cool to live in a town called "Tacos" - hell of a lot better than "Taos" - I mean what kind of messed up word is that? Well anyway, Taos is lucky to have, not one but TWO Guadalajara Grill locations - north side and south side. So here it is: the GG serves up a pretty wide variety of authentic mexican stuff - even seafood. This is the sort of place where you order at the counter and have a seat to wait for the goods. Last week Jen and I went to check it out. When you do a "taco review", you naturally have to order the carne asada tacos - which really has to be the "gold standard" of tacos - so, that's what I got. Just shy of a "full bad-ass" rating they were pretty damn good. Good meat, a tiny bit of cheese (which is perfectly acceptable), cilantro and onions. Ya, I forgot to hold the onions - oh well, I was still able to taste through that onion nastiness to the real taco ingredients. The only thing that was just "asi-asi" was the tort. It was fried corn - which is good, but I like two torts - steamed a lot better than just one fried. The sides were good - runny refried beans (the way they serve em up in Mexico) and Spanish rice that was also waaaay better than the way most people in NM cook Spanish rice, which is just plain disgusting. There are two great things about the GG - first they have a good beer selection, and second they have a condenment bar with seriously some of the hottest pan-seared jalepenos ever. Awesome.

Meat: 4.3/5
Veggies: 4.5/5 (jalepenos)
Tort: 3.0/5
Salsa: 4.0/5
Size: 4.0/5
Price: 3.5/5 ($7.95 for the "plato")
Beers Drank: 1 Bohemia
Overall Score: 3.88

Taos Dirt - Horsethief and Cuervo Trails

If you need to ride in the winter around these parts (Taos) - you only have a few options:

1) the front side of Divisidero (ass kicker)

2) Talpa Traverse (potential run-ins with belligerent rednecks) or

3) Horsethief and Cuervo

OK, Horsethief and Cuervo are not technically in Taos - they are in Arroyo Hondo - but close enough that if you were Jones-n' to ride you'd make the 15 minute drive to Hondo. To start the ride, hang a left on County Road B-001, about a quarter mile north of Herb's Bar in Arroyo Hondo. Drive this road for another quarter mile, past a few houses, pull off and park. Now ride west continuing on the same road towards the Rio Grande - mostly all down hill or flat. When you get to the gorge look to your right - ya see that faint trail heading north? - that's it - that's Horsethief. No, it's not marked in any way, not even a carin. From there you will follow the east edge of the gorge a few miles north where the trail will transition into the Cuevro and bring you back south - spitting you out right near the start of Horsethief. Check out this map - or, well a photo of a map.

Total time: about 1.5 hours (lollipop/loop)

Trail surface: smooth and swoopy with several areas of loose babyheads and smaller kittenheads - all ridable

Pokey Stuff: Yes, there's lots of cactus-don't stray from the trail even one inch or you're screwed

Possibility of Death: Yes - there is some major exposure in a few spots where, one wrong turn and you'll drop about 1,000 feet into the Rio. There's rattlers out there too....and sometimes rednecks shooting stuff

Proximity to Beer: Herb's Lounge - there's a scary liquor store there too

The Taco Guru is in the House

I guess I'm as big of a Taco Expert as you could ever hope for. I know, I know - you're asking yourself "what the hell does a pasty-white midget Guero know about tacos?" Well chingasos you'd better back off because I've definitely eaten a taco or two in my day and have even lived in a few taco hot spots over the years, California, Denver and now, New Mexico. I must say, the taco situation in New Mexico is surprisingly pretty weak as most New Mexicans would rather have their "Spanish", or even "Mexican" food drowning in a few gallons of red or green chili. I have no problems with that because that shit is good too - but nothing, I mean NOTHING beats a good taco - the food of the gods. If there is a heaven, I'm pretty sure God and Allah and Vishnu and Krishna and the rest of those crazy characters are sitting around eating warm carnitas wrapped in couple of maize tortillas with a little bit of cilantro and lots of jalapenos. No doubt they are washing that all down with a shot of Don Julio and cold Modelo chaser. Shit, guess I'd better start praying.

More qualifications: I've travelled all over Mexico and eaten all kinds of tacos at all kinds of messed up taco stands - many after stumbling out of a cantina at 2:00 in the morning - those are the best tacos ever because even the shitty tacos are good (yes, it IS possible to get shitty Mexican food in Mexico).

Here I will scientifically analyze various tacos (and maybe a few wanna-be tacos) whenever a taco dares me to eat it. Bring it, tacos!

Taco Review #1 - the Hippie Taco, Eske's Brewpub, Taos New Mexico

Ok, so this is probably not the best place to get a REAL taco, but that's where Jen and I ended up last night and luckily they had shrimp tacos on the menu. Eske's ALWAYS has great food so I figured I wasn't gonna get screwed.

I put my order in with the hippie waitress and watched the hippie cooks slap it all together. When it finally landed on my table, first thing I thought was "Damn you hippies! too many veggies!" it looked like a cabbage taco with no visible sign of any shrimp (in the photo I had to brush away some of the cabbage just so you could see it wasn't ALL veggies). OK, so it came with a side of beans (pinto+black) and some sort of weird Asian(?) rice and a small container of Pico de Gallo. Personally, I think Pico is for pussies, I'd rather have a REAL taco salsa made of roasted tomatoes, red chilis, etc - but it will do. A few jalapenos or chipoltles would have been nice too.

The tacos were actually pretty decent, as I knew they would be. Lots of crispy tiny shrimp, cabbage, cilantro, tomatoes, jack cheese and probably some patchouli. They were pretty big tacos and I was fully expecting total tortilla bustage before I was done, but it never happened. At $10 for the whole meal it was a little steep ($10-30% [$3] for the beans and rice=about $3.50 per taco). Sorry to boggle your minds with all this hard-core math, but I told you this was going to be a scientific analysis.

Here's the breakdown:

Meat: 2.5/5

Veggies: 3.0/5

Tort: 3.75/5

Salsa: 1.5/5

Size: 4.0/5

Price: 2.5/5

Beers Drank: 1 Hoppy Harvest Ale, 1 Artist Ale

Overall Score: 2.875

Not a bad score for a place that also has sushi and a club sandwich on the menu.

TACO ALERT: Eske's shrimp tacos are not on their regular menu - it was the "special of the day". In a pinch, order the Fatty - a smothered burrito also done hippie style

Fudge Factor

Jay and Armando at last nights' soccer match in Taos. So I don't embarrass the poor guys, I won't say who is who

Current Riding Conditions - Monteverde Costa Rica

It's a little sloppy right now - might want to mount some fenders