Amaya’s Taco Village is a mainstay of the i-35 taco scene.. Not much has changed in years… expect to find the place packed at lunch time.  The highlight of the (otherwise lackluster) menu are the Village Tacos.. Served in thick yellow corn fried shells that are a combination of chewy, crunchy, and greasy..   with processed yellow cheese, lettuce and tomato.. then your choice of ground beef, shredded chicken, or beef fajita.  Though you can get as many as 3 tacos to a plate, with rice and beans, 2 is more than enough to keep your belly full for the rest of the day.

For me, its the combination of the greasy, chewy shell  and the half-melted yellow cheese that make these tacos taste so damn good.. sometimes you just have wipe that  ’south austin – holier than thou – organic – whole food ‘ look off your face and enjoy the beauty of processed cheese… at least i do.  The ground beef is ok, but i would reccommend the fajita beef at a small extra charge.. it adds to the amazing texture of these tacos.. Amaya’s tacos have a weight/mass to them that is unrivaled.. a true gut-bomb if there ever was one.

Amaya’s Taco Village
www.amayastacovillage.com
5405 N Ih 35
Austin, TX 78723-2429
(512) 458-2531
Get directions

There’s a brand new El Chile Restaurant in Northwest Austin- in the old Mesa Hills Cafe building.  The reviews so far are mixed at best.  Look for a TT writeup soon.
El Chile | 3435 Greystone Drive | Map | Menu | Reviews

We also got a “numero dos”, downtown version of El Chile’s kid brother taco/coffee shop, El Chilito.  They’re open weekdays 7am-3pm.
El Chilito | 918 Congress Ave. | Map | Menu | Reviews

-cabeza

We were lucky to have some old friends in town last weekend (whatup T$!).  So, we figured, “what’s a fitting way to mark such a special ocassion?  How bout an amazing Brunch at one of Austin’s most influential eateries: FONDA SAN MIGUEL?”  Just off Burnet on Hancock in North Central Austin, FSM is a tour de force of traditional Mexican and South American cooking. Let’s eat!

Various botanitas

Everything is served buffet-style out of huge clay pots and antique mexican vats.   There’s always 4 or 5 main entrees, in addition to a variety of fresh fruits and veggies, escabeche, side items, migas, ceviche, homemade tortillas, and a full bar ($3 mimosas hit the spot).  And, if you leave any room in your gut, the gourmet desserts will seal the deal.

Some particularly GREAT items were:
The Carne Guisada: a juicy and flavorful classic executed perfectly- the sauce was less of a gravy, more of a rich broth.

The Corn Polenta: sweet and creamy with thick crust – perfect with a dollop of sour cream and rajas.

Pollo en mole Poblano: classic dish – rich and complex.  Very satifying….recipe here

Bread Pudding: sweet nirvana

Price was a bit steep at $40/each, but the ambiance was top-notch (they had a mariachi band playing beautifully harmonized love songs – none of that la cucaracha bullshit) and nobody hits the real mexican cuisine in ATX like Fonda.  The whole building is like an art museum…if you haven’t been yet, i’d suggest taking the folks out for brunch, or maybe a special date for your pumpkin face.

Cabeza like.

Fonda San Miguel
2330 W North Loop Blvd, Austin, TX?
(512) 459-4121
<map> <website>

Al (of focus) Pastor Taco

Fuego’s was started up by a family of ex-patriate californians. Cabeza and I ate there about a year ago, and remember the place having a promising menu..but it was understaffed and seemed to be on a shoe-string budget.  I just checked out some of the recent reviews on Chowhound, and Fuego’s looks to be finding its groove. The fish tacos are a consensus highlight…We’ll be back for a followup visit soon. Oh yeah, and its BYOB and right next to a liquor store.. They are at a strange location.. on lamar, just south of 183..It takes a u-turn to get there if you’re coming from the south.. more reviews on yelp

Fuego’s
Authentic Mexican & California Cuisine
7600 North Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78752
512-524-1164

this is the first in a series of reports from our resident taco blob, Chicago Fats.. The blob will be your man behind enemy lines, going boldy where no self-respecting taco lover should ever go.. the fast food joints..wish him luck and prepare to be disgusted and ashamed for him and his sidekick dog Taco Mutt.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Starring: TT Blob & Taco Mutt

Bonus: It’s 59 cent Taco Tuesdays! Taco Mutt™ is in LUCK!

Where the fuck do we start? Walked up to the local grocery store, I just maxed out the American Express on Heineken and the HEB bacteria infested rotisserie chickens just didnt seem appealing to me tonight, so we headed on over to the local TB. Me and the Taco Mutt™. Taco Tuesday is her favorite day.

I walk up to the cashier knowing that I want the NEW! NEW! NEW! Cheesy Beefy Melt! Turns out the cashier can’t talk, in her whispering miserable voice she informed me she was trying to get management to let her go home sick, she thinks she has strep throat. I also have a miserable sore throat too, I hear it was going around, I actually missed most of work today because I couldn’t talk this morning. Nice to know that cashier lady is rubbing it all over your change!  Turns out, management wouldn’t let her leave because they use the slime in the back of her throat in the special sauce for the Cheesy Beefy Melt.

Anyway, so I get the shit, I got my tray and set it on a table.  I headed for the bathroom. I made sure to snag the nutrition facts from the register, I like to know my daily intake of fatties for later. I put the tray on a table, proceeded to the bathroom and pissed on the floor as a token of appreciation.

I really just peed on the floor for Taco Town. If you question the legitimacy of this photograph, you have my personal guarantee that this is real. I made sure to transfer the stream over to the toilet bowl, just a little trace I left that’s all In honor of management not letting Diane go home because she has strep throat.

So anyway, back to the house- I made sure to grab a tray too. No way I’m eatin In that florescent shithole, it reminds me of my office!

Taco Mutt™ is ENTHUSED! Here’s the lowdown on the food:
The Cheesy Beefy Melt is as follows: Imagine a fluffy flour tortilla, with Taco Bell sour cream, cheese and beefy beef. The cheese has the consistency of the 7-11 nacho cheese, I can hear the noise of the 7-11 cheese-gun-machine in my head right now (rar-rar-rar-rar-rar). Anyway, not really that bad. It’s been about 2 hours as I write this and I haven’t gotten any warning signals from my stomach or my lower intestines. A typical TB experience, and truthfully, it wasn’t really that bad. Some regular salted up grade D beef, mechanically separated, with cheese (Everything is good on cheese, even blood and feces tastes good as long as you throw on some cheese).  Some dumpster lettuce and pressed by the creepy tattooed fat guy.

Mutt Butt got into the hard shelled tacos. She loves them. And that’s enough for us to know that they must be good. Although she prefers squirrel carcass and litter box remnants, Taco Bell reigns supreme in her heart. She went to town on these babies.

Her IAMS Mature Blend costs around 59 cents for 2 cups, so it turns out that the Taco Bell is actually cheaper. “Hey Mutt! You are eatin Taco Bell on Tuesdays so we can save some money!”

Would you really wash your hands for $8.48 per hour to start? Of course you get full benefits and that’s great for your nine kids, but cmon. I mean do you think a customer, usually someone that just smoked 8,000 bongs, stopping by after a trip to 7-11 is really gonna notice if you didn’t wash your hands?

Here’s the deal folks. The truth. Taco Bell isn’t that bad. Sure they don’t have organic meats and cheeses. And certainly any employees of a large corporate chain are most likely to mock the behavior of someone that is truly, miserable. So you eat there when you need to. You can be very thankful that they do have standards, they are open late, and it’s better than starving. Most of the food there is bleached and sauteed in Clorox, So it’s really not that bad.

Cavemen would have eaten the shit out of Taco Bell back in the day! The food has yet to be proven carcinogenic and we don’t know that it causes any sort of genital shrinkage. So just shut up and eat it. I had fun going here. It’s cheap. Although at one point I felt like I tasted infant feces in the meat, it went down smooth.

I tried to be cool and put the tray in the road as a sort of “Fuck You” to the corporate machine. In my mind, pissing on the floor wasn’t good enough. I was actually planning on acting like a total modern day punk and causing a stunt that was worthy of www.break.com but I changed my mind and chose to not put tacos in my ass in the parking lot while filming onlookers.

In regards to the tray shots: my camera blows and I almost got busted trying to get snapshots of cars on my street rolling over the tray. My gay neighbor came out while I was trying to snap pics, and he is always getting woke up by me putting shit in the street so this is all I got. Anyway, I did it for Taco Town. I did it for Taco Town.

Taco Bell sucks, but it’s an American staple. We eat it when we have to as remembrance as to where we come from. We get Taco Bell to remember us of our younger days, or the times when we have to cash in our change to Coinstar at the local HEB just to buy us enough time to get that cash advance at the pawn shop for groceries.

Taco Bell is like a Tuesday night. Not as bad as a Monday night, and often very tasty on a Saturday night.

Taco Bell is like that old porno magazine that you fall back on when you just can’t find anything else to rub one out to. Kinda like the underwear section of the Sears catalog. That’s how it goes. They never really come up with anything new, it’s just old shit layered on new shit. But it’s really old shit to begin with. The 7 layer burrito is just 7 x 2 decades of their bullshit crammed into a fucking tortilla. That bell noise that you hear in the commercials is the same noise that you hear shortly before you gasp your last breath on earth. Seems fitting doesn’t it?

Suck it up. It could be worse, you could be getting water from a shit infested stream and buying rotten meat from a South African meat dealer in the desert sun. Hey thank god for the power of radiated meat. You aren’t gonna live forever, we all know this. So shut up and eat. They take all the major credit cards! If only they could incorporate a Pawn-4-Taco™ program where you could cash in that old CD player or pawn yer lawn mower for a sack of Chalupas! Now that’s an idea!

Over and Out
Taco Blob

PS: Health Facts from FATS
• 1 Crunchy Taco = 170 calories
• Highest Calorie item:  FUCKING Chicken Fiesta Taco Salad has 800 calories!
*But w/o the shell its 430

]]> http://tacotown.org/2007/09/12/toxic-bell-%e2%80%93-north-austin/feed/ 6 http://tacotown.org/2007/01/25/taco-deli-north-ass/ http://tacotown.org/2007/01/25/taco-deli-north-ass/#comments Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:12:37 +0000 bernie http://tacotown.org/?p=116

Well i have already had almost all the tacos here so i decided to try the last couple that i had not endeavored as of yet. The Happy Taco (Seasoned chicken with sauteed shrooms and melted jack cheese, garnished with cilantro and onions) was one of them and should be called the Im Ok Taco— sort of bland with the Jack cheese being the busting out flavor. I had to kick in some of the magic, creamy green sauce to make it fun. Even with the cilantro and onions in there, which almost all of them have by the way.

Then onto the Adobados taco: Adobo marinated chicken with cilantro and onions. Their adobo is made from scratch using dried chipotle, ancho and guajillo peppers. Now this sucka was deeelish. The peppery chipotle flavor is the primary gang buster for this taco and really compliments the chicken. I dont know if i have ever had guajillo peppers so i cannot comment on their taste but if they had anything to do with its primary flavor then i applaud them. This taco reminded me of the Cowboy and the Puerco Barracho though as the meat is that orangish red color—but hey, still really good.

So far the Cowboy and the Puerco Barracho are by far my favorite at this little joint and maybe my favorite in all of Austin to tell ya the truth. Although there were 2 tacos there on special that i have def not had yet but will very shortly. One of them was a Scallop taco that the hot bitch with the nose-ring told me they sell out of almost every day. Basically its just what it sounds like–chopped broiled scallops with cilantro and onions and shit. Sounded amazing but of course i didn’t notice that it was an option until after i ordered. The other one was another pork tenderloin type taco to which i didnt really notice the ingredients. Next time i go i will fo sho check these two out. Hey lemme get back to ya OK, i gotta crap.

p.s. For some reason i cant stop staring at the counter girl with the metal in her face—i got problems ass.

in either case, time to head out for a little cultural research and taco exploration….
Pastor Al had a beat on this place up by 183 and lamar.. El Rancho Grande.. upon entering, i had the sense that this was just as risky a proposition as icy roads and paranoid drivers.. first off, no central heat in up in here.. just a couple of cheapo plugin space heaters.. ha. i kept my jacket on.. service was crap.. my ice tea never got refilled.. we ran outta salsa.. (the salsa was the only highlight of the meal) beans were cold.. the pierna woulda passed in a bad bbq restaurant as pulled bbq pork. carne guisada needed salt…overpriced.. no heat.. bah humbug.

WWMLKD?

ate, paid, tipped and scurried out into the elements..
tacotown will not be defeated.. the quest continues onward…

Rating:
Food Quality: 10 of  20 (blah, nothing special)
Salsa: 8 (great fresh red sauce, tangy green both very fresh and flavourful)
Service/atmosphere: 2.5 (abandoned after the food came..no heat, terrible lighting)
Price: 4 (lunch specials for 4.99, but the generic combo plate was 8.99 – redonkaruss!)
total: 44%
Rating: 2.2 out of 5 stars

another day, another taco…made the short trek up slopac to where it hits Burnet.. the newest Tacodeli resides there in a fresh new urban-sprawl strip center.. we walked in to find a decent size late lunch crowd..the cute girl at the counter was nice enough… guiding us through the menu of gringo-inspired tacos, tortas, and burritos..  I ordered a blue plate (2 tacos, rice and beans) with 1 cowboy taco and 1 pork mole taco.. we got a basket of chips and salsa to start things off.. the red sauce with the chips was phenomonal.. i mean it.. it was a great red sauce.. i think may have been some chipotle in it.. highly reccommended..

Our tacos came.. we got a little bit of the hot jalapeno-avocado sauce on the side to kick up the heat factor.. I started with the cowboy taco which was Cowboy-rubbed Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Caramelized Onions, Grilled Corn, Roasted Peppers topped with Guacamole & Queso Fresco. It was a big, hearty taco with nice and fresh ingredients, but i couldnt handle the intense garlic flavor.. it was intense to the point of being bitter.. i like my garlic sweet.. so maybe this was an anomaly.. hopefully..it was, after all named in the list of great tacos that just came out in Texas Monthly..
the pork mole taco on the other hand was sweet and tender.. succulent.. it was a great taco. their mole sauce is uniquely sweet and mild.. not bad at all. the queso fresco that is sprinkle on top of most tacos is a nice touch..

overall, a good, cheap meal.. plenty of variety to keep us coming back.

Tacodeli North

12001 Burnet Road
Austin,TX 78758
(512) 339-1700

www.tacodeli.com

Rating: Food Quality: 7
Service: 8 (its a counter but they bring it out to you and get you anything else you need..)
Atmosphere: 6 (a bit sterile..but nice enough)
Salsa: 8
Price: 7 Total: 36/50: 72%
Rating: 3.6 out of 5 stars

taco deli on Yelp

La Parilla

So we made it a point this week to go exploring the north side of the ATX… in search of hidden gems.. hoping to strike mexi-gold. It was a trying experience for us..we hit Lamar at 2222 and headed north.. past Los Jefes, our last bad north lamar experience, north past 183.. and then we saw Mr. Pollo.. looked tempting so we parked it and started walking in.. only to be stopped in our tracks by 2 dudes walking out, claiming that they’d been burned! we had to take their word for it.. they seemed like dependable taco loving jerks (pictured at right), so we got back in the car and continued north..

beware

the next place we saw was called Tacolate.. it was what looked to be a former Micky-D’s building.. we were hungry as f*ck so our judgement was thoroughly impaired at this point..and mind you it was 30 degrees and windy outside so we shuffled in looking for a warm meal.. inside the place was dead.. a few meats under a heat lamp.. a few hispanic dudes looking at us suspiciously..the heater in there was apparently broke since it was the same temp as we had just walked out of.. we took in the vibe for a minute or so while the lady at the counter ignored us.. then we turned around and walked out.. strike 2 for north lamar.. damn.. this is why i call it south round rock.. it really doesnt deserve to be considered Austin in some respects.. weak..but we tredged on in search of a hot meal..we were considering chinese at this point..
so we continued up the way until we saw a nice looking restaurant in a strip mall.. La Parilla.. this looks a little more respectable. .they had holiday airbursh art in the windows.. a big screen with saucy telenovelas.. a light crowd.. a full bar.. nice.. this place has promise.. we get the chips and salsa.. a warm orange-red suace.. very mild, but tasty nonetheless. decent chips..

the menu is pretty big.. lots of choices.. and i was still hungry as f*ck so I had a hard time deciding.. but for some reason I settled on the shrimp chile relleno.. food came about 10 min later.. Cabeza got an assortment of items.. a pastor gordita, a carne guisada taco, and a regular crispy beef taco.. Whiskydick got the mole chicken..everything looked pretty good… colorful dishes indeeed..

Shrimp Chile Relleno

I dug into the chile relleno.. it struck me that the red sauce surrounding it was a little watery.. the shrimp inside was plentyful, but they were the tiny popcorn shrimp variety.. not what I expected for some reason.. kinda dissappointed, but it tasted good enough and I was hungry as f*ck.. I ate on..

Cabeza didnt have anything good to say about his tacos.. the pastor tasted OK to me.. it was very red, which was strange.. too red. he had a general blah review for everything on his plate..

cabeza's assortment of fail

the mole sauce on the chicken was bunk.. it was obviously hershey’s syrup and a couple of other spices.. weak… dont think Whiskeydick could even eat it all…

I kept at my chile relleno..finishing my plate, and I payed for it.. with my bowels.. it was poporn shrimp overdose.. and you should know by now that my stomach can handle almost anything… the walk out to the car was utterly painful..

overall, it wasnt quite strike 3.. more of an infield popup.. I am just a little ashamed that north austin can’t represent.. I mean La Parilla is probly one of the best joints on north lamar.. and it sucked..so I will continue to call north lamar South Round Rock until someone proves me wrong and can present me with a decent mexi-meal up there.. dont worry.. I wont give up the search… a true taco explorer presses on thru the sleet and snow..

La Parrilla
9515 N Lamar Blvd Ste 102
Austin, TX 78753-4124View Map
512-491-9414

the score:
Atmosphere: 7 (nice digs)
Salsa: 6 (ok)
Service: 5 (blah)
Food Quality: 5 (blah)
Price: 6 (pretty cheap esp lunch specials)

Total 29/50 Rating: 2.9 out of 5 stars

Rating: 3.65 out of 5 stars
Thumbie and I were searching uncharted territory on a Monday afternoon, combing the wilds of Anderson Ln. we saw Enchiladas y Mas, which sadly appears to have gone under.. smells like a conspiracy…so we tredged onward until we saw a colorful little dive at the end of a mini-strip mall – La Casita. the decor on the inside was ultra bright and freshly painted.. the place sparkled with bargain priced new-ness.. we sat. I believe our waitress used to work at another taqueria in town.. she looked very familiar. she was very friendly and prompt. apparently not prompt enough for the other table across from us. This suit wearing good’ol boy had the nerve and impatience to walk to the back to ask another lady for some iced tea..and queso in a very condescending tone, mind you he had just ordered from the waitress 30 seconds beforehand.. bro – cant you see she’s taking care of our chips and salsa? step off bo-seefus! he was a prick, but to the waitresses credit, they kept their cool and remaind kind and quick with their service.

our chips and salsa came – the salsa was good, fresh and flavourful red sauce with just enough heat..nothing extraordinary, but quality stuff nonetheless.

they had a few lunch specials on the menu. I decided to go with the #1 combo – 1 crispy beef taco, 1 cheese enchilada, 1 beef chalupa, guac salad, rice & beans.

thumbie got bold – he asked if he could have tomorrow’s special -the #2: 1 beef fajita taco, 1 pastor taco, 1 carne guisada taco, rice & beans… the waitress contemplated for una momento, then agreed.. nice one.

the food came in about 5-6 min. big plates and well presented.. we dug in.. I was lovin the beef taco. the crispy shell was fresh and lightly fried.. just a little grease, it was the freshness that set it apart from most cripsy tacos.. i give it an 8 out of 10.. well done. i coulda eat 3 of these. then i moved onto the cheese enchilada.. well done here – tex-mex perfection.. it reminded me of being a kid and eating at Ninfa’s.. the carne sauce was authentic and classically done. the chalupa was the lowlight, though tasty, the shell had gotten too greasy and soggy.. i didnt really mind, i just scraped off the toppings and mixed it in with my rice and beans.. cleaned my plate otherwise.. damn good meal..

thumbie though, he had me beat.. i tried a bite of each of his tacos and each one was close to perfection.. the beef fajita was savory and flavorful, a big step up from Aranda’s cheap skirt steak.. the pastor was incredible.. very flavorfull.. and the carne guisada was exactly how it should be, ultra tender and not bland at all.. these guys know how to do the meat..

alls in alls – a great lunch spot.. they were quick friendly and tasty.. not the cheapest, but just low enough to keep me from complaining.

heres the score:

atomosphere: 6 (kinda small and sterile but at least it was clean and colorful)
service: 9 (great chicas on hand)
salsa: 8 (good)
food quality: 8.5 (very good)
price: 5 (not good, not bad)

total: 36.5/50 (73%)
Rating: 3.65 out of 5 stars

La Salsa – Fresh Mexican Grill
3637 Far West Blvd. Ste F, Austin, TX 78731
512.342.1010 • Website>

Rating: 2.65 out of 5 stars 26.5 out of 50

La Salsa is a relatively small franchise of taqueria-style grills- they have 2 or 3 locations in Austin. i’ve always avoided La Salsa- based on the exterior and the general look of the place- it just looks sterile and average. Nothing ever compelled me to try it- after all, there’s so many great local, family-owned taco joints, i just never expected it to be worth a crap. Well, this week, i gave in and checked it out.

The interior- clean and well lit, if a bit plain and sterile. There’s just nothing inviting about it- and i usually don’t complain about things like that, but it really seems too vanilla to be worth a shit- but that’s just appearances. I browsed the menu and they have many interesting taco baskets, as well as enchilada plates, burritos and salads. Apparently this California-based franchise caters to the heathly, fish taco and lowcarb crowd. no biggie. At least its not the generic tex-mex bullcrap…I settled on:

Sonora Fish Taco
A flour tortilla filled with grilled Wahoo, lettuce, tomatoes and Jack and Cheddar cheeses. Topped with our Sonora sauce…

Carnitas Guadalajara Taco
Two soft corn tortillas filled with pork carnitas, fire-roasted fajita veggies, mild Ancho Chile sauce and cheeses.

I picked up my fountain drink and basket of chips and proceeded to the salsa bar- I was very impressed by the selection of fresh salsas here. The standouts were the green sauce- spiced up with ceyenne, and the chunky tomato salsa was very tasty.

On to the tacos. The Sonora fish taco was stuffed full of tasty fish and fresh veggies. The sonora sauce was NOT VERY GOOD. Imagine a very bold enchilada sauce, but bright red, almost like the classic french dressing. I love sauces, but this didn’t help the taco, it overwhelmed the taste of everything else …bad move. On the the carnitas- the shredded pork was believably moist and tender- the double wrapped- corn tortillas wear stuffed to the brim with pork and fajita grilled poblano, onion, and red pepper- then drizzd with a ancho cream sauce that – like the sonora sauce- was a bit overwhelming…reminded me too much of mayonaise. gross. Fortunatley – the rest of the ingredients were great…so i ate it anyway.

Perhaps my texan buds aren’t used to the Cali-style tacos…I wanted to like them, but the got hung up on the 2 sauces…shame. the service was friendly and fast, the prices were good. Expect to pay $8-10 for a big lunch and drink…The atmosphere was not great- so this place won’t get a very good score, but i do plan to revisit-just to check some other menu items like the signature LaSalsa taco, and the fajita quesadillas. The eternal taco quest continues…

• Service: 6 (order at counter, no BS, pretty quick)
• Atmosphere: 2 (blahhh)
• Salsa: 7 (about 6 varieties, 3 of them were great, the rest OK)
• Food Quality: 5 (great meats, fresh, light, but nasty taco sauce drizzle)
• Price: 6.5 (come with a $10 bill & leave full; and free chips n salsa)