in search of the perfect taco

Saturday we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner, and the wife wanted tacos. I like tacos, but I hate making them, trying to stuff everything I want into that little tortilla shell. It always ends in compromise and frustration, and many times, breakage. More often than not, I just give up, pile it all up together and call it a taco salad.

So I said, OK...tacos, but let's go someplace and eat them. I want someone else to make them, and I'll just eat them.

So we set out in search of a restaurant with tacos. I suggested we run for the border and think outside the bun, but that was met with a groan. Then I suggested Chili's. I mean it's a southwest grill, right? Doesn't any self respecting southwest grill have to serve tacos? Apparently I was wrong on both fronts. Chili's isn't necessarily a southwest grill, and it doesn't serve tacos. Lots of different chicken entrees, but no tacos. Looking at the online menu, I started wondering if we were looking at KFC's menu by mistake, but oh well. Tacos at Chili's...don't know where I got that idea. So the wife started searching the web in search of tacos. She found this place in Saint Augustine we'd never heard of. It had amazing reviews. The short version was, little hole in the wall with outrageously good Mexican food. (One side note. One review said it was better Mexican food than in Mexican restaurants in New York City, which made me wonder...is that such a good thing? What do people in New York know about Mexican food? If it said better than Mexican restaurants in San Diego, or Corpus Christi, I'd be impressed, but New York..not so much.) Google maps put it not all that far from the youngster's school, and we wondered why we'd never noticed it before. Must really be a hole in the wall.

So we set out, and we got to where Google said the restaurant was supposed to be, but we didn't see it. We drove by again...slowly, scanning both sides of the road, and still didn't see it. So we stopped at a store and asked the clerk if there was a Mexican restaurant nearby, and she said yes, and gave us directions. We got back in the car, smiling with tummies rumbling....finally! Where she was sending us wasn't quite where Google had the place, but we figured it's kinda close, so we drove there and...Taco Bell? Noooooooooo. She couldn't mean the Taco Bell. Could she? There was nothing else in the vicinity even close though.

The wife took the next step. We stopped at a hotel, and she borrowed their phone book. She got an address and a phone number. We breezed past the address part and went straight to the source.

"Hello. Where exactly are you located?"

We got directions, which put the place nowhere near where we were. It was about 15 miles south of where we were (thank you very much Google), but I wasn't stopping now. We were going!

We headed south, and were pretty much out of town, but it was right where the woman on the phone said it was...next to a self storage place, and yes, it was a hole in the wall. I spotted it. I pointed it out and the wife said, "That's it?? Oh, I don't know."

I wasn't taking "No" for an answer. We're here and we're eating, dammit. Besides, what's life without a little adventure. The parking lot was full, but only had space for about 6 cars, and there were already cars spilling over to both sides of the road, parked off the side. We found a piece of real estate large enough to park in along side the self storage place in the grass by the road. I wondered how legal it was, but I didn't think the parking police would be around anytime soon, so I went with it.

We went inside, and it was...very small. There were several rooms, and all of them were about the size of a self respecting walk in closet. We sat at a table, that was really half a table, butted up against a wall with three chairs around it. From there, things looked up. There were several other patrons, all of whom seemed to be local. The menu included tacos, and not outrageously priced. The food, and the sangria, were excellent. We all agreed we'd made a decent choice. The wife was congratulated for finding it. I was congratulated for making everyone walk through the door once we got there. We talked about sharing our new found eatery with friends, and relatives who visit. We declared the adventure a rousing success.

We finished our meal and the youngster's coke was empty, so a waiter came, and took his glass and refilled it as the check came. I paid for dinner, and the youngster looked at me, holding his new coke and said..."here," holding his glass toward me with the straw in my face. I thought he was offering me a sip, but couldn't figure out why, and I said, "no thanks." He said, "No, look at it."

Floating in the top of his glass was some unidentifiable (by me) large bug. It wasn't a roach, but I didn't know what it was. I just knew it was a bug. We didn't say a word to any of the restaurant staff. We all just looked at the bug, got a bit grossed out, and left.

So much for a return engagement.