We Taco Bout a New Mayor

We’ve all heard that Julián Castro is searching for new tacos in Washington DC and San Antonio will soon have to replace our beloved mayor.  The current rules say that someone from the current City Council will have to fill in until the next election, and that’s when the real race starts.  Current Councilpersons, and other city leaders, are already hinting about throwing hats into rings, but maybe it’s time to taco bout who else should be the next mayor of this great city.  Who has the 'taconacity' to get things done.

It’s not that we don’t appreciate those on who've already thrown their hat into the ring, it’s just that we like out of the taco thinking.  So here’s our not-all-that-serious list of possible mayors of San Antonio:

Tommy Lee Jones – The first question is whether or not he’s a resident.  Various reports say he has several houses in the area and at least one of them is in San Antonio.  The second is experience and that answer is that his experience far surpasses most others.  He has business, military, law enforcement (both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial), and legislative experience under his belt.  Sure, they’re all in movies, but he was great at them.  He also introduced his old roommate, Al Gore, at the 2000 Democratic National Convention so has some political experience.  And hey, it worked for Clint Eastwood. 

Coach Pop – The man who runs the most efficient basketball team in the world can definitely run a city with that same effectiveness.  Are you tired of politicians going on and on about accomplishments, projects, goals, and everything else under the sun?  Well, all that comes to a stop with the Popovich administration.   Press conferences will now last ninety seconds and City Council meetings will be the quickest in the state as misinformed citizens with stupid questions will get “The Look” from Pop, bow their heads in shame, and quietly walk out of the chamber.

George Strait – He’s retiring from touring, so he needs something to do.  Why not be mayor and revitalize the music scene?  When things go bad, all George Strait has to do is smile and we’ll know everything will get better.  He’s the type of guy every man wants to have a beer with and every woman wants to – well, maybe just wants.  But nevertheless, think of how much more business we could attract by having people tour SA with George Strait as their host.

Flaco Jimenez – Born and raised in San Antonio, Flaco has been our cultural ambassador since he first started touring with his band.  If you think about it, Flaco’s style has its roots in Texas-Mexican heritage with influence from other cultures, including the German, Polish, and Cajun.  He’s a one-man Folklife Festival.  Flaco has a song for every situation which our city could possibly encounter.

Carmen Tafolla – A strong, well-educated, articulate, artistic woman leading our city – why has she not been considered before?  Proposals enticing businesses and conventions to come to SA would be the most well-written ones.  Ever.  Not that she would be writing them, but those that did would know they have a high standard to present.  City Councilpersons would have to take turns reciting poetry to start each meeting and every suggestion during B-Session would have to be in verse.

Eva Longoria – She’s bold.  She’s strong.  She’s not afraid to speak her mind.  We know she can fundraise and organize (from the work she does for Eva’s Heroes) and we know she’s not afraid to be in front of an audience (from her work on every screen known to man), so I’m confident that she could hold her own.  With Eva as mayor, the council would be stylin’. 

David Robinson – The Admiral.  The nickname says it all.  He’d run our city efficiently, with faith, with class, and as an inspiration to everyone.  With Robinson as mayor, Charles Barkley wouldn’t dare criticize this city and all Mark Cuban could ever say would be, “Yes, sir,” or “I’m sorry, sir.  It won’t happen again.”

Ted Cruz – No one knows sacrifice like San Antonians.  We endure heat, humidity and the occasional deluge.  Electing Ted Cruz would be the ultimate sacrifice for our nation as it would keep him out of the senate and the presidency for sure.  In the words of John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  This would definitely be doing something for our country.  The caveat is that someone will have to volunteer to claim him as a resident - rent him an apartment, say he's on your couch, whatever. It'll be only for a little while, though, as he is bound to upset enough people to be recalled within six months of being sworn in. 

Davy Crockett - Sure, he's technically dead, but his spirit still lives within the walls of the Alamo. He will lead by fear and spectral intimidation. His mere presence will increase tourism to the city by 1000%. If this really is the Decade of Downtown, then who else but the ultimate downtown resident. On Election Day, Remember the Alamo!

Atenogenes Villarreal – The name commands respect.  No other city will want to mess with us.  The mere mention of Atenogenes  will strike fear in the hearts of other city’s inhabitants whose mayors will have wimpy names like “Mike” or “Lee.”  Experience? A high-school Student Council Vice-President and the Historian for his fraternity, he has got the chops. That, and he worked for a national presidential campaign.  Atenogenes takes care of business. 

Eddie Vega – He’s an educator, a poet, a writer, a survivor.  His experience as Speaker of the House (two terms) in the Student Government Association at St. Mary’s totally qualifies him as mayor of San Antonio.  He knows how to work within a budget (trained by necessity) and knows how to celebrate accomplishment (trained by fraternity).  With Vega as mayor you’ll have a taco on every plate and a car in every garage chancla on every foot. 

There you have it.  Any of those choices would do right by our city.  Who did we leave out?  Write your own candidate in the comments and let's taco bout it.

We Taco Bout The Spurs

Spurs fans have enjoyed an unusually long period of dominance since Tim Duncan arrived in 1997. We've (yes, we use 'we' when referring to our teams) won 50 games every season, made the playoffs every year, made it to the Finals 5 times, and won 4 NBA Titles.

We think, after Tuesday night's game versus the Thunder, that we need to remind Spurs fans of a few things.  Yes, it was a disappointing game.  We wanted to come back from Oklahoma City up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.  Instead, we come back home, tied 2-2, with momentum apparently not on our side.  As fans we wake up with the nightmares of 2012 crashing back to our minds.  Spurs fans: WAKE UP!

We refuse to believe this is a repeat of 2012, or any other time the season has ended with the Larry O'Brien trophy in someone else's locker room. The beauty of sports is that anything can happen.  ANYTHING.  At any time.

Remember the Memorial Day Miracle?  That game versus Dallas in 2003 when Steve Kerr knocked down what seemed like 10 threes in a quarter?  Big Shot Bob's huge 3-pointer versus the Pistons?  And the countless other basketball moments brought to us by the likes of Stephen Jackson, Bruce Bowen, Mario Ellie, Brent Barry, and many more?!

Plus, the series is TIED 2-2 and we have home court advantage!  We play in one of the loudest and supportive arenas in the league!  The Coyote will be there to pump us up and we'll regain our championship form.  

Because of all the success the Spurs have brought us over the years, we expect things to feel easy.  We want to win every series in a sweep.  But, these are the Oklahoma City Thunder - the #2 seed in the Western Conference.  Pop said it best when he said:

"I need a little more dose of nasty...It's not suppose to be easy.  Every round gets tougher...Penetrate hard.  Good passes.  Shoot with confidence.  I want some NASTY!"

Let's block out the negativity.  Let's keep our wits about us.  Believe in our boys.  Let's bring a little NASTY to the arena or the sports bar or your living room or wherever you cheer for our team.  It's been said a series doesn't start until the visiting team wins.  All that has happened so far, is both home teams have done their jobs.  Let's help our Spurs do their job tomorrow and get their mojo back.

If you need any more inspiration, check out these links.

Best of Pop

24 Reasons why you should cheer for the Spurs

The Beautiful Game

Did you get your fix?  Alright, let's do this!  Game 5 is tonight!  We'll be at Fatso's rooting for our Spurs.  Wherever you are, don't give up.  Don't ever give up.  Go Spurs Go!

We taco bout Barkley

So Charles Barkley’s in town and it seems we have to give him attention.  He’s a commentator for NBA games and a spokesperson for a weight-loss company (oh, the irony), but San Antonio feels the need to give him even more attention. 

Personally, I’ve been conflicted about Barkley for more than two decades.  He was mean to David Robinson and later went on to play for the Rockets, so I was compelled to hate him.  But then again, he was always entertaining.  Who can forget his standout performance in Space Jam?  He made Shawn Bradley look like some guy who’d never before acted in front of a camera.

Barkley criticizes our women and our river, we get offended, he does it again, the mayor makes a video, he does it again, women on city council make a video, he does it again.  Is it me, or is there a pattern?

Barkley will always be Barkley.  His problem, however, is that he is the face of all those that criticize this town without really knowing much about it.  He’s your cousin from Dallas that laughs at how small the city feels.  He’s your old college buddy from Austin that says our music options suck.  He’s the out-of-towner that eats over-priced Touri-Mex and thinks he’s seen it all.

We can fight back all we want with stats about a decreasing obesity rate and tours of Riverwalk extensions, but he’ll still have the same perceptions and make the same comments.  We know what we’ve got.    The Riverwalk is an engineering marvel designed to control flooding that doubles as one of the most beautiful places on earth.  I’ve personally meandered for miles of it under the shade of magnificent cypress trees and rested on benches where I exchanged smiles with natives and tourists alike.  My children and I have our favorite picture spots and snack-break benches. 

As for our women, they come in all shapes and sizes and we appreciate them all.  We’ve devoted much of our energy denying that our women aren’t fat, when we should have spoken more about proper body image.  There are big women in this town – so what?  I can see where maintaining healthy eating habits are important, especially with the high occurrences of diabetes and hypertension in the local population (genetics and flour tortillas), but are we talking about healthy living or the perceptions of what beauty in society are.  Why are the words "big," "fat," and "ugly" all found together?  

Let’s not forget the real reason why Charles Barkley is here – to comment on the winning ways of the San Antonio Spurs.  This team is criticized repeatedly, but I don’t hear Pop or Timmy or Kawhi or anyone else lashing back with videos or tours.  They handle it on the court.  Their winning ways show the world what it’s all about.  Let’s learn from the Spurs and keep playing our game. 

Barkley can talk a good game, but we know what the truth is.

REVIEW: Piedras Negras de Noche

It was a Saturday morning when we visited Piedras Negras de Noche and we can confidently state that it is highly unlikely we are the first to make that joke.  It occupies a refurbished Pizza Hut on the Westside of San Antonio (on the edge between Downtown and the Westside).  This was the last of the four Westside Taco places from the original list that we visited, but we were rewarded for our timing.  

Ambiance - When the first thing you see walking into the restaurant is an Elvis impersonator in full costume, tying a motorized bicycle to a post at the entrance, you're off on the right foot.  The Spurs etchings/paintings on the windows and the Fiesta decorations inside tell you immediately that you are with good people.  Bonus points for rehabbing of an old Pizza Hut  So far, so good.  "Taco-madre" 5 Tortillas.

Service - We may be a little biased because one of the waitresses who served Teno coffee was stunningly cute (she looked like a cross between Paulina Rubio and Minka Kelly), but we feel the service was excellent.  Our coffee and water was refilled on a regular basis.  The food came out hot, fresh, and fast.  And our waitress was spot on with her recommendation to avoid the morcilla (we ignored her recommendation, but she was honest and proved right in the end). "Taco-madre" 5 Tortillas

Menu Options - We were both very impressed with the menu options offered at Piedras Negras.  All the classics were represented, along with some delicious options you don't see everywhere like cabrito and mollejas.  We were immediately intrigued by the morcilla, which is Mexican Blood Sausage.  We deliberated for a bit on whether we'd order that, but eventually decided part of our journey is to be adventurous and needed to try some tacos outside of our comfort zone. "Taco-nazo" 4 Tortillas

Morcilla

Food - The food itself is flavorful. Teno enjoyed his bean and egg (the eggs and beans were not properly mixed) and a machacado con huevo.  Pretty standard fare.  Nothing to get too excited about, but nothing to be upset about either.  Good, solid down the middle dishes.  Teno was slightly disappointed in the quality of the flour tortilla, which broke apart half-way through the taco.  Eddie ordered a Chorizo and Bean taco and a Chicharron con Huevo.  He was pleased with his options, though a tortilla broke apart for him as well.  It was "not quite mom's" (nothing is), but had that great combination of crunchy and soft elements. The Morcilla was interesting.  It's an acquired taste that Teno has not acquired yet.  Teno took just a few bites and stopped.  Eddie ate his half of the Morcilla taco and while it initially went down smooth, his stomach had other ideas upon further consideration.  We won't penalize the food score because of the Moricilla since it was something we both wanted to try.  There was only one (green, watery) salsa. Based on our other tacos, we feel the food was "Taco-nazo"  4 Tortillas

Overall Taconacity - We gave it pretty high scores across the board, so the Taconacity has to be quite high.  Everything from the ambiance to the service to the food told us this is a place we'd go back to and it's a place we'd proudly take our family to whenever they visit.  Of the four places we've visited off our original challenge list, this is one of our favorites.  We hope to go back sometime and take a picture with Elvis.  If it's good enough for the King, it's good enough for us.

Piedras Negras De Noche
1322 S. Laredo St.
San Antonio, TX 78204
WE TACO BOUT IT SCORE: 4 Tortillas

Teno's Tidbits - It was not lost on us that as we were enjoying this tasty, but greasy and fattening breakfast, our friend and brother Cisco Iguaran was competing in his first Iron Man competition.  We shed a little bit of tortilla in his honor and I promised to run/walk one mile for each taco I eat in the future in an effort to balance healthy activity with our unhealthy choices.

Eddie's Extras - Morcilla. I'd heard the word before, but couldn't at the moment remember what it was. So we "phoned a friend," so to speak, and looked it up. Immediately I saw "blood sausage" and a bunch of recipes involving rice and corn. I remembered having something similar in Ireland, so after much deliberating, we decided to try. It arrived with the consistency of ultra-minced barbacoa.  Pico de gallo ingredients were mixed in - no rice, no corn.  I figured that the ones I saw online were Spanish versions and this was a Mexican take on the dish.  Teno's first bite was all he needed, but I needed further convincing. I wanted to like it, and I did for about three minutes, then my stomach asked, "what the heck is wrong with you?  Haven't we been through enough?"

I'm glad we tried it, but it's not likely to enter into our taco repertoire. 

REVIEW: Christan's Tacos #3

The idea for this blog all started a few months ago when we saw an article from the SA Current about five excellent Westside breakfast establishments. The challenge - to see if these critics knew what they were talking about - was accepted.

So we (Julián joined us too, but he really had no choice) finally went to a restaurant on the list, Cristan's #3, on W. Hildebrand. Here is our first in-depth analysis:

Ambience - Puro Westside. The building is pink on the outside and most of the parking lot is caliche. Inside, we found some requisite Spurs paraphernalia (none of it very new), old wood tables, and seating for about two average-size Mexican families (with the abuelitos, tíos, and cousins). There is even a tribute to la Virgen de Guadalupe by the checkout table. 5 Tortillas.

Service - it takes a village to serve patrons. Our order was taken by one lady and was served by another. When we needed more, there was no need to find "our" waitress, just make eye-contact with someone. And finally, as is needed by every proper Westside establishment, a cashier. There is a division of labor on the Westside; the waitress CANNOT be your cashier. However, I was not asked for a tortilla preference and had to ask for an extra. 4 Tortillas

Menu options - Excellent. Every permutation of breakfast taco is available. No need to order off the menu, because it's there. There was also an exhaustive list of huevos rancheros options - just huevos, with papas, with chicharron, with beans, with bacon, etc. There were 15+ options here. Also, there were plenty of other breakfast choices. 5 Tortillas

Food - Teno ordered a plethora of tacos. (One was bean and egg and the eggs were on top of the beans, a point of contention for us Valley boys, as we've mentioned before - see our post from 5/12) He was satisfied, but disliked the thinness of the tortilla  (it broke apart before the taco was fully consumed). Julián ordered a bean and cheese taco. (”There are over forty different tacos here and you're ordering bean and cheese?" Then he ordered a pancake, too. Further SMH.) I gave up tacos for lent (yes, they are a problem for me) so I opted for huevos rancheros with chicharrones and beans. The chicharrones were saucy and squishy - in other words, perfect. The salsa on the huevos was good, but the beans were runny, as if they were blended rather than mashed. Julián made the initial observation as most of his taco had fallen on his plate. Having asked for my eggs sunny-side up (rookie mistake on my part - should've gone over medium), plus the salsa and beans meant I had a soupy mess on my plate. No problem, because a good tortilla can clean that up. (See above) The corn tortilla was quite good, though it seemed I had to make a special request. 3 Tortillas.

 

Overall Taconacity - Food is everything and perfection is elusive.  The ambiance, service and menu options helped make up for the tortilla quality.  3.5 Tortillas. Definitely recommended, but only to those that can handle caliche parking lots and runny beans.

Christan's Tacos #3

1401 W. Hildebrand Ave.

San Antonio, TX 78201

WE TACO BOUT IT SCORE: 3.5 Tortillas

How will we judge our tacos?

As we begin this culinary journey in search of the best tacos on the Westside (and in San Antonio), we thought we should lay out a little information about how we will be judging the places we visit.

There are many scoring systems out there in the world.  There are thumbs up/down, stars, chilli peppers, etc.  For our search to find the best tacos, we are introducing the Tortilla Scale.  We believe this is the most appropriate by which we could taco bout tacos.  We identified four categories to evaluate on a scale of 1 to 5 tortillas.  The following describes our scale:

The Taco List

Most people say that a taco is a tortilla, folded, with something inside.  But really, it's much more complicated than that.  Below are our expectations for what our favorite breakfast tacos should be like.

Chorizo and egg. The chorizo has to be just greasy enough. Not so much that it makes an orange path down the side of your palm and towards your forearm, but not so little that you can't tell it's what you're eating.  The stain on the tortilla will serve as evidence of your choice. Don't hide it. Be proud.

We honor our mothers

Today, we honor the women that introduced us to the taco

That were the first to warm a tortilla and put beans inside

And pull back the film on a Kraft single

Fold and cut it diagonally

And stick it on top of the steaming beans

Today we honor the women that showed us

That all you need is butter

To enjoy a fresh flour tortilla

The Tortilla Maker - a Mother's Day poem

My mother taught me the rhythm of life

To the beat of a palote

On the kitchen counter

Pas!

Roll

Roll

Turn

Making tortillas fresh

Without a recipe card

We Taco Bout It

 Let's Taco Bout It

Welcome to We Taco Bout It!  This is a forum we have created to start a larger conversation. About what? Well, tacos for starters.  But ultimately, we want this to become a place where we can communicate our ideas and stir important conversations, all the while sharing our observations of some of the best breakfast taco shops on the Westside of San Antonio and beyond.

Who are we?  We're just two relatively-smart guys who like tacos.  Looking at us, you can tell we hardly ever pass up on a chance to enjoy a tasty taco delight.  Moreover, we are both originally from the Rio Grande Valley, so we are bringing the culinary experience of our youth and applying it to our adopted hometown of San Antonio.  Let's see how these tacos measure up to those of our youth!