Tacos

My Platonic ideal of a fish taco is fresh fish, simply grilled (not breaded or fried), with some salad and lime juice and maybe salsa, but no crema or other dairy-based sauce. When visiting Tulum (a few times 10 years ago, and again in 2017), my favorite fish tacos were at the cheap beach hotel Los Arrecifes: The setting is decidedly low-key– it often feels almost abandoned, without much signage and with one employee (if you’re lucky) working in a kitchen, and a patch of sand covered in campers’ tents… but the tacos were fresh and simple– very different from any number of bars along the Tulum beach that advertise “Tulum’s best fish taco” (but whose focuses are just as much the bar, music, and a place to hang out). ...

In late 2015 I took a week-long vacation to Mexico City, and spent much of that time eating tacos, tlacoyos, and other food around the city (whether in restaurants or at street stalls). I’d done some initial reading on others’ experiences with the tacos of Mexico city (e.g. Serious Eats 2014, Thrillist 2015, The Mija Chronicles) which gave me a list to start from, and I also spent a day just biking around the city looking for street food carts and taquerias. I can’t claim any deep Mexico City or Mexican culinary expertise as a one-week tourist with very poor Spanish, but I had a great experience and jotted down a lot of notes, for future trips or friends. A year later (when feeling under the weather at home one evening) I’m finally transcribing a few. ...

For a small New Year’s Eve party, a meal cooked primarily in the smoker (tacos with pulled pork, homemade tortillas, and salsas made from smoked tomatillos and pineapples): 23-hour slow-smoked pork shoulder: A roughly 7lb chunk of pork shoulder (a.k.a. pork butt) from Niman Ranch Dry rubbed with copious amounts of salt and mustard, smoked paprika, and black pepper and let rest in the fridge for 4-5 hours Smoked very low-and-slow at 215-225F for 23 hours over lump charcoal with some fist-sized chunks of apple and pecan wood for smoke, until the internal temperature was in the 195-200 range (for overnight smokes I have a ‘baby monitor’-style wireless temperature probe I rest on the bedside so an alarm will ring and wake me up if the pit temperature gets too high or low and I can adjust the airflow or add fuel) No intermediate basting, mopping, foiling, etc– just keeping it simple Wrapped in foil and let rest for 45 minutes It was so tender I could pull off strands by hand, and with a nice ‘bark’ and smoke ring… It didn’t even need any sauce– I just squeezed a few limes over it. ...

Fried and braised a chorizo sausage to crumble, then scrambled some eggs w/ milk in the drippings. With homemade tortillas (Maseca, salt, water), quick-pickled carrots (cut thin, 20 minutes in vinegar) as a nice counterpoint to the fat, cheddar, and avocado.

For 4th of July this year, carnitas tacos: Starting the afternoon before with an 8-pound bone-in pork shoulder (and some pork belly for good measure): Packed together to tightly fill a dutch oven, with onions, garlic, fennel, cilantro, and sliced oranges, then added just enough milk to fill in the cracks for braising (after wedging strips of pork belly in every open crevice to keep this tightly enough packed to render out the copious amounts of pork fat and allow the pork to almost confit, inspired by this Serious Eats carnitas article): ...

Two Hour Tacos? Why not Ten Hour Tacos, with a slow-smoked brisket, hand made tortillas, pickles, and a creamy BBQ sauce? We threw a dinner party inspired by a weekend trip to Far West Texas, and this is the story of the brisket. I’d never actually smoked meat before, though I knew the general principle of indirect heat / “slow and low”. It became clear it wouldn’t just be a “set and forget it for 8 hours” process, and that there was a whole range of intuition, tweaking of the fire, and experience needed to get a good smoke. Well, there’s no real way to learn but by doing… so after browsing various online forums and getting pointed at this Saveur article, I had a general plan. ...

Relaxing at home by making a few tacos: Handmade tortillas. Quick-pickled carrots, radishes, and jalapenos. A rare ribeye steak. Some sauteed onions and padrones. And then, a few days later, repeating for dinner-for-two, swapping in chicken rubbed in hot paprika and dry-poached, pickles briefly blanched before chilling (more mellow), and grapefruit-mezcal-lime-honey-campari cocktails (Paloma-esque).

Cod filet marinated in lime juice, minced serrano, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and chipotle powder for 15 minutes. Cast iron skillet preheated (dry) to medium-high, and some tomatillos in-husk toasted on it for maybe 6 minutes, covered, shaking them around like popcorn so they didn’t burn, then removed and diced. Coconut oil melted in the skillet, the fish filets fried about 4 minutes on each side until flaking apart and just done. ...

I spent 4 days in Sayulita and ate both great and deeply mediocre food. If I don’t write up a few notes now I’ll forget them, so off the top of my head: Good advice in general in Mexico: “Get tacos at outdoor places with red plastic Coca-Cola chairs”. (as a side note, I was horrified to see that the top Sayulita restaurants according to Tripadvisor readers are a burger place, a nachos place, and a burrito place) ...

And some days you just want a Mission burrito: (from El Toro) My favorite mission taquerias are: La Taqueria for deluxe tacos (a pair of chicken tacos with cheese and avocado added on– even at almost $5/taco it’s worth it) Taqueria Vallarta for basic street tacos – meat, onions, cilantro, with pickled jalapenos on the side La Corneta for shrimp or shrimp-and-steak burritos Taqueria Cancun (either one) for the best combination of coarse yellow corn chips and fiery-delicious green salsa El Toro for a basic veggie or meat mission burrito

My favorite “tacos with lots of toppings” in SF. Moist clumps of grilled meat, pinto beans, mashed avocado (not guacamole), salsa. I was caught up in conversation with a friend and we accidentally stayed half an hour past closing (why didn’t they just kick us out?)

Brunch for a few friends, including homemade corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, black beans (made with slow-cooked onions and garlic, anaheim pepper, toasted chipotle & cumin, a little tomato), sauteed Padrón peppers with sea salt, salsa (striped heirloom tomatoes, serrano peppers, lemon, a little white vinegar), and more. Delicious!