Eat the Menu: New Additions! (now with DeliBelly description)

This is part of a series about my quest to try all of the yumminess at local restaurant Tacodeli. See my eat the menu tag for the other parts of the series. Scores are summarized here.


Today was the independently organized Taco Tweetup that Tacodeli thought would make a good preview event for my week. Tacodeli was offering a special on three-item breakfast tacos, so I headed to the site to see what might make a good mix (I always get named stuff off the menu, so this mix-and-match thing was new to me). To my surprise and delight, I was greeted on the site by... me! Well, ok, not me, but the cartoon me created for Jon the Geek Week by Victory Dog Design. They also have a nice explanation of what this whole Jon the Geek Week thing is all about on their events page (at least at the time that I'm writing this they do; presumably that'll change eventually).

Once I got to Tacodeli, there was another surprise waiting: a new taco! I mean, not just mine, but another new taco! I still got the breakfast taco special (Chorizo, Egg, and Papas, aka Mexican mashed potatoes), but I just had to try the brand new DeliBelly, and of course the delicious Jon the Geek.

The Jon the Geek Special (aka Mole Portabella) is "Grilled portabella mushrooms smothered with our traditional, made-from-scratch mole and topped with avocado, cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco." That's a fancy way of saying YUM! I'm so glad we were able to find something I like even better than Mole Chicken and Scallops. I give it 1.2 moles. I also found out that this is really similar to a taco Roberto (the owner of Tacodeli) used to make sometimes when he'd open up the original Tacodeli for his friends after they went out for a night on the town. In other words, the Jon the Geek Special has its origin in drunk food. I wholeheartedly approve. This is extra funny, since my roommate has been known to make sure our fridge is stocked with breakfast taco fixings before we go to anything where I might imbibe alcoholic beverages, because more than once I've felt the overwhelming urge to make elaborate breakfast tacos when I get home.

I forgot to write down or photograph the full description of the DeliBelly: (hopefully I'll be able to edit that in soon), but it's locally raised pork belly, avocado, cilantro, onions, and some sort of honey salsa "Richardson farm's pork belly, roasted and served with a serrano-tomatillo-Goodflow-honey salsa and served with cilantro, onion, and avocado." I'm not a huge pork fan, but this was about as good as pork can get. I give it 0.9 moles, which means it edges out the Lomo Especial as my favorite pork taco.

However, the most awesome part may have been the introduction of the official Tacodeli Eat the Menu Card. Inside, all 24 lunch tacos, 6 breakfast tacos, and 9 lunch specials are listed, along with space for four "Super Specials," with the "Jon the Geek Week Special Portabella Mole" pre-filled. When you order, the cashiers punch out the dot next to the taco(s) you order. Punch them all by the end of 2010, and you get a special "I Ate the Menu" t-shirt (assuming nothing goes wrong with that plan; the shirts aren't actually printed yet). I started my second trip through the menu today. Let me know in the comments if you plan to try.