Eat the Menu: Tacodeli, Day 13

This is part of an ongoing 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.

Last night, inspired by my friend Jeffrey, I decided I'd start watching what I eat and try to get my weight down under 200 pounds. So, of course, I decided to add a side to my usual two tacos today. I'm not very good at this watching what I eat thing, apparently. Oh well, I think it was worth it, and it technically allowed me to knock two more things off the menu than I would have otherwise. Today was also the day the cashiers recognized me, so it was a big day.

My side today was a 50/50, half rice and half beans. As part of Tacodeli's effort to drive everyone deliciously mad through choice paralysis, they offer two types of rice (Mexican red and steamed brown) and three types of beans (pinto, black, and refried black), so technically I still have quite a ways to go in those sides. Honestly, the black beans and brown rice were unsurprising, so I probably won't worry too much about knocking all of those possibilities off my list unless someone comments that "The Mexican red rice is omg amazing!" or something. There was nothing wrong with them, but they're definitely just a side. I'll give them 0.3 moles each.

The first of my tacos was the Happy Taco, "Seasoned shredded chicken with sauteéd mushrooms and melted jack cheese, garnished with cilantro and onion." I keep almost getting the Happy and bumping it down the list for some other choice, so this one had a bit of anticipation behind it. It wasn't as amazing as I hoped, but it was definitely a solid performance. I give it 0.7 moles.

I paired that with the Florentino, "Healthy fresh spinach taco sauteéd in olive oil and sherry with onion, mushroom and red bell peppers." I love spinach, so that one has also been on my to-do list for quite a while. I thought it was a little stronger. I give it 0.8 moles.

Summary:

• Black Beans: 0.3 moles
• Steamed Brown Rice: 0.3 moles
• Happy Taco: 0.7 moles
• Florentino: 0.8 moles

I also discovered today that Tacodeli has a "buy 12 get 1 free" loyalty card. If my count just now was correct, that's 28 tacos at this location before I noticed that card sitting by the register (well, the cashier pointed it out to me when she noticed I'd been there a zillion times, so technically I never noticed). I have three stamps on there now, at least. If you don't have one, be sure to pick one up the next time you're there.

Only ten tacos left! If I don't repeat, I'll be done next week! Except I totally forgot to include breakfast tacos, and I may not make it in on Monday! Oops! Can someone help me break out of this exclamation point trap by recommending what I should get if I make it in this weekend, or when I return on Tuesday?

Eat the Menu: Tacodeli, Day 12

This is part of an ongoing 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.

After yesterday's result, I tried a new technique. Jessica loves Puerco Borracho and doesn't like Mole Chicken, so she told me she also didn't like Adobados. That, of course, immediately moved it to the top of the queue. I added in a simple favorite of another friend (with whom my tastes seem to better match), the Poblano.


The Adobados is "Scrumptious adobo marinated chicken with cilantro and onions. Our adobo is made from scratch using chipotle, ancho and guajillo peppers." Scrumptious is right. Even though it's pretty much purely pepper, there was something about this that makes me put it in the same "family" as mole, which, of course, means it's yummy. I give it 0.9 moles.

The Poblano is as simple and to-the-point as its description, "Mama's cheese stuffed poblano recipe." The flavor is much less complex than the Adobados, but still pretty good. I'm not sure that I'll get it again (unless I have a strong hankering for cheese), but that's just because there are so many amazing things. I'll go with 0.75 moles.

I logged my scores so far in a spreadsheet, because, well, you can see the name of the blog. I may need a slow trek back through the menu (probably more spread out) once I'm done, but for the most part my scores still seem about right in hindsight. Someday I'll at least have to break up that clump between 0.9 and 1.1, but I don't think that'll be too hard to convince myself to do.

I'm still wandering free tomorrow. These are the tacos I have left. Which should I try?

• Mexico City Sirloin ("Grilled sirloin with diced onion & cilantro.")
• Picadillo ("100% grass fed Burgundy Pasture ground beef in a spicy tomato & jalapeño sauce, garnished with lettuce & tomato.")
• Thunder Heart Bison Picadillo ("Ground bison seasoned with roasted garlic, tomato, caramelized onion, melted jack cheese and jalapeño. Topped with fresh cilantro and onions.")
• Mole Taco Pork ("Shredded pork smothered with a traditional, made-from-scratch mole. Garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco.")
• Puerco Verde ("Tender pork shoulder simmered in a delicious tomatillo salsa and topped with queso fresco, cilantro and onion.")
• Cochinita Pibil ("Yucatecan style roasted pork marinated and cooked in citrus and achiote. A unique tropical flavor garnished with pickled purple onions and serranos.")
• Frontera Fundido Chicken ("Grilled chicken with sauteéd poblano pepper and onion strips glazed with melted monterrey jack cheese.")
• Mexico City Chicken ("Grilled chicken with diced onion & cilantro.")
• Happy Taco ("Seasoned shredded chicken with sauteéd mushrooms and melted jack cheese, garnished with cilantro & onion.")
• Frontera Fundido Portabella ("Oven roasted portabellas with sauteed pepper & onion strips and glazed with melted monterrey jack cheese.")
• Florentino ("Healthy fresh spinach taco sauteéd in olive oil & sherry with onion, mushroom and red bell peppers.")
• Veggie Taco ("Our special veggie mix of carrots, onion, celery, red bell, poblano, zucchini, mushroom and cabbage sauteéd in olive oil & sherry.")

I technically have a bunch of other stuff to try, too, but the tacos will do for now, unless I'm extra hungry.

Eat the Menu: Tacodeli, Day 11

This is part of an ongoing 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.

Today I experienced something strange. Tacodeli looked pretty much like it always looks, if perhaps a bit busier than it had been thus far. But something wasn't quite right. I ordered the Shrimp Taco and Puerco Borracho (as suggested by two friends), and sat down to wait.

The Shrimp Taco, "Savory grilled Texas Gulf shrimp served Frontera Fundido style," wasn't bad. Nothing to write home about, but not bad. I give it 0.6 moles.

The Puerco Borracho, "Slow-roasted, succulent pork braised in tequila and sherry and seasoned with fresh basil and pasilla peppers," was different, though. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? From the moment it came, something was off to me about it. It just didn't look appealing. And then I tasted it, and it didn't taste appealing, either. It tasted like salt and anger. It didn't like being in my mouth. I was able to smother it in doña sauce and make it taste pretty adequate, so I'm giving it 0.2 moles, but honestly that's partly just in case something is worse. I wouldn't recommend it at all.

But two of my friends did recommend it. Being the geek I am, that triggered me to do some quick online research, and eventually to begin devising an experiment which we will soon conduct to get to the bottom of this. Let's start with the online bits.

First, someone my wonderfully intelligent sister, Libby, who also creates beautiful cards and is raising two of my three beautiful and intelligent nieces/nephews, suggested that women have more taste buds than men, so maybe part of the problem was that I just wasn't tasting it as fully as the female friend who suggested it (this was before I had seen the other comment seconding it, from a male friend, so let's ignore that for now). On average, it turns out that statement is true; the average woman has more tastebuds than the average man. But that's average; it only happens because more women than men fall into the "I have lots of taste buds" category. Most of us humans have very roughly equal numbers of taste buds. Moreover, though, it seemed to be quite the opposite; I thought this thing had a strong, unpleasant taste, and my friend thought it was awesome.

Then I remembered an extra clue: Jessica likes to put salt on just about everything, and has acknowledged this before; I, on the other hand, almost never salt things. It seemed like she had less of a salt sense than I do. So I went looking to see if it's possible that she just has fewer salt taste buds than I do. It turns out, no, there's no such things. Taste buds taste everything. I had a vague feeling that the taste map thing we learned in school was maybe an over-simplification, but it turns out it's complete BS. So no, she doesn't have fewer salt taste buds than I do. So that leaves a few possibilities:

• She has fewer taste buds than I do in total (well, technically, a lower density of taste buds, but whatever).
• Her sense of salt taste specifically is somehow weaker than mine. For example, perhaps the sodium pumps in her cells have a mutation that makes them work... umm, better or worse, whichever would result in her tasting salt less.
• We just perceive it differently. She likes the taste of salt more than I do, for example.
• Mine happened to be saltier than hers. Oops.

So that leads us to the experiment we're designing. The general consensus (such that there is) is that there are five tastes: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and savory (umami). Those all have things that would be easy to dilute and sample (a little bit of salt water; some sugar water; maybe some coffee or cocoa powder in water; lemon juice; MSG). So, I don't have the full design yet, but basically we can test how dilute of a concentration each of us can taste. We need to figure out proper "I think I taste it" controls, though, so any suggestions would be welcome. And, to be clear, this will absolutely happen; this is the sort of thing my friends and I do.

So anyhoo. Isn't taste weird? I'm just glad this thing tasted super salty to me, because most of flavor is really smell, and that's way more complicated.

Anyhoo, here's a summary for today:

• Shrimp Taco: 0.6 moles
• Puerco Borracho: 0.2 moles
• Science: 1 hellamole

Tomorrow I may get a Scallop Taco again, but I may go with two new things. Does anyone have a recommendation that isn't super salty?

Eat the Menu Interlude: Tacodeli vs Torchy's

This is part of an ongoing 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.

As I mentioned yesterday, the readers of the Austin Chronicle voted local chain Torchy's Tacos as "Best Taco" and "Best Taqueria" over my beloved Tacodeli. I'd been to Torchy's several times, and even enjoy them quite a bit, but I didn't think they measured up to Tacodeli... but I hadn't really measured them, so I couldn't be sure. Today I fixed that.

The closest thing I could get to a consensus from friends in family was that the Green Chili Pork (bottom left in the photo) and Ranch Hand (bottom right) were the best things at Torchy's, so I got both to pit them again the wonderful Tacodeli Mole Taco Chicken (top of the photo). It was definitely a wonderful lunch, but I was determined to give these all as honest of a rating as I could.

Of course, for starters, Tacodeli's Mole Taco Chicken got its 1.0 moles (in that it's what the whole scale is based on, that's unsurprising). It was nice to experience that "Grilled chicken smothered with a traditional, made-from -scratch mole. Garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco." again, though. Yum!

The Green Chili Pork, "Slow roasted pork carnitas simmered with green chilies and topped off with queso fresco, cilantro, onions, and a lime wedge served on a corn tortilla with our green salsa," was definitely a strong contender. While it tasted mostly like pork (until I smothered it in the green salsa), that pork was very well cooked, so I don't fault it. I'd said back on day 4 that other tacos in Austin were probably in the 0.3-0.5 mole range, but that didn't turn out to be true. I give Green Chili Pork from Torchy's a respectable 0.6 moles. Still not enough to dethrone Tacodeli, though.

Would the Ranch Hand, "Tender strips of beef fajita over scrambled eggs and topped off with cheese. Served on a flour Tortilla with our spicy Diablo sauce," do the job? It was definitely a pile of cheesy goodness, which puts it above the Green Chili Pork... but not far enough above. I give it 0.7 moles.

Not that this is at all surprising to anyone coming to this blog in particular, but today's test pretty much confirmed what I was already thinking. Tacodeli's tacos are just more... complex than Torchy's. That appeals to me, but I understand that it doesn't necessarily appeal to everyone. Perhaps one of these days I'll figure out a way to do this test more blind, but, for now, I'm going to have to trust that I'm not just tricking myself into thinking Tacodeli is better. Until then, I will continue to deliciously deceive myself, if necessary.

BTW, one thing that's both nice and annoying about Torchy's is that it wouldn't take me long at all to Eat the Menu. I'll very likely work my way through that one after I finish Tacodeli (and take some time off from tacos to mix things up).

Tomorrow I'll return to my walk through the Tacodeli menu. I actually have a special to try: Shrimp Tacos. Any suggestions for taco #2?

Eat the Menu: Tacodeli, Day 9 and 10

This is part of an ongoing 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.

I got distracted from posting on Friday, and then, well, kinda forgot over the weekend. Don't worry; I maintained my almost creepy obsession with eating everything at Tacodeli. I just didn't get around to posting about it.

Friday I had the Heather and Al Pastor (I had to get them to go, which greatly reduces their yummy appearance, so don't be too harsh on them based solely on the photo).

The Heather is described on the menu as "Grilled Mexican queso fresco, refried black beans, with guacamole, lettuce and tomato. Wow!" I inherently distrust any menu item with "Wow!" in its discussion, so Heather was starting against a bit of a wall. As expected, the Heather was good, but I'm not sure "Wow!" was called for. I rate her at 0.7 moles.

The Tacodeli Al Pastor is a fairly standard Al Pastor, "Diced and trimmed pork marinated and cooked in our homemade adobo sauce using chipotle, ancho and guajillo peppers. Garnished with cilantro & onions." One of these days I'm going to have to put up the Tacodeli Al Pastor vs. the Al Pastor at another local taqueria, Changos, because frankly the Tacodeli Al Pastor didn't blow me away. I give it 0.6 moles.

Today was both stronger and weaker than Friday. To make up for the meh-ness of Friday's choices, I finally crossed a second mole off my list: the Mole Taco Sirloin. I paired it with the Tacoloco, "Adobo braised brisket with caramelized onions and mushrooms topped with guacamole, cilantro and queso fresco." Pretty much every word in that description is among my favorite foods, but somehow Tacoloco didn't really do it for me. I give it 0.4 moles, which I'm pretty sure is my lowest non-hat rating so far.

In contrast, the Mole Taco Sirloin ("Grilled steak smothered with a traditional, made-from-scratch mole. Garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco.") was excellent, and honestly I'm not yet sure which I'd rate higher in a blind test. I'm giving it 0.95 moles (because I think chicken is every-so-slightly better), but it was so very delicious.

Summary:

• The Heather: 0.7 moles
• Al Pastor: 0.6 moles
• Tacoloco: 0.4 moles
• Mole Taco Sirloin: 0.95 moles

Tomorrow I'm going to do something slightly different. The readers of the Austin Chronicle awarded Torchy's Tacos "Best Taco" and "Best Taqueria" in their annual poll. I'm pretty sure I prefer Tacodeli, but perhaps that's just because Tacodeli used to be far away and thus more "exotic." To test that out, tomorrow a coworker and I are hitting both (well, I'm going to Tacodeli and he's going to Torchy's) and bringing to-go orders back to the office for a head-to-head. I want to go with something I know from Tacodeli, so I'll be pitting my beloved Mole Taco Chicken from Tacodeli against... something from Torchy's. I want whatever I pick to be pretty much the best thing at Torchy's, but so far there isn't a clear winner among my friends (and one of the recommendations was something I know isn't my favorite at Torchy's). So... any suggestions?