Taco Joint — Restaurant in Austin

Lured here by high ratings, I was sadly disappointed by the food I was served. The first clue that my food wasn’t going to be fantastic were the crates filled with bags of Mission tortillas stacked in the hallway near the bathrooms.

Flash-forward to me and my grub, face to face. That moment when our eyes met and our hearts flutter. But nope, didn’t happen. My grub was pedestrian tacos slung like grub for a school lunch. I’m having fun with my language here, they weren’t terrible, just “weak sauce” as it were.

I had an egg+bacon breakfast taco and a beef “street taco”. I requested habanero salsa and a verde too.

1. breakfast taco: It was scrambled eggs with a generous portion of small bacon pieces mixed in. It was served open face in a flour tortilla (as requested), wide open in a paper tray. Even though I got to my table and got to eating right away the tortilla was cold and a bit dry, not a good look for a flour tortilla. It may have had some cheese on it, I don’t recall. I only recall having stopped eating mid-way.

2. “street” taco: Like the breakfast taco this was served basically open faced in a paper tray, but on corn tortillas (at my request). It had what I believe was stewed beef that was tender and reasonably tasty, but without any charring. From a “street” taco I was certainly expecting something more asada style with some crispy edges, yet it was not exactly guisado, not exactly asada, more “school lunch”. It was topped with queso (fresco I believe) and some sauce and onions. It did not taste bad despite the non-descript meat preparation. However the double-layered yellow corn tortillas (white corn wasn’t an option) were rather soggy and fell apart as I ate the taco. They did not smell or taste like much of anything.

Atop both of my tacos I put an ample serving of habanero salsa. It was yellow, but disappointingly un-picante (picoso-less?). It still had some pleasant acidity to it.

The entire experience left me disappointed. These were the last tacos I had in Austin. So-so at best, bad tortillas and weak sauce...

Don't get me wrong, the tacos are pretty solid here, but the tortas and carnitas hash are where it's at.

Tortas are essentially mexican sandwiches with warm, fluffly bread and marinated, juicy meat and other toppinds inside, served with plaintain chips. I've tried all of the tortas, and while all of them are very good, the best ones are the ones that have marinated pulled pork since it's consistently flavorful and juicy, such as the Ahogada and the Sloppy Jose. The ones made with beef milanesa are also very good but they are a bit harder to eat since the sear beef can be a bit hard to cut. Meanwhile, the Carnitas Hash offered on weekends is much like any brunch hash in its ingredients, but uses the same marinated, juicy pork used on the tortas so it's amazing.

I've also tried most of the lunch tacos and the breakfast tacos - breakfast tacos are simple and good, and work particularly well with the fresh salsas offered, while the lunch tacos have more complex flavors with juicy interiors and varied toppings. They have several types of salsas here like most mexican restaurants, but the ones that stand out to me are the smoky chipotle cream, the green avocado salsa, and the classic mild red fresh salsa.

This place is pretty casual with a nice covered outdoor area which is dog friendly. Service isn't always the fastest, but it's always friendly and the...

BREAKFAST REVIEW

5/5 Taco Experience! I came to Austin, in part, because of the tacos and these were the best I had!

We went around 10:30 AM on a Saturday morning to a line of maybe 10-15. Have no fear! The line moves pretty quickly and we only had to wait 5-10 minutes.

My friend who I was visiting is a regular here and he ordered for me. This was not a mistake. Here is what I got:

Migas open face taco - This was my first time trying Migas, whichfrom my understanding is a tex-mex version of chilaquiles where you have eggs with veggies and tortilla chips cooked in it. A great breakfast taco to start

El senior Crockett - one of their special tacos with grilled onions and peppers and smokey gouda cheese. Not your typical steak taco but something really unique. The beef strips could have been a bit more tender but the flavor was all there.

Street Taco - classic steak taco...perfectly cooked steak, caramelized onions. It doesn't get better than this!

All that was enough to fill me up (and I eat a lot).

Of course, I also had to get the Topo Chico to get the full Texas vibe.

Tips: Sit outside if the weather is good...the vibes are great and maybe you'll get to pet a dog or two! Don't skip the salsa bar...so many good salsas to put on your tacos.

Next time I am in Austin, I will...