Show me your Taco in Austin, Texas

301 San Jacinto Blvd.
Austin TX, 78701

Well, we finally made it back to The Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant like promised. My usual suspect Jeff was not able to make it, so I met up with Chris Lynn @atx4u, editor-in-chief of republicofaustin.com, and my buddy Jorge Reyes to see if this place had changed any. BOY! what a 180 turn around since the first time we went. Shit, the first time we practically had to beg to get in. I don't know about you, but when I was a waiter if we closed at 11. We closed at 11, not 10:45.

Show Me Your Taco was invited to a Food Bloggers Happy Hour and tasting at Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant. To be honest I am not sure if I would have ever made it back if it weren’t for this event. I figured well, I can go ahead and get it out of the way. Rio Grande was introducing a new menu and invited the foodie community to check it out, plus they were also having a margarita tasting to see which Margarita should be their signature drink. But as always, we are talking tacos not drinks.

A few of my foodie friends said they felt like the food was way too salty. I didn’t feel like what I tried was too salty but since this was a majority of the feedback the food must have been. Since this was a taste testing of the new menu, they made sure to let Rio Grande Owner and Executive Chef Ron Hurley know their thoughts. Here’s the best part. He listened.

I went back to Rio Grande about three weeks later to have dinner with some friends. Ron was walking around greeting people, serving dishes and being an excellent host. When he got to our table, not only did Ron remember me from the Food Blogger Happy Hour he mentioned that he had gotten feedback that the food was salty. He said he took the feedback and made adjustments to cut down the salt amount. He said that he loved the feedback and it made a change to the dishes for the better.

The Food. There were additional items but we’ll focus on the main three.

El Rey tacos – What I liked most about these tacos was the simplicity. It was steak, avocado, red onions, jalapeños, tampico sauce, and queso fresco.

Nine pepper shrimp – We couldn’t get Ron to tell us what the 9 peppers were. But the main thing was that they were big, they were spicy and they were good.

Mahi tacos – I swear he can just call this Ceviche Tacos. These tacos were topped with a mango salsa and spicy slaw. I liked this one. It was also a tongue twister they was they served it.

The Rio Grande is not the most authentic Mexican a food place in Austin. Ron’s view of Healthy Tex Mex should tell you that. But they do have a chef and staff that care and the changes from the interior to their food shows that they are listening.

3.5 out of 5 Tacoism.

OMG I cannot believe it has taken this long but we are finally at the end. Last time we reviewed The Taco Truck in front of Laureles and Taco loco where Taco Loco won with their cheesy as hell quesadilla.

Who will win this time? Taco Marianna’s or El Bait Shop?

Taco Marianna’s
As soon as I walked in this place I swear I was back in the valley. Everything was pink and green and the food was very bad for you. PERFECT!

The Tacos
Adobo – Seriously. I think I was getting tacoed out. The taco looked good. The tortilla was a little greasier than the rest we had all day but all I could muster was “It’s good” That’s it.

2.5 out of 5 on the Tacoism chart.

Tripas for my buddy Todd – I ordered the tripas taco so my new Iowa buddy Todd could see firsthand what a tripas taco looked liked. Just the thought of a tripas taco back at Taco Loco seemed to stop him in his tracks. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the best Tripas taco I have ever had. In fact, probably towards the bottom of tripas tacos I’ve had in my lifetime. I like my tripas well done but these just seemed over cooked and burned.

2.5 out of 5 on the Tacoism chart.


El Bait Shop.
Let me start off by saying these are not nice people after 9:00pm. Something about an Iowa law that once a restaurant turns into a bar then NO ONE under age can enter. No ifs, ands, or buts.

We literally got there at 9:10 and there were plenty of families sitting outside finishing up their dinners.
Cory and I walked in and asked if we and the families that accompanied us could sit outside and eat one fish taco. NO! We were told. We explained our situation, that we were in town with a bunch of people and just need a place to sit to finish one fish taco….The waitress couldn’t make her own decision and needed to ask the manager…NO! We were told. We then asked if we could eat one fish taco while that family waited outside…”Let me ask the manager” Apparently nobody can make decisions at this place without consulting the manager….AND I was surprised that he never came out to see who these people were that kept asking questions. We were told the kitchen was still cleaning up and could get us one plate of the fish tacos. We agreed to one plate of their fish tacos……BOY did we start a ruckus for no reason at all. I would have rather just been denied tacos then eating what they had to server. The awesome part to this whole ordeal was that my cam battery died right before the tacos came out….It was like that camera knew it wouldn’t matter.

The Taco
Fish Taco - Yes, I am going to say it. I am a nice guy and try to be fair with my taco reviews but this fish taco was the worst taco I have ever had. The batter was just too strong. No fish taste whatsoever. I kept burping the batter taste all the way back to Montezuma.
I would say I would go back next year but the waitress was just overall mean and rude.

1 out of 5 on the Tacoism chart

Conclusion for Round three?
Taco Marianna’s wins it…but what kind of competition did they really have from El Bait Shop?

So putting all the places together I would have to say that Tasty Tacos and Taco Loco tied for first.
Taco Loco - Tasty Tacos
Taco Truck in front of Los Laureles
Los Laureles
Taco Marias
El Bait Shop fish taco.

There we go for the Des Moines Taco Tour. It was really really fun. I made friends. And found a couple of taco places I’ll visit again next year.

Thanks Des Moines for your hospitality! See you next year.

Every year the wife, the kids and I go to this little lake right outside of Montezuma, IA, called Lake Ponderosa for 4th of July. We do it every year because it is a blast. Gram lives on a lake front lot with her own private dock. We also get the best seats on the lake to watch the Fireworks spectacular, and, as always, a great big helping of Funger. That’s Fun and Danger mixed into one. However, this year we were going to stay extra long because my SIL was getting married to one of the coolest dudes around.

WOW, 2 ½ weeks in little ol Montezuma, IA, Monte as the locals call it. What to do? Well, Des Moines is about an hour away…….shit, TACO TOUR of Des Moines should fit in nicely. But I had to plan it right because I would be busy both weekends while up there. I figured the Monday the 6th would work best for my crew because of the wedding the next weekend and we would be all week getting ready.

I found my date, now to find some taco joints or foodies in Des Moines. I began to Google taco places in Des Moines. As I searched I kept coming across this one website eatoutdesmoines.com. This seemed to be the only site in Des Moines that was food based. This site featured a chat room but I had to create a login to participate. When I got my email confirmation, I noticed that it was from a real email address, not one of those DONT-CONTACT-ME@partypooper.com. The email came from Cory Mitchell. So, I replied back to the email to see if Cory would like to participate in a taco tour of Des Moines. I was really hoping to get a reply back because with two sites called showmeyourtaco.com and eatoutdesmoines.com I really felt it was meant to be. Cory replied back and he was all for it.

Now we had to find the right places to go. I contacted a couple of people at the Des Moines Register to see if they would like to participate or help. W.E. Moranville and Sophia Ahmad couldn’t make it but offered some suggestions from themselves and other readers.
After it was all said and done, we had this final list of taco locations:

Tasty Tacos
Los Laureles
A Taco Truck in front of Laureles, just because I saw it while at Los Laureles
Taco Loco
Taco Mariannas
El Bait Shop – Beer Good, Fish taco not so good.

The brave team of tacologists from Monte included my family – Erika and our four kids. Gary, Crystal, Dallas, Blair, Joey, Nancy, Charlie, Whitney and Drew.

The Des Moines team included Cory, Todd, Roger, Traci, Jim and few others that joined and left during the tour.

We started the day at Tasty Tacos and what a place to start. First of all the actual establishment used to be something else. Not sure what it could have been before but I do know it is the original location. I asked Linda, the owner, what she recommended and without hesitation she said an “Original Flour Taco”. Ok, what’s that? A fried flour tortilla stuffed with meat, beans, lettuce and cheese. I had never seen tacos like the way they make ’em before. They looked like a puffy taco but weren’t. I don’t know who she’s trying to fool. These shells were not your normal flour torts. She was hiding something but I guess that’s the secret. More about that later, I spoke to some people that shed some light on the “flour” shell.

The Tacos

Original - We all had this taco. Pretty tasty. What really made these tacos was the shell. It was a soft, crispy and warm. I didn’t know what to expect on the rest of the tour but I knew these tacos were gonna be hard to beat. The only possible criticism against them is that they aren’t “authentic.” But then I thought “What is authentic?” All I know is that Richard and Antonia Mosqueda made these at home back in the 60s’ and decided to try and sell them. To me, that’s authentic.

I really can’t explain how good they are. One can do the trick but you gotta get two because they are so good. I didn’t get two on the tour but I can say that we went back to Tasty Tacos a few days later while picking up wedding stuff. This was the only taco place to get a repeat visit. Des Moines truly does have a gem with Tasty Tacos. All agreed that these tacos were delicious.

Wanna open one is Austin? I’ll help.

4.5 out of 5 on the Tacoism chart

Next Stop, Los Laureles.

We walked in and I swear we had walked into one of my tios’ houses. There were pictures and paintings of waterfalls and ranches all over place, and a hint of mothballs in the air. Pretty authentic looking; now let’s check out the tacos.

Walking in we obviously surprised the crew because I guess they never get a run of 20 people wanting tacos all at the same time. I spoke to the waiter and asked what his best tacos are, and he shot back “we got steak tacos, it just depends on what you like” Well, if I was going to order what I liked I wouldn’t have asked for a recommendation. So I asked what do most people order “Steak” he said. Great I’ll take one of those… and a lengua…..and a Ceviche Tostada…..and a Carta Blanca. Ruh roh, I ordered three items. Hope I can handle it.

The Tacos

Steak – Nothing really exciting here. Meat was tender but really like the others I have had before.

Lengua – Something about the tongue that made it really rich. Again, nothing really exciting but good.

Ceviche Tostada – OK, so one thing I haven’t mentioned was that I was really sick the morning after the taco tour. It could have been the fact that I ate 8-10 tacos in a 4 hour time frame; it could be that I downed a few beers when we got back to Monte, it could have been the half heated hot pocket I ate at 2am. But my spidey senses tell me that it was the Ceviche tostada. First of all, one rule of thumb is don’t eat raw fish 1200 miles away from the nearest coast. Second, it wasn’t as Ceviche as I was hoping. It was slathered in cocktail sauce and I really never got the hint of lime I was expecting which gave it a fishy taste. Needless to say I think I ate ½ of it and I was done. It was OK, but I probably would not order it again regardless of my health the next morning.

2 out of 5 on the Tacoism chart

Conclusion for Round one?

HANDS DOWN TASTY TACOS. They served up a unique, never seen before taco. The shell was out of sight, and I think that is what really made the taco. Again, it was obvious that this was no ordinary taco shell. So we talked to some people and did a little bit of investigating, and it turns out that their shell may be a form of Indian bread Naan. I have no proof to back this up but this seemed to be the popular belief among people in Des Moines.

There we go for round one for the Des Moines Taco Tour.
Tune in next week when we go to a taco truck next to Los Laureles and Taco Loco.