[1/4 done with 2017]

 

With March coming to an end, we are officially 1/4 of the way finished with 2017. Originally, finding the PERFECT TACO started as a New Year's resolution that I shared with my 8th grade students, but it has grown to be so much more than that. It has become:

• a reason to travel, which I love to do but always find an excuse not to
• a reason to meet friends and have a meal together even when things are "too busy"
• an outlet to express myself in writing
• an opportunity to try all kinds of new restaurants
• a chance to grow in marketing, which I've come to find I'm very interested in

Throughout this process [so far], I've:

• traveled to Texas with one of my very best friends. I was able to visit NASA, cry a lot, and have some of the best tacos of my life.
• revisited my alma mater/college town after too long away. This vastly renewed my pride in my University and love for Columbia, MO.

Over the next three months, I will be visiting:

       Branson, MO            Eureka Springs, AR            Tulsa, OK            Chicago, IL

Later this year, I plan/hope to make my way to:

       Denver, CO             Chicago, IL [again]           New York, NY

This has been a fun journey so far, and I hope that as I continue on my search I can bring you content in an even better way. I'm looking at going "live," creating a Snapchat, and am still looking for someone to help me build a ratings tracker website.

As always, thanks for stopping by! I can't wait to "taco 'bout it" again with you soon!

- Kimberly

Taqueria la Creacion (Midtown/Museum District, Houston, TX)

To be honest, this taco review remained a bit of a mystery for a while. I spent weeks reaching out to different sources trying to find a name for this review! It wasn't until yesterday (March 13th) that I actually got all the info I wanted in line!

To start from the beginning, on Saturday night in Houston, we ventured to a local brewery owned by 3 guys who just love beer. Under The Radar Brewery is open Thursday-Sunday for varying hours with live music on Fridays. The brewery itself was a great experience. I ordered a flight to try a little bit of a handful of brews, they had a cool biergarden with picnic tables, games, etc. Really low key. "Under The Radar," if you will [kill me later]. BUT, this post is not about the brewery, it is about the magical taco truck we found in the adjoining yard.

 

It was nighttime when we were there, so these photos are borrowed from Yelp, but I wanted you to see the truck in all its glory. Now, in comparison to the tacos that we had the night prior, these were definitely more on the traditional taco side. With honesty at the forefront, I'm not a huge soft corn tortilla person, but when in Texas on a taco mission -- you try everything.

 

I ended up with two fajita (steak) tacos [pictured above]. They had double tortillas, and lacked a sauce or cheese of any kind. From what I know, this is characteristic of most traditional tacos.

Let me be honest with you guys, I didn't think I was going to like these... but I was very WRONG. Though not what I picture in my head when I think of the PERFECT taco, these were delicious and a far cry from all the fusion and Tex Mex tacos I've been trying since starting these reviews. The meat was seasoned beautifully, the ingredients were fresh, and price wise they were a steal! Definitely a great taco! And a wake up call to the fact that I need to make sure I'm not counting out the traditional side of things, because the perfect taco could most definitely fall on that side of the spectrum!

If ever I find myself in Houston again, I'd like to find this truck again and try their other options!

Rating (out of 5):

Artego Pizza (Midtown, KC)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, FRIENDS!!

It's Tuesday again, and that means I've got another taco review for you! Maybe this will tip you off on where to go with your sweetheart tonight, even!

I want to be honest with you - I love tacos, and I love eating them all the time, but it gets old for the people around me. This week I went a little outside the box for my taco trip, heading to Artego Pizza. Now you're probably thinking, they have tacos at a pizza joint?!

While I'm sure that many pizza joints do have tacos, I instead went the TACO PIZZA route. I had a Groupon, it was #NationalPizzaDay, and honestly, a small part of me wondered if the perfect taco did in fact come on a pizza crust...

Essentially, Artego is a pizza place/pub in Midtown that has a great menu and cool look. I did not think to take any photos of the restaurant, but the vibe was really cool so I wanted to include this in my experience recap. Thankfully, their website had this cool snap shot, which I think shows the overall feel. It was a laid back environment, with portraits of a number of music legends all over the walls.

Artego offers their pizzas in S, M, L and then a "Z" size, which is half of a small pizza. With the Groupon, you paid $15 for $25 worth of food/drinks, so we ordered two small pizzas ($12.99 each). We obviously tried their Taco Pizza, and then we tried their "39th Street" specialty pizza.

Their Taco Pizza consisted of the following ingredients:
- Artego fermented crust
- Seasoned ground beef
- Homemade Perez family salsa
- Tomatoes
- Onions
- Black olives
- Cilantro
- Fresh garlic
- Cheddar cheese
- Sour cream

 

Overall, the food was really great and we had wonderful service! If you check out Artego's website, you'll see that they have a baller crust process. With the perfect combination of crust fermentation, herbs, oils, and bake time it is the perfect combination of fluffy, but crunchy. Maybe the best crust I've had aside being in Italy. The toppings worked really well together, with everything tasting really fresh (even the onions were not overcooked!!). I wasn't sure about the sour cream, but even that was really tasty!

To be honest, if this blog were about rating PIZZA, I think I would give this pizza 5 slices! Alas, we are grading tacos... and while I thought it was really yummy, I'm assured now that the perfect taco is, in fact, in a shell. With that said--

Rating (out of 5):

  

Q39 (Midtown, KC)

I'm thinking a good routine to stick to (for now) is to post my taco reviews on Tuesdays. Everybody knows about Taco Tuesday, and while I want to spread the word on great options for any day of the week, this will be perfect for now!

Similarly to the last post, this week covers another stop I made during KC Restaurant Week. Now technically, Q39 is a BBQ joint... I've been hearing about it for a couple years now (because KC people are obsessed with their BBQ), but being a pretty loyal customer to Bryant's and LC's, I hadn't ventured down to Midtown to try it yet.

Q39 was initially born as a competition BBQ team called the "Muchin Hogs." They won tons and tons of awards, people loved their rubs and smoked meats, so naturally the idea to build a store front came to light. People around Kansas City have great things to say about Q39. Most recently, Travis Kelce (TE for the Chiefs) told contestants on his dating show "Catching Kelce," that it was the best in the city. With all the great press, the cool story, and friends recommending it, when I saw they had a lunch menu for RW I went ahead and made a reservation.

Because we went for lunch, rather than dinner, the meal was $15 and provided two courses. Best part is, even though they're a BBQ place, they had tacos! Based on the menu they provided, here's what I ordered:
- Course 1: Pulled Pork TaQos (with a white bean cassoulet)
- Course 2: Warm Chocolate Brownie (with vanilla bean ice cream)

I really, really loved the food at Q39! By course:
- Course 1: The tacos were of the pulled pork variety (perfect for my BBQ loving heart), with a slaw and chipotle mayo. I thought the combination of the ingredients was great and you could tell everything was created from scratch in house. My only complaint was the juice dripping from the tacos, just because they were served on a cutting board style plate so there was nowhere for it to go!
- Course 2: For the lunch version of RW you skip right to the dessert and I ordered the brownie. It came with chocolate sauce, caramel, and pecans, plus a couple scoops of ice cream. I'm not sure how to review brownies, because most of the time even a bad brownie is still a brownie that I would eat... but I guess I could say it wasn't the best brownie I've ever had?

Again, as far as service goes, I don't want to judge a restaurant's service based on their busiest week of the year. We waited, but we expected that. They were busy, so we expected that. There was a small flub with my meal, but the server fixed it and gave us a free Apple Crumble, so it was all good. I would definitely go back on a less busy occasion to try more!

Rating (out of 5):