Taco Loco

Friday April 9th 2010
Taco Loco, 4th and Washington, Philadelphia, PA

First of all, notice the abandoned baby stroller in front of the truck. I had nothing to do with that. Possible abductions aside, this place is good, I would say the best Mexican food I’ve had in Philadelphia. Slight east coast inflation, but better than average at $2 a taco.
Only you speak. The woman working, who was visibly bummed (and I mean, why not? Stuck in that trailer all day.), approached the window and gave me a stare. She was looking right at me, so I told her what I wanted, a pollo taco and a barbacoa taco. She scribbled it down and left the window, no repeating the order back to me to make sure she got it right, no ‘just a couple minutes’, no small talk, she gets the information and assembles the product. We wouldn’t have had much to talk about anyways.
If you can see here, the shelf above the sink is loaded with cartons of cigarettes. Classic Philly style, branching the business out in different directions. Not always the sign of a good place, but the sign of a real one.

The taco’s were done in about five minutes. The barbacoa, a slow cooked beef, was exceptional, very moist and flavorful, the meat flaked apart nicely. Large portions of meat too, topped with diced onions and cilantro with a lime wedge on the side, double layered corn tortilla.
The chicken was also quite nice. Shredded, cooked in hot Mexican spices, providing a good kick, but nothing too overwhelming.
I ate the barbacoa first. Enjoying it immensely, and also because I was sick of trying to hold it and drive at the same, I ate about the last third of it in one bite. This third contained an undetected fat globule which I was forced to swallow having already mashed it up in with the rest of the meat and tortilla, unpleasant, but what can you do. Then a similar thing happened with the chicken, I was really having a good time eating it, and then in one of the last bites there was a crunch, and then another one. Not like the crunch of an onion, and chicken has never crunched on me before. I don’t know what it was, possibly a strange piece of the animal, cartilage, bone perhaps.
Don’t let this deter you from Taco Loco. Everyone makes mistakes and that lady was fresh out of love to cook with. Much better than most of the other Mexican places I’ve tried in that neighborhood, and easy to park at.