Tacos – The Saboscrivner

Wako Taco

Wako Taco (http://www.wakotaco.com/web/) is a casual Tex-Mex restaurant on Ronald Reagan Boulevard in Longwood, located directly next door to Hourglass Brewing, a huge brewery and 240-seat taproom that always has 40+ beers on tap, in very cool, nerd-chic surroundings. There are a few tables at Wako Taco, but the two establishments are connected by a doorway, allowing people to bring Wako Taco’s delicious food into the huge brewery to enjoy there.

I think I first discovered Wako Taco in 2016, and I’m ashamed I haven’t gotten around to reviewing it yet, since I have always been a fan. For one thing, I love the lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) mask motif, in its logo and decorations. I hadn’t been in for quite some time, and they have since displayed all kinds of colorful masks worn by different luchadores… and they are all for sale! (Yes, I was tempted. No, I didn’t buy one. This time.) I couldn’t help but think of the very cool El Santo Taqueria I visited on Miami’s Calle Ocho, in the heart of Little Havana, back in 2019. That place was so rad, especially with how hard they went with the lucha libre theming, but I greatly prefer the food at Wako Taco.
Note that the Wako Taco folks also displayed a Masters of the Universe Castle Greyskull on the top left shelf, along with He-Man and Skeletor Funko Pops. That was never my thing, not as a kid nor as a nerdy adult collector, but I appreciate anyone’s cool collections.

You can read the menu online, but I took shots of the menu on large screens above the counter where you order, in part to show off the continuing lucha libre mask theming. You can get larger images of the menu if you right-click these photos and open them in new tabs.

Here’s the other side:

On my first visit to Wako Taco (as well as all my subsequent visits, come to think of it), I ordered the finest chimichanga ($13.75) of my life. Look at this work of art. Even taken years ago on an older, much crappier phone camera, it’s still beautiful and beguiling. For the uninitiated, a chimichanga is a deep-fried burrito. I just love the golden crispiness of the deep-fried flour tortilla that becomes a shell, encasing the meat, beans, cheese, and rice inside. It is topped with diced tomatoes, queso, and drizzles of guacamole and sour cream. You can get your choice of meats, and this photo above contained my usual, spicy pulled puerco pibil.

Below you can see my most recent chimichanga. Better camera, worse photo. It was totally my mistake for trying ground beef instead of the superb pibil pork this time, and the green bell peppers chopped up on top would have been so much better sautéed, fajita-style, as they have been on all my past visits. This was an anomaly, I can assure you. It was still good, don’t get me wrong, but you never forget your first time.

This sandwich below is called the Dirty Concha ($9), and it contains Wako Taco’s outstanding puerco pibil and crunchy, pink pickled red onions on a sweet roll called a concha, kind of a neat alternative to a typical Mexican torta sandwich on a bolillo roll. Believe it or not, that pink stuff you’re seeing on top of the bun is sweet, sticky sugar stripes. It was a sandwich full of contrasts, between the piquant pibil, the tangy and slightly sweet pickled onions, the “habanero drizzle” I didn’t realize was there (but it would explain how surprisingly spicy the sandwich was, in a good way), and the sweet bun. It also came with a side of blue corn chips that could have used a little more salt, but were fine. I added a few to the sandwich to add a crunch factor to all those other amazing ingenious ingredients.

Below is another favorite I usually add onto my order, the namesake Wako Taco ($3.30), a breaded, fried, cheese-stuffed jalapeño topped with queso, refried beans, pico de gallo salsa, and sliced jalapeño, served in a soft flour tortilla. I can’t leave without one of these things!

And this is a new discovery, a hibiscus tinga ($4.80). Forgive the bad lighting, but this is a snack of actual hibiscus flowers, sautéed with onions and tomatoes and served in a soft flour tortilla. The menu said it would be topped with grilled cactus (nopales, which sound about as weird as eating hibiscus, although both are tasty), but I didn’t notice no nopales. It is a tasty dish for vegetarians and carnivores alike, though.

Wako Taco also has aguas frescas, those refreshing, non-carbonated, non-alcoholic drinks I love to see at any Mexican restaurant (and judge the ones that don’t have them). On my most recent visit, they had horchata (creamy rice milk flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, so great for cutting the heat after a spicy bite) and jamaica (pronounced “ha-MY-kuh,” usually a dark red or purplish color, flavored with hibiscus flowers and lots of sugar). I ordered an horchata, but I was sad they didn’t have piña (pineapple), a favorite flavor from past visits. Sometimes I would even swing by and grab a piña agua fresca while running errands on hot days when I wasn’t ordering any food.

But those times were few and far between, because I find it hard to be in the neighborhood of Wako Taco (sometimes visiting Acme Superstore, Longwood’s museum-like comic book and collectible toy store) and not stopping by for a snack or a whole damn meal. Orlando has no shortage of awesome and authentic Mexican restaurants, but if you like Tex-Mex, and especially chimichangas, or if you like hanging out at breweries while you eat, this is definitely the place for you.

Pig Floyd’s Urban BBQ

Pig Floyd’s Urban BBQ (https://www.pigfloyds.com/) is a beloved, locally owned and operated restaurant in Orlando’s Mills 50 district, filled with some of our best local dining options. A lot of people credit it as being the best barbecue place in the city, despite not being the most traditional barbecue style. Proprietor Thomas Ward has combined Latin, Caribbean, and Asian culinary influences with delicious meats smoked low and slow, and that sets Pig Floyd’s apart from the crowd.

Earlier this year, I met a friend from the Orlando Foodie Forum out there for lunch on a weekend, which was admittedly my first visit to Pig Floyd’s in several years. I was happy to see there was a large, covered outdoor patio, which made me feel more at ease hanging out to eat there.

My friend ordered the banh mi sandwich ($11.99), which comes with a choice of oakwood-smoked pulled pork, tender char-grilled chopped chicken thighs, or deep fried pork belly with “lucky dragon” sauce, pickled vegetables, jalapeño, and garlic ginger aioli on a toasted baguette. It is about double the price of the excellent, traditional banh mi sandwiches available at so many great Vietnamese restaurants in Mills 50 district, but you get what you pay for, since none of those other places are serving meats of this quality.
His banh mi came with a side order of apple fennel slaw that he raved about.

I ordered the Mills 50 sandwich ($12.99), with oakwood-smoked brisket, house-made pimento cheese, caramelized onions, and red peppers served on a hoagie roll. It was a terrific choice, full of ingredients and flavors I love. The side order of sticky-sweet maduros (sweet fried plantains, one of my favorite dishes) was a perfect accompaniment to the rich, heavy sandwich.

Despite getting a sandwich featuring beef brisket, I couldn’t help myself from ordering a pork al pastor taco ($3.99), featuring pulled pork with roasted pineapple, onion, cilantro, and tomatillo sauce. It was so good — even better than it looks below.

I couldn’t believe I had stayed away from Pig Floyd’s for so long. It was even better than I remembered, so I intend to make my next visit a heck of a lot sooner, and to eventually work my way through Thomas Ward’s meat-centric menu.

Catrinas Mexican Fusion

Catrinas Mexican Fusion (http://catrinasmexicanfusion.com/) is one of Orlando’s newest Mexican restaurants. It opened right near my job earlier this year, on the busy corner of Semoran Boulevard and East Colonial Drive, in the former location of Garibaldi’s, another Mexican restaurant I had gone to literally dozens of times, and the original location of my beloved seafood restaurant High Tide Harry’s before that.

The management of Catrinas Mexican Fusion modernized the large space vacated by Garibaldi’s, and I love the new decor, full of bright murals and artwork featuring La Calavera Catrina, the fashionable female skeleton who is an artistic symbol synonymous with El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. This colorful, cartoony Catrina mural is more glamorous (and alive) in appearance, and she greets diners upon entering the restaurant.

As a fan of Jarritos, the delicious and refreshing Mexican sodas made with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, my eyes were instantly drawn to this huge display of different flavors of Jarritos in glass bottles with multicolored lights flashing behind them. I highly recommend the tangy mandarina (mandarin orange), piña (pineapple), and guava.

On this first lunch with a former co-worker and friend, she ordered queso dip ($5.99) and fresh guacamole ($5.49) to go with the fresh, crispy tortilla chips they bring to the table. The free chips also come with very good salsa that didn’t make its way into my photo.

I ordered the tacos Catrina ($9.99), with three tacos on fresh flour tortillas, grilled with cheese inside. You can select any combination of meats: steak, grilled chicken, carnitas (pork), al pastor (pork marinated in spices with onion and pineapple), chorizo (crumbled spicy sausage), and lengua (slow-cooked beef tongue). Me being me, I chose three of my go-to favorites, the al pastor, chorizo, and lengua. The tacos are topped with shredded iceberg lettuce, pico de gallo, and Mexican crema. They were delicious. Each one was better than the last.

I know some purists prefer corn tortillas, and Catrinas Mexican Fusion offers them too. You could order the similar tacos Mexicanos (also $9.99) with the same meat choices, but they would come on corn tortillas, topped with diced onions and cilantro, plus lime wedges on the side. Don’t get me wrong, I love this more traditional taco style too. That’s how they come at some of my favorite taquerias like Francisco’s Taco Madness and Tortas El Rey. But I appreciate really good flour tortillas, and this combination really hit the spot.

More recently, I picked up Catrinas takeout to bring back to work for myself and a valued co-worker who was having a birthday and wanted Mexican food. Her first choice wasn’t available, so she ordered the fish tacos ($14.99), with grilled fish, green and red bell peppers, and mango sauce on flour tortillas with a cheese crust. They also come with coleslaw on them, but she requested no coleslaw. She seemed to really like them, and I was impressed that the tacos clearly held fresh filets from a whole fish.

My first choice wasn’t available either, so I ordered the birria tacos ($12.99), an order of three tacos on corn tortillas with shredded, marinated birria beef, topped simply with diced onions and cilantro, with a side of consomme on the side. I’ve had birria at two other local restaurants that specialize in it, The Pass Kitchen and QuesaLoco, and both were great, but these were easily just as good.

I also got a single a la carte chile relleno ($4.99), listed as a side order on the last page of the menu. You can’t really see the golden-brown egg batter surrounding the cheese-stuffed poblano pepper in this photo, but I swear it is there, under all that “special sauce,” queso fresco, crema, and cilantro.

Catrinas was out of aguas frescas on my first visit to the restaurant, but this time I was able to order a mango agua fresca for my co-worker and a passion fruit agua fresca for myself ($3.99 each, for huge styrofoam cups). I really loved mine. Passion fruit is my latest flavor obsession, and I always appreciate any Mexican restaurant that serves aguas frescas. In fact, I often find myself judging Mexican restaurants that don’t offer al pastor pork, chorizo, and lengua as taco options, or aguas frescas as beverages. I am happy to report that Catrinas Mexican Fusion has it all. Working so close, I am sure I’ll be a regular in the months and years to come, and I wish them the best with this new restaurant. They are already off to a great start, so visit them soon!

QuesaLoco

I just got home from Orlando’s newest Mexican restaurant, QuesaLoco (https://quesaloco.com/), which opened for business TODAY, Saturday, January 15, 2022. I was the fifth person in line, about half an hour before it opened at 2:00, and they had a mariachi band playing festive, deafening music to make it a truly special, memorable occasion. But today wasn’t my first experience with QuesaLoco. Flash back with me to the fall of 2021, if you will — an era when some of us had received our boosters and were feeling somewhat hopeful for the first time in a while, in the era before we had ever heard of the Omicron Variant.

Last fall was when I first discovered QuesaLoco, in its original incarnation as a food truck, which I noticed while randomly driving by. The QuesaLoco food truck had been setting up in front of the Lotto Zone convenience store at 4550 North Goldenrod Road in Winter Park, between Aloma Avenue and University Boulevard, on Friday evenings and weekend afternoons and evenings. Unfortunately, I was thwarted by a ridiculously long line on that first attempt to stop. Always seeking the new and novel and figuring anyone lined up at an unfamiliar food truck knows what’s up, I went home and looked it up, and made a plan to visit the truck as soon as I was able — ideally when the line was shorter.

I headed straight there after work on a Friday evening in the fall, planning to get there 20 minutes before it opened at 6:00. I was the sixth person in line, and many more people queued up behind me. Of course it started to pour rain, but nobody ran for cover or got frustrated and left. Once the truck opened for business, they took orders very quickly and efficiently, and I think only about 15 minutes passed before I, lucky number six, got served. The truck had a crew of five people, and they were all hustling like crazy to get everyone’s food ready. I figured it was going to be good, but had no idea exactly what treasures I would be unboxing once I got home to my wife.

On that first visit, I started with a simple chorizo taco ($2.50), with crumbled spicy sausage, raw onions, and chopped cilantro on a very fresh, handmade corn tortilla. It was a triumphant taco, everything you hope a chorizo taco will look, smell, taste, and even feel like. The only thing you could do to improve this taco would be to increase its size, but this wasn’t the only thing I ordered.

Birria is a very trendy item in Mexican food these days — slow-braised shredded beef (or sometimes goat), served in tacos and other Mexican dishes (and sometimes even in ramen noodle soup!), usually accompanied by a dipping cup of rich consomme broth. QuesaLoco offered birria in several different ways, so I opted for the most unfamiliar, a mulita ($6). This was similar to a quesadilla, except instead of a flour tortilla, it was served as two fried corn tortillas stuffed with shredded birria beef, cheese, onion, and cilantro, dunked in consomme, and topped with sprinkles of cotija cheese before being wrapped up for me. I’ve never noticed mulitas on any other Mexican menus around here, but consider me a card-carrying convert to the mulita militia. (If only I still had my mullet!)
The extra cup of consomme on the side is a $1 upcharge, but I strongly recommend it, even if you aren’t ordering birria! Unlike some other birria consomme I’ve seen and tried elsewhere, this one wasn’t bright orange with oil, but a legitimate broth that was rich and flavorful, perfect to dip things in, but probably just as good to sip on a cool day.

Finally, the coup de grace: a torta, one of my favorite Mexican dishes, a sandwich full of al pastor (pork marinated in spices with pineapple and usually sliced off a rotating spit called a trompo), which is one of my favorite meats, period. This sensational, stupendous sandwich was $12, and worth every penny. It’s a truly titanic torta, the fresh, soft, lightly grilled roll stuffed with plenty of al pastor, melted cheese, cotija cheese, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and crema. I have always been a huge fan of the tortas from the venerable Tortas El Rey, and I think this torta can easily stand alongside them in the sandwich pantheon. After the small chorizo taco and the birria mulita, I got two additional meals out of this torta!

I ordered this carne asada quesadilla ($10) for my wife, and we were both blown away by how huge, heavy, and delicious it was.

Here’s a different angle. Like everything else, they were extremely generous with the meat, cheese, and cilantro. (She doesn’t like onions, so I always ask places to hold the onions for her. Me, I love onions, but I love her more.)

This outstanding limon (lime) agua fresca ($4.50 for a large) was so cold, refreshing, and delicious. It was pleasantly sweet without being cloying, and did not taste artificial at all. The sweetness was balanced perfectly by the acidic tang of real lime juice and the sweet, spicy chamoy and Tajin seasoning around the rim of the cup (a 50-cent upcharge). It splashed around in my cupholder on the drive home because they couldn’t put a lid on it for obvious reasons, but it was worth it.

I have been following QuesaLoco’s social media ever since that first visit, and they promised their long-awaited permanent restaurant location would be opening soon. Well, constant readers, that day was today, and the new location is open for business and already awesome.

The brick and mortar location of QuesaLoco is up and running at 971 West Fairbanks Avenue, a few doors down from Mediterranean Deli, home of the best gyro in Orlando and one of my Top Twelve Tastes of 2021.

After the staff cut the ribbon right at 2:00, they let us inside. The interior walls are covered with beautiful, colorful murals inspired by Mexican folk art, especially Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) imagery.

Even the restroom doors are painted:

The six-piece mariachi band was tearing it up! I had to shout my order over their brassy serenade (and through my unflattering-but-necessary N95 mask), but Silvia on the cash register rang everything up correctly.

After how much I loved the limon agua fresca from the food truck a few months ago, I was excited that they had so many flavors available here at the restaurant:

I ended up choosing pineapple and fresa (strawberry), which were $4 each. The strawberry surprised me by being very creamy, almost like melted strawberry ice cream. I drank a little on the way home, but saved plenty for my wife because I knew she would like it too. Pineapple is my go-to agua fresca flavor, and this one did not disappoint, but next time I’ll get different ones.

Once I got home, the first thing I tried was the taco de cecina ($4), a traditional taco from Tampico, Mexico. It features fried skirt steak (arrechera), chopped into small pieces and wrapped in two soft, fried corn tortillas, with diced onion and cilantro, sliced avocado, and crema, with grilled onions and a whole grilled, blistered jalapeño toreado on the side.

My wife usually likes sopes from one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Tortas El Rey, so I ordered her a sope from QuesaLoco ($5.50). Sopes are a fried masa corn disc (sometimes puffy, sometimes flatter like this one), topped with the al pastor pork I liked so much in my torta last time, refried beans, crumbled cotija cheese, and crema. I asked them to hold the lettuce, tomato, and onions, since the lettuce would have wilted on the drive home, and my wife isn’t into tomatoes or onions anyway.

Because I loved that beautiful torta so much on my visit to the food truck, I thought I might order another torta today, but wasn’t sure which meat I would choose. My decision was made for me when I saw QuesaLoco’s brand-new, expanded menu, with the option of the torta de la Barda ($15). This classic street sandwich from Tampico has everything: sliced ham, shredded beef, crumbled chorizo, pork jam, stewed chicharrones (pork skins), crumbled cotija cheese, refried beans, tomatoes, avocado, onions, and salsa verde on another perfectly soft Mexican roll. It is huge, but I put it away.

As I said earlier, birria is one of the house specialties at QuesaLoco. But since I had already sampled tacos, tortas, quesadillas, and the birria itself in my first-ever mulita, this time I couldn’t resist a new menu item: birria ramen ($12). Yes! They serve ramen noodle soup made with the consommé broth, onions, cilantro, and sliced radishes. I guess they must have larger bowls for customers who dine in, since my takeout order was divided into two smaller styrofoam cups. But that was fine with me, because it automatically divided it into two portions for me for later.

This is so unbelievably good. Better than it looks, better than you’re probably even thinking. It is the best kind of fusion cuisine — a dish that combines flavors and cultures, without detracting from either.

I’m so glad I was one of the first people in line at QuesaLoco on its opening day, because the line was pretty long when I left. People were wrapped around the side of the small plaza’s parking lot, and a few shot me dirty looks as I left with two large bags and two colorful cups. But just like going to the doctor’s office, you want to try to get to a hot new restaurant early, because the longer you wait, the more they might be slowed down. No matter when you go, rest assured that QuesaLoco will be worth the wait. If you loved the food truck, you’ll only find more to love in their beautiful dining room, with its lovely artwork and expanded menu. And if you never got to try the food truck (which is going on hiatus for a while), then you are in for such a treat. You can’t go wrong trying anything I ordered on either of my visits, but I don’t think anything on the new menu could possibly disappoint. Even though you won’t get the opening day experience with live mariachis blowing the roof off the place, you’re going to have an incredible meal… or two or three, if you order like I did.

Uncle Dendog’s

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been obsessed with comic books, to the point of making it a serious field of academic study. Heck, this food blog is even inspired by a comic book series called Chew. (Check the page heading, in case you’ve never glanced at it before.) But as much as I love the characters, I focus the most on the creators who write and draw them, and I can always identify their unique, defining styles. For example, the legendary Jack Kirby (co-creator of most of the Marvel characters you would recognize) specialized in burly, square-jawed heroes and imposing alien technology surrounded by crackling energy. Jim Lee‘s human figures look like flawless gods and goddesses. Arthur Adams draws huge monsters and super-cute women, always with extraordinary attention to detail. Kevin Maguire and Steve Lieber are masters of expressive faces, who can convey so much emotion — and especially humor — with just a look.

Where am I going with this? Well, as a self-proclaimed food writer, I don’t pretend to be the expert on food that I am on comics, but I feel like I’m at a point where I recognize the signature styles and flourishes of some of the talented chefs who prepare the food I love so much. I can always identify the best comic creators by their written voices and artwork, whether they work on a mainstream superhero comic, a crime graphic novel for “mature readers,” or a deeply personal, autobiographical, self-published story, and some chefs stand out to me the same way, even when they transcend cuisines.

Orlando is home to some real innovators and creative dynamos who have built a strong culinary culture here, and one of my favorite local chefs is Denni Cha. He has been cooking since he was nine years old, ever since his grandmother taught him to cook in the kitchen of her Korean restaurant. I first discovered his food in the summer of 2020, when he ran a Japanese pop-up called Itamae Densho out of The Local Butcher, the Winter Park meat market that also hosts previous Saboscrivner review subject Swine & Sons and Da Kine Poke. I reviewed the gorgeous, almost otherworldly looking chirashi bowls I brought home from Itamae Densho — maybe the most beautiful things I saw in 2020, an otherwise ugly and stressful year. They were like little landscapes in a bowl — multiple kinds of fresh fish and vegetables over rice, even adorned with edible flowers and ziggurats of fractal romanesco jutting past gleaming orbs of salmon roe.

Unfortunately, Itamae Densho is no more, but Chef Denni is back with his latest venture, something far removed from chirashi bowls but still totally in character and on brand: Uncle Dendog’s (https://www.instagram.com/uncle.dendogs/), a food truck (really a trailer) that specializes in Korean corn dogs and other street foods with a foreign, fusiony focus. Follow his Instagram page to see where he’s going to turn up next!

I was the first person to arrive at Uncle Dendog’s this past Friday night, set up outside Orlando Brewing, the brewery and taproom south and west of downtown Orlando. Not being a drinker, I had never been there before, so I didn’t know how busy it would get later or how the parking situation would be. But I do prefer to grab my food on the early side, especially since I was bringing it home after work.

I have taken the liberty of posting photos of the menu, although it may change from week to week or even night to night. I knew I had to try one of Uncle Dendog’s signature K-Dawgs, so it was just a question of choosing which one.
But I knew he had a new special, just weeks after opening for the first time, and that was what drew me out on this rainy evening.

This was it: “Not-So Native Fry Bread Tacos.” For many years, I’ve heard and read about Navajo-style tacos, a Southwestern delicacy of meat, cheese, peppers, corn, beans, sauces, and more, served on crispy, pillowy, salty, greasy fry bread, a traditional staple food of Native Americans throughout the American Southwest.

Fry bread may be delicious, but it has a fraught, controversial history in Navajo culture due to the lasting effects of colonialism, when the U.S. government gave the Navajo people flour, sugar, salt, and lard as they were forced to relocate onto desolate, dusty reservations where they could no longer grow traditional, healthy crops like corn, beans, and squash. There is a schism within the Native American community, and even among Native American chefs, about whether fry bread is an unhealthy, lasting symbol of oppression or a tasty treat born out of resistance and resilience. It is absolutely not my place to decide or judge which side is right, but I can say a few non-controversial things with certainty, though:
1.) Chef Denni Cha is of Native American (and Korean) descent,
2.) He told me a while back that he planned to offer fry bread tacos as a tribute to his Native American heritage, so I’ve been looking forward to them ever since, and
3.) They were one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Yes, in my LIFE.

But first things first: I asked Chef Denni’s lovely wife and partner, Monica, which K-Dawg (Korean corn dog) she recommended, and she told me to go with the Korean in Bogota ($10), a massive meat treat with the lightest, crispiest batter coating a perfect, smoky, salty sausage. Korean corn dogs are definitely Internet- and Instagram-trendy right now because of how photogenic and eye-catching they are, and this one was no exception. It was a true fusion: an all-beef Nathan’s hot dog lovingly skewered, dipped in a special batter, and fried until it is crispy outside and lusciously soft inside — an archetypal Korean corn dog even if I had ordered it plain. But Colombian hot dogs and hamburgers are famous for being served with lots of condiments and toppings, so this was a tribute to those — hence “Korean in Bogota.” More fusion. More loving, respectful tribute. Just like in comic books, this was a legit crossover.
As the menu said, the corn dog is topped with shiso-cilantro garlic aioli, salsa rosada, pineapple salsa, and crunchy potato sticks, and sprinkled with sugar, for a variety of colors, flavors, and textures — salty, crunchy, spicy, creamy, fruity, greasy, soft, cool, sweet, hot. (When I asked about the sugar, Denni said “Korean Hotdogs usually get heavily dusted in sugar. We do so much else with them that we just lightly sprinkle it.”) Anyway, I’m glad I took this home and ate it over a table, because it would have been really messy eating standing up at the brewery or in the parking lot outside.

Next up, I brought home an order of lightly breaded wings ($9). My wife loves wings, but as much as I appreciate sauces and condiments, she isn’t big on them, so I got these plain with her in mind. The order came with six huge wings in crispy golden-brown batter, and they were really good. The battered exterior was still crunchy and warm by the time I got home. I asked, and this batter for the wings is different from the batter he uses for the corn dogs and fry bread.

If you want something a little more exciting than plain wings, the other alternative is to get them tossed in a sweet, sticky kimchi sauce. When Chef Denni kindly asked if I wanted a little ramekin of the sauce on the side, I said YES, which is what you say if someone asks if you are a god, or if you want some sauce on the side. That sauce was so good, we poured it over the four and a half wings we hadn’t eaten yet, and it made them even better. Even after saucing, they stayed crunchy and never got soggy, even after reheating some leftover wings in the toaster oven the next day!
I don’t have a lot of experience eating kimchi, which is weird, because I love pickled vegetables, I’ll eat sauerkraut straight out of the jar or can, and I regularly cook braised cabbage at home. I need to develop my taste for kimchi, just like I did for pickles. But this sweet kimchi sauce made these fine wings even finer.

I saved the best for last, which speaks volumes, considering how great the corn dog and the wings were. I ordered two of the Not-So Native fry bread tacos ($10 each), one for each of us. They came in the same box and looked like the stuff that dreams are made of. Topped with braised beef, beer cheese, cilantro-garlic aioli, salsa, corn, black beans, and more potato sticks, they were another amazing, astonishing amalgam of fantastic, fabulous flavors and terrific, tantalizing textures. But what really took these from tasty street food to next-level works of art was the fry bread itself.
Chef Denni was very forthcoming when I asked him about the fry bread later on. He uses the same batter he uses for the K-Dawgz (corn dogs), only he lets it proof longer, for a total of 48 hours, to get to the right consistency for his fry bread. My wife described the texture of being like a really good, really thick “old-fashioned” doughnut (those wrinkly glazed ones, sometimes called sour cream cake doughnuts), only crispy on the outside. Denni agreed, saying he has compared them to “savory doughnuts” before, but more airy and fluffy. I swear, you’ve never had tacos like this before, and I’m 100% sure nobody else in Orlando is making these. The closest thing I could compare them to are sopes, but they are way better than any sopes my wife and I have ever tried. I can’t imagine anyone not liking these, unless you keep kosher (in which case, ask to hold the warm, gooey beer cheese) or are a vegetarian (in which case, ask to hold the delicious, tender, savory braised beef). Heck, even going to town on some plain fry bread would be a treat, maybe with some hot honey squirted on it like the best sopapilla ever. But don’t miss these Not-So Native tacos!

And here’s a mediocre photo of Uncle Dendog himself, Denni Cha, hard at work in the trailer, packing up my takeout order in his panda sushi apron. He actually took a moment to pose for me, but I said “Thank you!” like a boob before actually taking the picture, so he moved, and this is what I got — totally my fault. I’m sorry, Chef.

So what does this have to do with the comic book artists? Well, I told you I’m starting to identify local chefs from their styles, just like the artists I’ve admired for decades. And after having Chef Denni’s chirashi bowls at Itamae Densho and now his Colombian-inspired Korean corn dogs and Native American fry bread tacos, I think the common element that identifies and unifies his style as a chef is the sheer beauty of it. His serving dishes are the canvases of an iconoclastic visionary artist, whether they’re bowls with a base of rice or takeout boxes with paper trays inside. And he builds these mixed-media structures, assembling them from diverse, colorful, fresh, dazzling ingredients that you might not even think belong together, but that’s only because we don’t think like he does. Especially here in Uncle Dendog’s trailer/studio, he’s creating cross-cultural culinary mashups and remixes — appropriate, because he is also a musician — and elevating humble, familiar street food to eye-catching, awe-inspiring fine art. You’ll know it when you see it, because you won’t forget it… especially once you taste it.

Las Carretas Mexican Restaurant

The first time I ever heard of Las Carretas Mexican Restaurant (https://www.lascarretasmexicanrest.com/), my heart filled with joy and hope, then immediate disappointment. When I first saw a sign that the restaurant was opening soon in the Publix plaza on the corner of University Boulevard and Goldenrod Road in east Winter Park, I was overjoyed, thinking at first it meant an outpost of La Carreta, my family’s favorite Cuban restaurant chain in Miami, was coming to the Orlando area.

But I quickly noticed the sign was pluralized: “Las Carretas,” not “La Carreta,” and that it was going to be a Mexican restaurant, not Cuban. We already have far more good Mexican restaurants here than in Miami, but I got over that initial disappointment and forgot about it for a while. It opened earlier this year, and diners started posting really positive reviews on the Orlando Foodie Forum Presented by Tasty Chomps!, and I started paying attention all over again.

Well, I have eaten there four times now, and I can happily report that Las Carretas is an excellent Mexican restaurant, and we should be happy it’s here. The initial fault was mine for misreading the sign and getting my hopes up. It might not be the beloved Cuban restaurant of my past, but it is the terrific Mexican restaurant of my present and future.

The Las Carretas menu is HUGE, so I strongly suggest studying it in advance. On our first visit, my wife and I started our first meal with a couple of aguas frescas ($4.99 each), sweet, non-alcoholic, non-carbonated beverages that are much tastier and more refreshing than sodas, and much better for cutting the heat of spicy food. I chose horchata (left), sweet, creamy rice milk seasoned with cinnamon and vanilla. My wife chose coco nuez, a rich and creamy agua fresca made with coconut milk, coconut shreds, and crushed pecans. I’m not big on nuts, but I do love coconut, and I liked her drink even more than mine. These are gigantic glass mugs, by the way — think German biergarten mugs. No free refills, though! (Yes, I asked.)

They have a self-service salsa bar! Just use hand sanitizer before and after, and fill the little plastic cups with chilled fresh salsas and pickled vegetables (jalapeños, carrots, onions, nopal cactus strips) to your heart’s content. They will be perfect for the fresh, crispy, thin tortilla chips about to grace your table.

Here are those chips with an assortment of salsas. The white stuff turned out to be a tangy, creamy, cool salad dressing, but it was nice to dip the chips in, and it works well cutting the heat of some of the spicier ones. The dark salsa next to it is a smoky chipotle salsa, blended smooth so it is thin, with no chunks in it. That one was my wife’s favorite by far. They’re all a little bit different, so if you’re anything like me, a self-proclaimed salsaholic, you will want to try little dabs of all of them on your chips. One or two are extremely spicy, but I honestly don’t remember which of these were the spicy ones. I think the orange one on the left was fiery, so be prepared!

My wife ordered table-side guacamole ($8.99), hold the jalapeños and easy on the tomatoes and onions. It was made with care and flair by a nice lady who probably has to make guacamole in front of people all day, pushing her cart around the restaurant like teachers who wanted to show a video in class back in the day. It was some of the freshest, nicest guac I’ve ever had.

For her meal, my wife chose the alambre Mediterraneo ($17.99), a dazzling platter of grilled shrimp, scallops, octopus, squid, and bacon, with grilled peppers and onions, topped with melty oaxaca cheese and sliced avocado, tomato, and radish. She loved it, except for the cheese. She thought it overwhelmed the more subtle seafood flavors. I’ve never noticed alambres on a menu before, but all of the ones at Las Carretas come with five tortillas. She chose corn tortillas with it.
This picture barely communicates the size of the platter and exactly how much food comes on it!

I couldn’t resist an alambre either, but I chose the alambre mata hambre ($16.99), which lived up to its name as a true “hunger killer.” It was an equally massive platter of pork loin, al pastor pork, carne asada (grilled steak seasoned with lime), chorizo, bacon, ham, grilled bell peppers, onions, pineapple, melty oaxaca cheese, and topped with sliced avocado, tomato, and radish, and served with five tortillas (flour for me):

The a la carte menu has a lot of options for people who like to sample things, like a single cheese tamale ($3.50), which we both thought was just okay:

This is an a la carte beef burrito ($3.99), served “wet” (smothered in sauce and melted cheese). It’s a classic wet burrito, which is making me reminiscent for Taco Viva, a South Florida fast food chain that predated Taco Bell in the ’80s. They all closed decades ago, but they gave me my first tastes of Mexican food as a kid, igniting a lifelong love affair. I don’t even know if Taco Viva was any damn good by Mexican food standards (probably not), but you know what is? Las Carretas and this burrito right here:

This is a huge a la carte chile relleno stuffed with cheese ($4.99). After I was so disappointed Tex-Mex chain Chuy’s removed chiles rellenos from its menu at some point in the last year and a half, I was thrilled to discover such a good one here at Las Carretas, with a lightly crispy batter that didn’t get soggy under all that sauce, and didn’t fall or peel off.

There were almost too many good choices for dessert, but on this first visit, my wife chose fried ice cream ($5.99). The scoop of vanilla had a nice, thin, crackly coating she liked that reminded me of crushed corn flakes, and that was her favorite part. I preferred the fried flour shell/”bowl,” so that worked out well for both of us. But we had other dessert ideas that would have to wait for our second visit.

My wife and I went back for a second lunch a couple of weeks later (months ago, at this point), and met a good friend there. I ordered the chimichanga ($9.99 on the lunch menu), sort of like a burrito wrapped in a flour tortilla, then lightly fried. It was smothered with a sticky, thick cheese sauce and stuffed with beef tips that ended up being kind of like pot roast. The Mexican rice, guacamole, pico de gallo, and sour cream were nice, fresh accompaniments that kept the beef, sticky cheese sauce, and crispy shell from feeling too heavy.

Our friend got enchiladas rancheras ($9.99) on the lunch menu — cheese-stuffed enchiladas topped with pulled pork, grilled onions, green and red bell peppers, and enchilada sauce. I swear there are enchiladas under there!

My wife went back to the alambre Mediterraneo ($17.99) again, only asked for it without cheese this time. She liked it even better without the melted cheese contrasting against the seafood.

This one cracked me up. I always love tortas, Mexican sandwiches on bolillo rolls, so I ordered the one torta on Las Carretas’ menu, the torta toloqueña ($11.99 on the lunch menu), intending to split it with our friend. The sandwich comes with chicken milanesa (a chicken cutlet, pounded thin, breaded, and fried), ham, oaxaca cheese, pineapple, “vinegar mixed manzano pepper,” tomato, avocado, ketchup, mayonnaise… and salchicha, which I know means sausage. Well, I expecting more like a chorizo-like sausage, and not these hot dogs on top! That’s my bad. I should have known better. All three of us had a good laugh over it, and we still shared the salty, overstuffed torta. It was an unexpected surprise, but it was still a really decadent and satisfying sandwich. This torta toloqueña was the only time in my life I’ve ever been okay with ketchup being anywhere near hot dogs.

We couldn’t decide between two desserts, so we got both! These are the churros ($4.99), served with caramel and chocolate sauces:

And sopapillas ($5.99), fried flour tortilla wedges sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, drizzled with honey, and served with a rapidly melting scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I couldn’t tell you which of the three desserts was my favorite, but they all involved comparable flavors.

On both of these visits, I was thinking about how much my co-workers would enjoy Las Carretas, so a few weeks later, at the first mention of a work lunch, I was quick to suggest this place. When I returned to Las Carretas for my third time, I brought three co-workers with me. None of them are the adventurous eaters I am, so we often end up at Chili’s, Miller’s Ale House, or Gator’s Dockside for work lunches. But I implored them to give this new Mexican restaurant a chance, and they wouldn’t be disappointed.

They weren’t.

My vegetarian supervisor and friend ordered enchiladas vegetarianas ($10.99), three enchiladas stuffed with zucchini, yellow squash, spinach, and mushrooms, topped with ranchera sauce and mozzarella cheese:

Another co-worker, my former supervisor who has since been promoted, ordered this beautiful campeche quesadilla ($13.99), with grilled shrimp, onions, bell peppers, and mozzarella cheese:

I ordered the party tacos ($14.99), because nothing says “party” like a lunch with your current and former supervisors and one other guy, where you talk all about work before having to drive back to work and not fall asleep. Anyway, you get an order of six tacos and can try two proteins in them. Frankly, I would have preferred an option where I could buy six individual tacos, all with different proteins, but I chose wisely: cabeza (tender, moist, fatty beef head; along the top) and al pastor (slow-cooked pork marinated in pineapple juice; along the bottom). Both were so delicious and satisfying, not dry at all like the meats occasionally are at even the best taquerias. This is an incredible dish, and a good deal too.

And another guy got a trio of tacos, but I don’t remember which ones these are. Carne asada would be my best guess.

On my fourth visit with one of the same co-workers, she got queso dip ($3.99) and table-side guacamole ($8.99) to go with the fresh tortilla chips:

And I tried yet another new dish, the Texas burrito ($11.99), a dry burrito (not smothered in cheese and sauce, so you can hold it and eat it), stuffed with crumbled chorizo sausage (another one of my favorite Mexican meats), rice, beans, shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, pico de gallo, and avocado sauce. It was awesome and huge. Look at it on this large, long plate:

And you thought it smelled good on the outside!

So that’s a massive review based on my four meals at Las Carretas, all eaten at the restaurant. With how close it is to both work and home, I expect I will continue to be a regular at this place, especially since they have a large, covered outdoor seating area for when the weather finally cools down (and avoiding people carrying the Delta variant in the meantime). Las Carretas may not be Miami’s La Carreta, but it is one of Orlando’s best Mexican restaurants, and now one of my favorites. I can’t imagine anyone going out to eat here and being disappointed. It’s a real crowd-pleaser in every way.

Chain Reactions: Chuy’s

Chuy’s (http://www.chuys.com/) is a Tex-Mex chain that was founded in Austin, Texas, in 1982. I’ve been to three separate locations here in Orlando: multiple meals in Winter Park, a few times to Waterford Lakes (a location that has since closed), and down by the airport once with co-workers. Chuy’s has a fun, funky, kitschy, irreverent vibe, and the food is always prepared fresh, from scratch. Portions are huge, and prices are very fair.

What’s this? Fake palm trees… “growing” in the dining room? It’s crazy, I tell ya!

I know some people are really skeptical of chains, but Chuy’s is always solid. I can’t think of many other Mexican restaurants that make their corn AND flour tortillas from scratch, and you can really taste the difference. I am NOT a fan of shelf-stable grocery store tortillas! As far as I can tell, they make everything from scratch here. The thin, crispy tortilla chips they bring to your table for free are freshly fried from those corn tortillas, and they come with a chilled salsa that has more heat than most restaurant salsas. You can also request a creamy jalapeño sauce that is like a cool, slightly spicy ranch dip, but much better than ranch.

Here’s that overflowing complimentary basket of their light, thin, crispy tortilla chips, with the chilled salsa and creamy jalapeño sauce. I love both of these because they are obviously made fresh, actually spicy, and both served chilled. I am never as big a fan of room temperature salsa.

This is my wife’s favorite tortilla soup. It is chicken broth-based, with lots of shredded chicken, melty white cheese, tomatoes, carrots, celery, avocado, and crispy fried strips of fresh corn tortillas. Before Chuy’s opened a restaurant in Winter Park, sometimes she’d ask me to pick it up for her from the Waterford Lakes location. Despite how awful traffic gets heading east on Colonial Drive in the evening, I’d still run the errand, because I love her, and she loves that soup! (Of course, that location has since closed.) On this last trip from early 2020, we even ended up getting a second cup to go, and I returned a few days later to bring her home a larger order.

This was her taco and enchilada plate from that February 2020 visit. Knowing her, I’m guessing she got grilled steak in them, as opposed to chicken or seasoned ground beef. You get very generous portions at Chuy’s, including that mountain of Mexican rice and that sea of refried beans.

And this was my chile relleno and enchilada plate. The chile relleno is a batter-dipped and fried pepper stuffed with ground beef and covered in Tex-Mex sauce, kind of like a chili con carne. The enchilada is stuffed with shredded chicken and covered in spicy, tangy, creamy Boom-Boom sauce, a Chuy’s specialty. Chuy’s used to have my favorite chile relleno. A lot of Mexican restaurants use a batter that is too thick, heavy, and eggy, and it ends up soggy, greasy, and sloughing off the pepper. Not so here. This chile relleno batter always stayed crispy and didn’t disintegrate.

Unfortunately, starting around the time of the pandemic, Chuy’s cut its menu offerings back, removing many of the truly unique Tex-Mex dishes I had come to love. The chile relleno pictured above? GONE. The combo platters you just salivated over? GONE. The chili con carne Tex-Mex sauce? GONE. I always meant to order the green chile fried chicken, but too bad, so sad — it’s off the menu too. And so is the delicious carne guisada, a beef stew that was a lunch special one rare and lucky time I went, that I always hoped to get again.

We hadn’t been back in over a year, even though I’ve been ordering takeout all over town, mostly due to Chuy’s shrinking the menu. But we recently found ourselves near the Winter Park location after a doctor appointment. This was our first restaurant meal together in over a year — on the covered outdoor patio — since we were hungry and stressed, it was a beautiful day, and we had both been fully vaccinated.

We had never sprung for the guacamole ($7.59) before, but it was so good, and it complemented the freshly fried chips so well.

At least my wife was still able to get her favorite tortilla soup ($8.69 for a bowl, which is larger than the cup that was pictured above from our previous pre-pandemic visit):

I got the Chuychanga ($12.99), my favorite of the remaining entrees. This shredded chicken and cheese chimichanga (essentially a deep-fried burrito) has such an amazing texture, I would love the experience of eating it even if it wasn’t quite so tasty. But it is really damn delicious, so that makes it even better. I’m sorry I didn’t get an interior photo, but I really tore into the thing.

I think they upcharged me a dollar because I asked for a side of Boom-Boom sauce, the spicy queso sauce. It was great with the Chuychanga and the chips.

I have to give Chuy’s all the credit in the world for making their own flour and corn tortillas fresh and in-house. That really makes a huge difference for Mexican and Tex-Mex food. We even bought a dozen flour tortillas to take home ($3.25, a real steal) because they are so damn good. Now I’m just hoping they bring back all those much-missed menu options some day. Orlando has no shortage of fantastic Mexican restaurants, and I always prefer to eat local, but Chuy’s never disappointed — at least not until they cut the chile relleno and so much else from their menu.

La Hacienda

La Hacienda (https://linktr.ee/lahaciendarestaurant) is a Mexican restaurant in Winter Park, on the southwest corner of Semoran Boulevard (State Road 436) and Aloma Avenue. It has its own adjoining grocery store, similar to my old favorite near work, Tortilleria El Progreso. I actually pass both going to and from work every day, but had only ever stopped into La Hacienda to pick up fresh tortillas and Mexican snacks. But after so many years of always being in too much of a hurry, I recently ate at the restaurant for the first time, with my wife — one of our first post-vaccination meals out together.

My sense of blocking sucks, but here are our complimentary chips and salsa, with my large pineapple agua fresca ($2.50) nearly covering my wife’s small horchata agua fresca ($1.49). The pineapple is one of the best aguas frescas I’ve ever had anywhere, with lots of real fruit pulp in it. The horchata was nice and refreshing too. Very cinnamony. These chips desperately needed to be salted, ideally right when they came out of the fryer, as they were pretty bland. But the salsa was terrific. It must have been made fresh, because it was much better than most table salsas I’ve had at similar Mexican restaurants, with a roasted tomato flavor. I would totally buy this salsa by the jar.

My wife suggested we get the Hacienda sampler platter ($7.99), but we were both a little underwhelmed by it. You have more of the unsalted chips, covered with refried beans and molten lava-hot queso to serve as nachos in the middle, two crispy beef flautas (which she usually likes), and then a quesadilla on the right side with seasoned ground beef in a soft flour tortilla. She wasn’t into the quesadilla at all after one bite, so I ate it. She wasn’t really feeling the queso either, so I ate everything it touched. It was kind of bland. Guacamole was okay. I would skip this sampler in the future. The menu is huge, and there are plenty of more interesting offerings to be had here.

Whenever I’m at a new Mexican restaurant that serves traditional tacos on corn tortillas, dressed with only fresh cilantro and diced onions, with multiple meats to choose from, I like to order an assortment of those tacos to sample the different meats. They are usually small and cheap, so I get a nice variety and a chance to gauge what the restaurant does best. From left to right I got birria (shredded and steamed barbecue beef; a real foodie trend of the past two years), lengua (tender braised beef tongue), pescado (fried fish), al pastor (slow-cooked pork marinated with pineapple juice and traditionally shaved off a spit), chorizo (crumbled spicy pork sausage), and carne asada (grilled steak). Each of these beauties was $1.79, except for the fish taco that was $3.49. The plate came garnished with a lime wedge to squirt over each taco, soft marinated carrot slices (delicious), and crispy sliced radishes. I ran out of steam and couldn’t eat the carne asada, but I mostly ordered that one for my wife to try, since that is usually her go-to Mexican meat.

In fact, she ordered two carne asada sopes ($2.99 each), served open-faced on thick, puffy fried corn shells that are much thicker than tortillas, that serve kind of like a shallow cup or bowl. They were topped with shredded iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and crumbled cotija cheese.She always orders sopes at one of our favorite establishments, Tortas El Rey, and I think those remain the reigning champions for her.

I was so full that I was feeling ill, but my wife wanted dessert, so we ordered the helado frito, or fried ice cream ($4.99). It was a huge portion — a big scoop of rock-hard vanilla ice cream covered in a really nice, crispy fried breading, and served in a fried flour tortilla like the kind taco salads come in. It was drizzled with caramel sauce and served with whipped cream and sprinkles. For some reason, she didn’t like the fried breading around the ice cream, but that was my favorite part, so that worked out well for us.

I definitely liked our meal at La Hacienda more than my wife did, but she might have preferred it if she ordered different things. I definitely enjoyed the birria, al pastor, chorizo, and fried fish tacos, the marinated carrots, and the salsa that came with the chips (but the chips themselves, ehhhh, not so much). I would go back, but I think she would take a pass. With Tortilleria El Progreso so close to work, I don’t know if I could wrangle work colleagues to grab lunch here (once we start doing that again), or even drive the extra distance to pick up takeout to eat at work. But it would be a convenient stop to pick up takeout on my way home, now that I know what’s good and what is just so-so. Tortas El Rey is just so far, and our other favorite, Francisco’s Taco Madness, is never open at night or on Sundays, so it could be a nice option to have solid, authentic Mexican food near home in the future.

El Santo Taqueria (Miami)

On my madcap trip to Miami in early March last year, right before the world changed forever, I spent a full day hanging out with my best friend and eating all over the city, including Cuban burgers and Cuban pizza for lunch at Polo Norte. For dinner, we made our way down to Miami’s vibrant Calle Ocho (SW 8th Street), the center of the Cuban community, full of restaurants, bars, and vibrant nightlife. It is so much more fun than pricey and pretentious South Beach. While waiting for a table at our ultimate dinner destination (stay tuned, Saboscrivnerinos!), I spotted the lucha libre-themed El Santo Taqueria (http://elsantomiami.com/taqueria-home/), and begged my BFF and his lovely girlfriend to indulge me and stop in for a snack between our earlier snack and an impending huge, heavy dinner.

El Santo was maybe the most famous luchador, an iconic Mexican wrestler who was like a real-life superhero in and out of the ring. He starred in dozens of movies, was the hero of his own long-running comic book series, and never took his silver mask off in public, staying in character for decades as a hero and champion to fans of all ages, never revealing his secret identity. While (almost) everyone knows wrestling is staged “sports entertainment” here in the United States, lucha libre is a grand tradition in Mexico, and luchadores can become folk heroes and symbols of national pride.

As for me, when I first got into watching pro wrestling around 1998, it was the high-flying luchadores in WCW’s cruiserweight division that drew me in and made me a fan. Those guys were awe-inspiring — smaller competitors who held their own against the big brawlers, defying gravity with insane flips and hurricanranas while wearing cool masks. I followed WCW until it was subsumed by WWE, and then stuck around until 2005, drifting away after one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Eddie Guerrero, passed away, tragically and far too young. Over the last year, which I spent so much of at home, the new wrestling promotion AEW got me excited to watch and follow pro wrestling again. AEW Dynamite became my Wednesday night tradition, and it is pretty much everything I always wished WWE was, back in the day: lots of action, entertaining characters, long-running story arcs with real character development, comic relief, no huge egos, no backstage politics, and everyone doing their best work and putting each other over (making their opponents look good).

I could mark out about AEW all day, but this is neither the time nor the place! Flashing back to March 7th, 2020, I saw that sign with El Santo’s intimidating visage leaning out over Calle Ocho in three dimensions, and I knew I had to make a pilgrimage. Tacos beckoned!

The walls are adorned with lucha libre-themed artwork:

This poster caught my eye, as a Bowie fan:

El Santo Taqueria also displays the masks of champions:

And even their championship belts. (Cue my wife, who loves to say that wrestling is all about big, burly guys brawling over an accessory, but will begrudgingly admit that AEW has grown on her.)

My buddy and I shared an order of two carne asada tacos ($9), with marinated steak, queso fresco, chili crema, tomatoes, and cilantro on charred corn tortillas.

We also split an order of two al pastor tacos ($8): slow-roasted marinated pork served with charred pineapple, caramelized onions, and tomatillo salsa on the same charred corn tortillas.

These were not giant tacos — which is fine, because we were on our way to a colossal dinner — but they were beautiful and packed with flavor. Perfect appetizers.

I got a Jarritos mandarin soda (made with sugar cane instead of high fructose corn syrup) to wash down my tacos. Here’s a helpful hint to improve your life — some 7-Elevens now offer Jarritos mandarin soda in the fountain, so you can fill a Big Gulp with the stuff. I’m trying to quit soda completely, but I always enjoyed orange sodas, and this one might be the best.

I’m so glad I spotted El Santo Taqueria, and that my friends indulged me, even on this great day of indulgence. It wasn’t on our dining agenda, but when I see masked wrestling iconography and Mexican food, nothing is going to keep the Saboscrivner away. As the rockabilly band Southern Culture on the Skids sang, ¡Viva el Santo!

The Pass Progressive Cuisine

Not being an influencer, I sometimes arrive a little late to the hottest foodie trends. But for a couple of months, I’ve been salivating over photos and videos of birria tacos made with braised, shredded beef brisket or goat and served with a dipping cup of rich, glistening, orangey-red consommé. Now Orlando has a few Mexican restaurants that serve birria, and today I finally tried it at one of our newest birria boutiques: The Pass Progressive Cuisine (https://www.thepassprogressive.com/), located in a nondescript industrial warehouse plaza in Altamonte Springs. It’s a little off the beaten path, but the best places often are. And you don’t want to pass on The Pass Progressive, trust me.

My wife wasn’t as psyched for birria as I was, but at all of our favorite taquerias and Mexican restaurants like Tortas El Rey and Francisco’s Taco Madness, she always requests carne asada tacos, so that’s what she wanted to try here. You get an order of three for $11.95. I took one little bite and loved what I tasted, but more importantly, so did she. The steak was tender and picked up nice flavor from being grilled, and I think I detected some lime juice in there.

You can see they are absolutely stunning, topped with a snow flurry of Oaxaca cheese, fresh cilantro, and julienned radishes on soft corn tortillas. The carne asada tacos come with guajillo chile salsa, but my wife isn’t big on salsas, sauces, or anything too spicy, so I ordered it on the side for her (so I could have it).

But here it is, the star of the show: birria tacos! These also come in an order of three for $11.95. They were also topped with cilantro, radish, onion (I asked them to hold the onion for my wife’s tacos), and a dusting of Oaxaca cheese, plus there’s that rich, flavorful consommé.

The meat was so flavorful and tender from being braised and shredded, it didn’t even need the consommé, but you can bet I dipped anyway. Things got a little drippy and greasy from there, but we were at home, so all was well.

Close-up of these beautiful birria tacos:

They must season and grill these corn tortillas, because they are some of the best corn tortillas I’ve ever had. They held up to a lot of heavy ingredients and hungry handling, and really helped make the tacos into something special.

Since this was my first visit, I couldn’t resist ordering something else for later, so I went with something completely different: the Jaeyook Korean pork burrito ($11.20), with white rice, black beans, cheese, sour crema, avocado, kimchi cabbage, perilla leaf (a plant in the mint family, related to Japanese shiso), and spicy gochujang sauce wrapped up in a huge flour tortilla. I often like burritos even more than tacos, but I wanted to try birria in its traditional taco form and get something else as a burrito.

This one was a little spicier from the gochujang sauce, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Like all the other food from The Pass, it was gorgeous, with such an eye-catching blend of colors and textures, in addition to all the flavors at play. All their burritos come with excellent fresh, crispy, salty tortilla chips that we shared, and a different salsa that was all mine.

Sauce gallery!

Here you see pickled red onions that came with something, garlic aioli that had a thinner, more crema-like consistency than I expected (50 cents), the most delicious pineapple chutney that was so sweet it could have gone on an ice cream sundae (50 cents), the guajillo chile salsa that would have come on my wife’s carne asada tacos that she asked for on the side, the salsa that came with the burrito and chips, and some tomatillo salsa. Of all of these, the pineapple chutney was the big winner for both of us, and I also loved the smoky guajillo chile salsa. I’d buy both of those by the jar or bottle.

As you might guess, The Pass Progressive Cuisine was a big hit, and I know we’re not the only people falling in love with their food. I expect the legend will only grow, so you (possibly) heard it here first, on The Saboscrivner! I can’t wait to return and try their Caribbean wings, their ancho-braised beef or chicken empanadas, their lobster tacos (with lobster consommé!), but I know I won’t be able to resist the birria, so I’ll just keep ordering multiple things. And in case you ever tire of tacos or burritos (the horror!), you can also get almost everything as enchiladas or quesadillas too.

Just remember that The Pass Progressive Cuisine doesn’t have seating, so it’s a takeout-only place — but that’s perfect during a pandemic anyway. And they are open Tuesday through Friday, 12 – 8 PM, and Saturdays 12 – 5 PM.