After many weeks of attempting to plan a lunch outing with a friend of mine and her daughter to finally try La Taqueria Pinche Taco Shop, we pulled it off with one day's notice and were lucky enough to coincide with gorgeous weather for outside eating. The shop, located on Hastings & Hamilton, appears modest and unassuming from the outside although the large mural provides a welcome splash of colour. The inside reveals an amiable/casual atmosphere that makes a great use of its limited floor space through lots of bars and narrow tables of turquoise lined with jarritos soda caps. It was absolutely packed with customers during the weekly lunch break, but the line moved at a surprisingly good pace.
The tacos are served on two layers of corn tortillas about 4-5" in diameter. You can either eat in on plastic "fiesta ware" plates or get take out. You can also bring your own container for takeout and save some plastic! I ordered one each of all the vegetarian tacos: mushrooms in chipotle sauce, tofu in a house sauce, poblano peppers with creamed corn, and cowboy refried beans with mexican cheese plus 2 fish tacos.
If I went back again, I would definitely get the mushrooms and poblano peppers tacos. WONDERFUL! The fish tacos were also pretty darn good with a nice charred/grilled flavor on the fish and fresh salsa, sour cream, and guacamole topping it off. The downside of the tofu taco, much to my despair because who doesn't love having a tofu option (if you're a vegetarian), is that the sauce it was cooked in was really sweet and the raisins mixed into the tofu filling did nothing to alleviate the sweetness. I think I would have loved it had the tofu been cooked in the mole sauce accompanying the chicken (yes I did take a small bite of my friend's chicken taco for the sake of scientific research!) The pickled onions available as condiments were applied liberally to almost all of my tacos and definitely improved the flavour experience. There were also 3 grades of hot sauce and a pickled vegetable ensemble (jalapenos, carrots, cauliflower) of which I applied none, being the timid spice creature that I am.
Oh and before I forget, from the wee child's perspective, the two best tacos were the poblano peppers taco and the carne asada taco with lime juice.
I also ordered the horchata, which I found to be quite sweet, but horchata is as variable as chai, all depending on the preference of the cook! On the plus side, the texture was silky smooth, the cinnamon flavour was strong, and the chilled temperature was perfect for the warm day. Overall, I ended up spending $16.20 for my 6 tacos and horchata, including tax. And no, I did not take any photos. A big apology to all my adoring blog fans (yes, all 3 of you) for being too lazy to do so!
No comments:
Post a Comment