Hi guys, happy Thursday! This week has been flying by. I also cannot believe that June is almost over…where did this month go? But backing up a bit to a place I went last week and haven’t had the chance to blog about yet…
Last week, my friend Jenn and I went out for a belated birthday dinner on Tuesday (thanks Jenn!). We decided to go for Mexican and went to the Taco Joint in Lincoln Park. This place is pretty close to my apartment but I had never tried it before.
The first thing we noticed when we walked in was that it was crowded–always a good sign. We left our name at the front and she told us it would be a 25 minute wait. Right after that, 2 seats opened up at the end of the bar–perfect! We happened to be right at the corner too, so it worked out really well.
We started with a drink and both decided to try the Micheladas Zocalo. The description is ‘Choice of Mexican beer served over ice with fresh squeezed lime juice, homemade sangrita and chile piquin rim’. We both took ‘sangrita’ to be something like sangria and I was thinking it would be like one of those margaritas that has beer in it. We were confused when this is what we were served….
Apparently Sangrita is a tomato juice like consistency and taste. We had to ask the bartender what to do with this! The lime juice is in the glass already, so you take the beer and pour it over the top and then add the sangrita to taste (it is slightly spicy). So now you know because I sure didn’t. The drink actually was pretty good, it was just very different from what I was expecting. I was a little skeptical but I ended up liking it and the combination of the three actually made for a pretty refreshing drink.
To eat, we started with the homemade chips and guacamole. We ordered the traditional guacamole and it was really good. They served the guacamole with corn chips, sweet plaintain and malanga chips and my only complaint was that I wished there were more plaintain and malanga chips mixed in because I really liked both of them–it seemed like there were only 1 or 2 of each and the remainder corn chips. That being said, the corn chips were still tasty–and homemade.
For my entree I ordered two tacos. The nice thing about the menu is that everything is priced for just a single taco/gordita/etc. so you can try a bunch of different kinds. I decided on the estilo baja which is a fried fish (tilapia) with cabbage slaw and the barbacoa which is beef brisket with cilantro and onion and a red jalapeno salsa.
If I had to pick a favorite of the two, I would probably say the fish taco was my favorite. I loved the flavors, and the crunchiness of the fish was great with the soft taco shell. The only thing that I didn’t like was that it tasted really fried–with a ton of beer batter. I mean, I’m the one who ordered a fried taco, so I can’t complain, but it could have done with a little less batter so that the flavor of the fish was more prominent. The beef brisket taco was delicious but it was way too hot for me. If you like heat, this one is perfect, but I had to scrape a lot of the sauce off and still my mouth was on fire trying to eat it–don’t worry, I powered through. The flavors were good, but kind of overpowered by how hot it was. I am a huge baby when it comes to spiciness though, so it probably wasn’t actually that bad.
I can’t believe I haven’t tried this spot before! Now that I know it is so close to me, I will definitely be back to try out more of the menu and maybe a margarita next time. Because we were at the very front, we noticed that they have a little window at the front where you can order and pick up food right from the sidewalk! How cool is that.
Another great part is that they are open late night. Perfect for a taco (or more like four) on my way home from the bar! Let’s hope that doesn’t become a habit!
