I’m adding a new category to this blog: the interesting and unusual cuisine that I run into during my busy lifestyle.
I’ll try to make this fast and sweet.
As a native English speaker I am repeatedly disappointed to find that the Spanish word "torta" does not mean either "tort" or "tart". It is not a sweet food at all. It is simply a sandwich.
This came from the roach coach (mobile taco cart) nearest my house (@St.Johns/I-35). This torta milanesa is filled with avocado, about three different sauces, some ham (jamon), and milanesa beef, which is a wafer-thin strip of cow-meat about the same size and shape as a rubber sneaker sole, which was then breaded and fried. The meat has a particular gamey tenderness that anchors the rest of the ingredients.
If it wasn’t in a frontage-road stripmall and filled with people speaking with Texas accents, you would think that "Rancho Grande" was a diner in Monterrey. But it’s actually near Lamar and 183.
I had the "Mexican meatballs." They appeared to be a poor version of Swedish meatballs, containing about 25% pork and 75% flour. However, the spicy bath of mole made up for any other lack.
There was a time when the samosas at Ken’s donuts (@ the very north end of the drag) were a thing of legend. You had to show up at 2am in order to buy your share of the dozen or so steamy hot packages of fried potatoes, curry, and frozen peas. Now they make enough to last the entire day. And for twenty-five cents extra you can get a little condiment cup of eyeball-kicking chutney. You’re an idiot if you don’t fork over that extra quarter.
These samosas are a triumphant celebration of the donut-shop owner’s native culture. What’s the point of having immigrants own half the retail shops in this country if all these businesses stay so blandly, interchangeably American? Why can’t I go into a convenience store and read the latest Filmfare issue about Shahrukh Khan? Why can’t I go to a laundromat and dye my clothes with henna? Why can’t I stay at a Motel and have my chamberpot removed discretely by an untouchable dalit?
The roach coach "La Canaria" is on my way to work and it’s hard to miss, being a bright canary yellow (@Airport/51st). The typical convention of taco carts is to have the youngest member of the staff/family work the window, while the old ladies do the cooking. Usually this means that the person you give your money to speaks fluent English. In this case, it took pointing, comparing the English and Spanish menu boards, and what little I could dredge up from my high school Spanish to figure out that "tocino" means bacon.
There is little that says Austin better than a breakfast taco wrapped in a flour tortilla. On the right is the "huevos y tocino" and on the left is "huevos y nopalitos." You northerners reading his might recognize nopalitos better as prickly-pear cactus. These nopalitos were fried particularly well. Normally they are over-cooked and turn mushy and slimey. These retained some of the green-pepper crispness, as well as the slightly gooey cactus flavor.
