Friday, January 27, 2012

The Taco Joint, Dallas, Texas

I look forward to Fridays for multiple reasons other than the obvious—the weekend. It's the one day a week during the school semester that I do not have to work through my lunch to make up for the time I miss work while in class. It gives me a chance to leave the office and enjoy the lunch hour (or more) no matter where I am because it's not in the office!

Today, a coworker and I headed out to lunch. She wanted to hit our regular location of Sonic but I didn't really feel like a burger. In fact, I just had a double-double with bacon from Sonic this past Sunday. Don't get me wrong. I would have gone and eaten a Sonic burger but I really wanted something different today.

We were across town from our Sonic but near this place I read about called The Taco Joint. I read it's only open until end of lunch...about 2pm...Mondays through Saturdays. That sucks since I work through lunch Mon-Fri and usually am not on the side of town of The Taco Joint on Saturday. Anyway, she was game and so that's where we ate.

We got there around 12:15-ish. The parking lot was already full and many had already taken to parking along the one-way street of Peak St. We had to follow suit and luckily it wasn't much of a walk at all to the "Joint."

The line wasn't too long about 3/4 of the size of the restaurant lined up almost from end to end. They take cash and credit which was nice since I only had plastic. I ordered the Friday special called the "Chuck Norris." It's two pulled pork tacos with BBQ sauce and some basic toppings. I don't remember what they were. It's a combo which comes with a side of beans and rice in one container and a drink. Total cost was $8.50. The price made me realize that this place wasn't like the cheaply priced Rusty Taco or Fuzzy's Taco. I think it is more priced like Digg's Taco Shop. The price kind of surprised me a bit but I got over it and chalked it up to trying a new place. My friend/coworker ordered two crispy beef tacos but they were something like $2.00 a piece and they came with quite a bit of cheese, lettuce and tomatoes which is unlike the other places. They were closer to what you'd expect from a fast food place like Taco Bell, Taco Bueno or Taco Cabana but way better. The size and quality was probably double of those places.

About a 10-minute wait after ordering, they called our names to pick up our food. I already described the crispy beef tacos and my friend liked them a lot! I tried my "Norris" tacos and they were pretty flavorful. They did drip a lot of sauce when trying to eat but not too bad and comparable to the pulled pork tacos I've had at the previously mentioned restaurants. The refried beans were creamy with hardly any bean chunks. It was different than I'm used to but it didn't change the taste, just the texture. I mixed the rice and beans together because the rice didn't seem to be too flavorful. Also, the rice didn't seem to be equal in quantity to the beans. Not a big deal but I think if they were in separate containers the customer would feel like they are getting more and who really knows if they'd like the rice more versus the beans or vice versa?

I wasn't awed by the flavor of any of my dish but I wasn't disappointed either. I don't know if it's because I ate something small an hour or so before we went to lunch (I don't remember what I just remember I snacked on something...probably a six-pack of Oreos) but I did get into the car feeling somewhat full. Now that could have been the five refills of Diet Coke that I got but who really knows.

I will go back to try a few other tacos especially the fish tacos for/with the wife.


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