A dozen years ago I set out on a taco crawl with a friend who lived here at the time. He’s up and gone to live on some island in Florida, gotten married, had a kid, what can you do? At the time, there were few places offering tacos here. There’s not, or there wasn’t, a big Mexican population here. I remember I did some quick searching and found that only a few thousand Mexicans lived in Argentina, and the majority were either temporary students or members of the Mennonite communities in the Pampas or Santiago del Estero (a community that started, apparently, about 80 years ago here in Argentina with a small group from Russia, though is now almost entirely Mennonites of Mexican descent). The same holds true today, though the overall numbers have increased to about 11,000 total.

But hey, we’re a long way away from Mexico, as when visitors would ask where to get a good taco, as they assumed that everything south of the US border was more or less the same culture and food, I’d point northwest and say, “6000 miles that way”. And over the last couple of years, mitigated by the pandemic, I’ve managed to head out to one or another of the newer spots and check them out. I was in a mood this last week, I felt like I needed a project, and I set my sights on making it an all-taco binge week.

 

Fly Taco, Charcas 3382, Palermo – Basically a big beer bar with a variety of tacos. Choices of hard-shell corn tortillas, and either soft wrap or fried flour tortillas, and a choice of beef, chicken, or veggie filling, each then topped with lettuce, tomato, grated cheese, “sour cream” (more of a whipped cream cheese, like the local CasanCrem), and “hot sauce” with more on the side. Offered in pairs, and you can mix and match, which is nice, here one beef and one chicken. Nicely seasoned meats, the accompaniments were fresh. The hot sauce is not remotely spicy – it seems to be a somewhat sweet mixture of tomato, bell pepper, and maybe some vague floaty bits of a very mild chili in it, or maybe just Italian frying peppers. Two tacos, 520 pesos, around $5 these days. If you keep in mind that these are basically there to sop up the beer, they’re perfectly fine bar tacos.

 

Urban Taco, Distrito Arcos (Paraguay 4978), Palermo – One of the many converted shipping containers that form a sort of food truck court in this open air shopping mall. I almost thought this place was gone – their Instagram account has been silent for almost three years, and their website has been changed to be Urban Crepe & Dulces, which also exists in the food court at the opposite end. This is full on fast food style, with a refrigerated line of condiments, a stack of soft corn tortillas sitting over a steamer (not a good move for tortillas), and a couple of pots with the proteins – beef, pork, chicken, and vegetable, kept warm. Available singly or in packs of three, though no mixing of proteins on the latter, so I ordered up one each of the first three – it’s a slight upcharge over the three pack, but not significant. They scoop some of the meat into the tortilla, and then top with your choice of any three things from the condiment line. While each taco can be different, I just went with their extra spicy hot sauce (which actually had a kick, though not much of one), sour cream, and grated cheese. Other options were beans, corn, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, and probably a few others. While the meat mixtures are really flavorful, they’re the only redeeming quality of these tacos – the steamed tortillas fall apart, and the all refrigerator cold toppings just don’t do it. 200-250 pesos per taco, depending on filling. Meh. [Closed, thankfully]

 

Güey, Av. Congreso 2000, Belgrano – Located on the border of Belgrano and Nuñez, perched above a traffic underpass (making things a bit noisy at times), this spot has been getting a lot social media spark recently. It was a chilly and cloudy day, with a bit of misty drizzle happening now and again, but The Roving Ravenous Horde braved the elements, for reasons social and taco. We were immediately excited by the menu, a choice of six different taco fillings, none of them the usual suspects of taquerias here in BA – fried tongue, confited flank steak, braised lamb and quinua, fish tempura, sauteed mushrooms, and vegetables in adobo. There were also two burrito options of braised pork or sauteed vegetables, but we were there for tacos. Oh, and chips with guacamole or beans and cheese, the former, we shared an order, with crispy, non-commercial tortilla chips and a vibrantly fresh guacamole. Between us we ended up trying all but the adobo vegetable tacos, just an oversight on our part. Each topped a proper corn tortilla, and overstuffed with one after another, absolutely spectacular filling. It’s a long route from home to get there for me, but worth the trip, and the higher price on these tacos, ranging between 310-390 pesos apiece. Easily the best tacos I’ve had in town.

 

El Diablito, Thames 747, Villa Crespo – Located on the middle level of the new Mercat de Villa Crespo, the city’s latest in food hall ventures, I’d tried this spot a few months back in March when the market first opened. Among a sampling of things from various stands within the hall, the tacos stood out as the best thing we’d tried. But it was literally the first day the market was open to the public, and there were service missteps, and limited menus, and I don’t like to critique places based on opening day performance, it’s simply not fair. Give them time to get things running smoothly. Five types of tacos available – pork (al pastor or carnitas), beef (campechano), shrimp, or vegetable. All are 250 pesos apiece except the shrimp at 290, but they have a three-pack combo, that you can mix up types, with a beverage, at 800 with water, 900 with one of their refrescos (hibiscus, tamarind, or horchata), 950 with a beer – each a roughly 100-150 peso savings. Great corn tortillas, and properly prepared by dunking them in the cooking juices of whatever the filling is going to be, good fillings, and nicely prepared fresh toppings. Here, the al pastor, campechano, and diablito (shrimp). The fillings tend a little bland and a bit salty, otherwise they’d be up their vying for top taco spot. They have really good house-made hot sauces, one mild, one spicy, the latter with a decent kick to it. [Closed in short order, unfortunately.]

 

Georgie’s, Charlone 499, Chacarita – Maybe just a touch too clever for their own good. The entire menu for this place consists of six items, three of which are tacos, but among the half dozen, they cover the cuisines of Mexico, Brazil, something vaguely Southeast Asian, Indian, and sort of pan-European. The three taco choices, on nicely griddled corn tortillas, involve a pork and mango-apple chutney with fried peanuts, a braised beef with yogurt, and one with potatoes, green onions, sauerkraut, and spinach gremolata. I went for the most Mexican of the trio, the beef, which arrived with lovely shredded meat that had some reasonably good flavor in it, though a tad salty, missing, as best I could tell, the promised refried beans, a nice drizzle of yogurt, some bland pico de gallo, and fresh herbs. It was… fine. The accompanying hot sauce had minimal kick to it, despite the waitress’ warnings of dire harm if used more than sparingly. Two tacos, no mixing of types, 490 pesos. Again, fine, but there are so many better tacos around.

Barrigón/Kitchenita, Sánchez de Bustamante 875, Palermo – Part of the growing trend of “dark kitchens”, I’m not clear if Kitchenita is what’s referred to as a “multi-brand dark kitchen”, where individual restaurant brands, like Barrigón, cook up their own food in a small kitchen area within a bigger facility, and then the overarching group, Kitchenita, takes care of packaging and delivery, or if they’re an “outsourced dark kitchen”, where Kitchenita does all the work on behalf of Barrigón, including the cooking, following supplied recipes. Either way, it exists, and they represent multiple brands for online ordering and delivery only. Given that today it’s cold, windy, and on and off lightly rainy, I decided to forego my planned venture to a taqueria in Palermo and just order in. Barrigón offers four different tacos – beef, pork, fish, and vegetable, and I just ordered one of each (ranging from 215 to 275 pesos apiece). Each corn tortilla comes with a small amount of the promised main filling, and I do mean small amount – a couple of bites, along with refried beans, some chopped tomato, red onion, a single slice of jalapeño, and a single leaf of cilantro. Curdled, lumpy sour cream is in little plastic containers aside. The tacos are pretty dominated by the onion and tomato, and the main ingredient in each could have been interchangeable for all the flavor they added to the dish. The vegetable version, a slice of grilled eggplant, was so undercooked it squeaked to bite into it. The best of the four was the fish, which stood out mostly in contrast to the boring sameness of the two meat ones. Nope. Pass.

More tacos to come in the future, but I’ll take a break for now.