Chef at La Taqueria travelled south to do her homework in the homeland of the taco
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Rafael Cuellar serves tacos during the lunchtime rush: Organic produce, free-range meat and a business card with a lot of attitude. Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
Tripping north across the border, the cute-as-a-button Mexican taco became a North American. It went from a two-bite nibble to a meal.
Our supermarket versions of the corn taco shell are brittle while the Mexican taco shell is soft and bendable so you can fold it like a baseball mitt around the filling. We North Americans have gone even further, flattening the bottoms of the hard taco shell so it sits up straight as if to say please and thank you.
The thing of it is, if you’re going to eat tacos, it shouldn’t be a polite-society thing. Salsa should ooze and your fingers be lickable. That’s the kind of taco you’ll find at La Taqueria, which opened recently in the space vacated by Nuba, a falafel joint. The space is small and a lunchtime jam-up builds very quickly.
Often, I get tripped up when I have to give my name at the order counter but I managed to come up with a fake name without incident. (No, I won’t divulge my default name.)
The La Taqueria space has been gutted and brightened up considerably and the place is abuzz at lunch. Tacos (12 choices) are $2 for vegetarian and $2.50 for meat and fish or $9.50 for four. Tacos are the mainstay, although you can get the same fillings in quesadilla form for $4.
I had a lost-in-translation conversation with owner Marcelo Ramerez about the tagline on the business card, which reads “Pinche Taco Shop.”
“It means f—ing taco shop,” he said. That’s a bit rude, isn’t it, I say. The translation is much milder than the English meaning, he explains. But you get the picture — there’s attitude.
Ramerez grew up in Mexico in a hotel/restaurant family and prior to opening La Taqueria, he was part-owner of Le Faux Bourgeois in east Vancouver.
He brought in Tina Fineza (chef at Flying Tiger) as consulting chef and sent her to Mexico where she spent a week with his family and checked out the home of tacos. She did her homework. The resulting tacos are simple, straight-ahead, Mexican-style quickie food.
Ingredients come with better pedigree than you might expect at a taqueria. The produce is organic, the meat is free range and seafood (there’s one seafood topping) is wild and sustainable. The fish taco thus far has been albacore tuna. (It wasn’t my favourite as it was overcooked.) The meats tend to be marinated, then grilled and I couldn’t tell one from the other sometimes. But they were tasty mouthfuls — toppings include skirt steak, Pitt Meadows beef tongue; pork confit with pickled red onion; Maple Hills chicken with molé, oyster mushrooms with spicy chipotle; poblano peppers with creamed corn; Chilliwack pork marinated in chile achiote and pineapple.
Unfortunately, there’s no beer to wash it down. And for dessert, reach in the candy jar for a choice of Mexican candies.
AT A GLANCE
La Taqueria
322 West Hastings St., 604-568-4406. twitter: LataqueriaYVR. Open Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
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