Texas Taco Takeover - Dallas (Featuring Weird Plastic Baby and The Scientist)

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What happens when a Missouri girl and an Arkansan gal with Texas roots head to The Lone Star State?

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The Scientist and I had an epic weekend in Dallas, Texas. I’ll be posting a lot about our Texas trip during this week (as well as finishing my 3-part series about my Steemit Depression Vacation), but I wanted to start out with the big deal stuff: STREET TACOS.

The Scientist does amazingly supportive things for me on a regular basis and makes me feel very special all the time, and I’m not a “things-person” (if that makes sense) but this trip was truly one of a lifetime, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for me and for us in literally all the ways.

My schedule has been so crazy on the weekends recently, my mind is just starting to clear from the haze of the last six weeks or so, and getting away for fun hasn’t been really on my mind, so when I was surprised with an idea to go to Texas (since I’d never been) to eat tacos, I was very excited.

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I found out the night before we left, that we were also seeing TORI AMOS in concert (more on that later, too), which was a complete bucket list experience. I cried the entire concert, because it was so amazing.

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The entire weekend was like a dream.

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I’ll be posting about the Dallas Art Museum, Museum of Geometric and Madi Art, as well as the Dallas Zoo and the Tori Amos concert in upcoming posts this week.

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Now I’m going to talk tacos.

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TacoMex Las Colinas was a great first (and second) stop on the Taco Takeover. This place happened to be really close to our hotel and had great reviews from what we checked out online, so we decided to try this place out for our first stop on our Taco Takeover.

For dinner the first night, The Scientist had fajita chicken, fajita beef, and al pastor tacos. I enjoyed a barbacoa, as well as a shredded ranchero chicken taco.

The yellow corn tortillas here were absolutely amazing, and we also noticed that they served breakfast tacos, so we decided to hit it up for breakfast again the next morning.

The red and green homemade hot sauces were incredible. The red sauce was perhaps a Valentina base, but I’ve learned to get very excited when I see those sauce bottles. Some were better than others over the weekend, but this Red was my favorite of the weekend. The green sauce was a verde and perhaps habanero base, and it was delicious as well. Both sauces were incredibly spicy without sacrificing any flavor. We were excited to experience sauces with actual heat. In Missouri, spicy can really be a joke to someone with the palettes in our household.

For breakfast the next day, I had a delicious chorizo and egg breakfast taco with a fabulous pinto bean spread, and The Scientist enjoyed a beans & egg, as well as a potato & egg taco.

The breakfast tacos were served on flour tortillas, and while we both generally prefer corn tortillas, these flour tortillas rate among the best I’ve had. The Scientist actually said they were the best flour tacos she has ever had in her life, and that she expected to be slightly disappointed since they were flour, but then literally said, “I will eat these every day now,” as she was enjoying her tacos. Needless to say, we really enjoyed eating here, and loved the atmosphere and the great staff, as well.

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We were excited about Gipsy Lime Taco Lounge, as it had pretty good ratings, and was also in fairly close proximity to our hotel. We hit this joint on Friday night, and while the atmosphere was pretty cool and the food was presented nicely, the tacos were just okay.

That might be because the other tacos we had eaten prior to these were so good, but comparatively speaking with hindsight, these were the most regular-just-fine-nothing-special kind of street taco fare.

They had a selection of about eight different homemade sauces in varying levels of heat, and the four we tried (basically the four hottest ones), were all very good. In contrast, the sauces were a lot better than the tacos.

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El Come Taco was a super fun joint in Dallas with great tacos, and I tried lengua (beef tongue) for the first time, which was a new and fun experience. I’m not completely sold on the texture, but with lime juice and served street style with the onions and cilantro balanced out quite nicely and I see why folks enjoy these so much, however I’m not sure I’ll be ordering lengua again soon. :)

The vibrant art on the wall and the general ambience was super welcoming, and then the tacos were outstanding, as well.

They also had the magical red and green sauce bottles on the tables at El Come, though the sauces contained within were quite different. The red sauce had a smokier, chipotle pepper flavor along with the heat (unlike the Valentina-tasting base of TacoMex’s red sauce), as well as an amazing green sauce which wasn’t that hot, but it was made with a delicious tomatillo base, and I wish we could’ve taken some home with us. So good. I think it was The Scientist’s favorite part of the food perhaps all weekend. :) Really good.

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I’ve heard before about the magic of “Texas Truck Stop Tacos,” from friends and family who have been over-the-road long-haul truck drivers, so when we saw Fuel City reviews, I knew I wanted to try this one out.

However, I didn’t expect a full-service truck stop/gas station with the addition of an outside taco and elote window that serves food 24/7.

We each grabbed some tacos and split an elote, which was absolutely amazing and a true sweet, rich treat.

These tacos were soooo good. I fully understand the magic now.

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After we made it back to Missouri, I realized that I still wanted to eat tacos, so we looked up the best tacos in Springfield. Now, we have our favorite Mexican restaurants here in town and have eaten at quite a few taco joints, but we weren’t even aware of the food truck, I Love Tacos Taqueria, which is located right across the access road from the new Flying J Truck Stop at the junction of Business Loop 44 (Chestnut Expressway) and I-44, right off the exit.

This place was nice and cozy in its permanent location, is open 7 days a week, offer both tongue and tripe tacos, burritos, and other fare...along with tamales sold single or by the dozen. It was so good.

We each enjoyed a couple of delicious tacos and a tamale as we sat and enjoyed the sunset over the Flying J. It was a great ending to a magical taco trip, and so cool to find such a great little taco place right here in Springfield through all of it as well, and one that we will be hitting up often.

After the taco amazingness of the weekend, it was awesome to find ones of the same caliber right here in our hometown. Full circle. Love it.

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More Weird Plastic Baby Coming Soon

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Thanks so much for checking this out, and look forward to posts on:

• Dallas Art Museum
• Museum of Geometric and Madi Art
• Dallas Zoo
• Music, Music, MUSIC

All of my love to you all. Things are finally looking up in my head. They’ve been looking up for a while, it has just taken me too long to believe it. Thank you again for sticking with me, Steemit. I’m so grateful.

Yours,
Jess

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