Fabrica del Tacos *

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The other night Ariana and I were having a serious dicussion as to how long we each planned to stay in Argentina. When I asked for her thoughts on the matter, she replied, “I guess I’ll stay until I miss Chipotle too much…” I burst out laughing, and then realized that there was some level of truth to this statement….yes, that is just how seriously we take our Mexican food.

In fact, I have concluded after all of my travels this summer, that I cannot permanently reside anywhere that does not have good Mexican grub near by. I crave the spice, the tender shredded beef, the cheesy goodness, and last but not least, the guac!! I am struggling here in Argentina to find such flavors, because they don’t really like spicy foods or beans. Your hard pressed to find a bottle of tobasco (I now carry my own in my hand bag…BYOT style) in a country where pepper shakers don’t even make an appearance on the table. This was my defining moment of culture shock. I had never been to a country that seemed to be void of black pepper. To see salt without the pepper was like bread without butter, coffee without the cream, fountain soda without the ice!!! It was all wrong. Some things in the world just go together; salt and pepper are one of them.

Anyways, I had one of my Mexican cravings the other night and I was on the hunt for something gut-dropping and heart-stopping. Ariana had heard something about a little taco stand in Palermo and thats exactly where we headed. It seemed authentic enough from the outside–flashing red christmas lights, reggaeton music, brightly colored walls, ect… But as I have learned, you can never judge a restaurant by its appearance. The food was far from authentic, and far from delicious.

Let me expand upon my grievances with this Mexican restaurant. To start, I ordered the guacamole and chips. The guac was not terrible (in fact, I dare to say it was the best item served that night), but it was rather difficult to enjoy on the stale nacho chips, which were like razor blades in my mouth.

In an attempt to wash it down, I ordered a margarita on the rocks and there was no surprise at all when a frozen margarita slushy arrived at the table–“on the rocks” always gets lost in translation for some reason. The mix was bad, and the price was expensive for the size of the glass–dissappointment numero dos.

The third and final strike though, was my entree, the Tacos Carnitas. Carnitas are one of those things that I order whenever I am unsure about the quality of a restaurant. The meat is so fatty and delicious that it is difficult to make poorly, but fabrica del tacos managed to make them disgusting. In fact, they weren’t even really carnitas, they were shaved gyro meat from the spinning pork cooker (like the ones at kebab places). And this was terrible quality gyro meat at that. I pushed my food around and stole bites of Ariana’s Chicken Flautas whenever I could. The flautas were decent, but I think that might just have been the case because anything would have been an improvement compared to my appalling meal.

Overall, I left the meal feeling cheated out of my 60 pesos (the equivalent of 2 locros and an empanada from La Cocina…sad face). I hate paying for bad food, so I don’t think I will be returning to Fabrica del Tacos anytime in the near future.