Tex?co Bell
By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, November 14, 2000 1:04am
My friends and I have always had an appreciation for both the absurd and unhealthy food. So when the new Texaco station opened up on MLK a while back, it was of great interest to us that their sign out front advertised tacos more prominently than it did their gas prices. Exactly what kind of tacos would a Texaco sell? It was only a matter of time until I ate there.
When I walked in today, I was impressed. The store was huge - a far cry from any notion of a mini-mart - and modern. Indeed, this was the dawn of a new era for inner city gas stations. Arrayed before me were the usual food mart suspects - Hostess products, chips, fuel additives - but it all seemed enticing to me now in this glorious setting. In fact, I wondered if I could live off of this Texaco's offerings, ignoring the reality that such a life would be, well, short-lived. Indeed, all four food groups were to be found, if not in the exacting proportions of the FDA. But I was a man on a mission, and would have to leave such scientific musings for another day.
The system for ordering food at this Texaco - henceforth pronounced Texáco, rhymes with taco - is kind of weird. You order your food at the counter where you buy cigarettes and pay for your gas, not over by the counter where they're making the food. Given that the menu was in Spanish with English subtitles, I ordered "one carnitas taco, one pollo taco, and one asada taco". The guy just kind of looked at me weirdly. "Dude, just say it in English," he said. Whoops. So clearly he wasn't the mastermind behind this whole Texáco idea.
The tacos were actually pretty good. Nothing like the American horror/beauty that is a Taco Bell crunchy taco. No, to my mind these were fairly authentic, or at least like unto other taqueria's tacos, with soft corn tortillas, cilantro, onions, and the meat of my choosing. It was a bit of a letdown in that it was a perfectly normal meal, coming from a perfectly weird place. But then, I can never be truly disappointed to have another place to eat good tacos.