Eating off the Hill: Hugo Taco in Ottawa

Hugo Taco is a taco food truck attached to Social Thai, on Waverly Street just off of Bank Street in Ottawa's Centretown neighborhood. There is a picnic table if you can't wait to get your tacos home, but that's definitely a better option in the summer.

I've been a few times as it's just a few blocks from my home and it's definitely and enjoyable and seemingly authentic, albeit quite pricy, Mexican taco experience.

At the heart of their menu are corn flour tortillas starting at $6 in seven varieties:

• Al Pastor (grilled pork)
• Chorizo (Mexican sausage)
• Asada (grilled steak)
• Barbacoa (braised beef)
• Camaron (grilled shrimp)
• Pollo (pulled chicken)
• Vegano (grilled tofu)

Where it starts to get expensive is they're small, so you need 2-3. Another $1 each if you want guacamole and another $1 each if you want queso (cheese), and suddenly you're looking at $24 for a food truck meal before drink, taxes and tip.

You can get chips with guac or salsa as a side, and they also have auga fresca, Mexican cola, beer and soft drinks. There are also a variety of free hot sauces to spice up your taco, as well as lime wedges to add a little acid.

I've tried most of the tacos except for the veggie and the shrimp, because I'm not brave enough to risk taco truck shrimp. They are tasty and fresh. The meat is well seasoned and the pickled onions very tasty. It's a nice treat, but I wish they were more affordable.

I'd definitely take them over El Camino, down the street on Elgin.

But how are they not open on Taco Tuesdays?!

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Eating in New York: Los Tacos No. 1

In my advance research for good eats to try during my trip to New York City, I decided to favour authenticity and value over fancy and bougie. And when Los Tacos No. 1 came up in both my googling and a friend recommendation, who also reminded me of this Bon Appetit video I enjoyed before they were cancelled, I knew I had to give it a try.

They have five locations in NYC, and luckily one location was right near my boss' hotel near Times Square. So during a lunch hour break between meetings I dashed across the street and joined the line that stretched out the door -- nearly always a sign of good food.

Luckily, the line moved steadily and they had a guy managing it and ensuring the traffic flowed smoothly. 

They have a number of different Mexican specialties that all look delicious, but it's Los Tacos No. 1 so I had to have tacos for my first visit. I decided to get three, all on corn tortillas (you can also choose flour or corn); carne asada, pollo asado and adoba -- aka grilled steak, grilled chicken and marinated pork. They also have nopal, or grilled cactus, I guess as a vegetarian option. But three was enough for me.

They also have a wide variety of beverages on offer. I was tempted by the agua fresca, but they also have Mexican soft drinks (ie real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup) and I couldn't resist an orange Fanta -- ironically, I drank them a lot when in Germany so it was mixing memories of Germany for me with the food of Mexico. The grape was also tempting.

I placed my order and was given a ticket -- signs all over warn you no ticket, no tacos. You are then ushered to one of the taco prep stations where your tacos are made fresh to order right in front of you -- it's like a Mexican Subway but with taco artists. Behind them, meat turns on a spit and is also grilled on open flame. I asked for mine con todo, which means onions, cilantro, salsa and guacamole. There was also a self-serve bar to the side with salsas of various spice levels.

In no time at all I had my three tacos and, adding on some fresh salsa I found a spot to stand and eat at one of the stand-up bars and stocked up on napkins, as I knew this would be delicious but messy.

Common to all three tacos was the fresh and pliable corn tortilla which added a sweet corn note and the fresh onion, salsa, cilantro and guac. Everything tasted delicious and fresh, and recently so. 

I began on the right with the pork. I'm not always a pulled pork guy but this was tasty and juicy and very flavourful. Second favourite.

In the middle was the chicken, and this was my favourite. Juicy, fresh, nice char really adding depth to the flavour. I could eat three of the pollo.

On the right was the steak. It was good, but was my least favourite of the three. The steak was a little dry, and didn't have the flavour notes of the chicken and the pork. 

Probably as authentic a taco experience as you're going to get out of Mexico, it definitely earns a spot on my must-visits for future trips to New York City. Definitely check it out when you're there. The line was even longer on the street when I left but if they'd asked, I would say it's well worth the wait.

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Eating up the Hill: Garden Party food round-up

Tonight marked the return of the annual Garden Party for Liberal MPs and assistants on the grounds of 24 Sussex Drive after a two-year pandemic hiatus. Without the recently COVID-positive Prime Minister, sadly, disapointing a generation of post-pandemic young staffers who won't be able to update their Facebook profiles tomorrow with a picture of themselves with Justin Trudeau.

Also missing were the amazing tandori lambchops which in my view were the standout of the last pre-pandemic garden party -- sorry JT. Though I am told Coconut Lagoon will be reopening soon. There were a number of local vendors with tasty small plate nibbles though, and your humble blogger sampled most of them for you.

Crispy chicken taquito

It was crispy, it was chicken, there was queso and guac -- what's not to love? I could certainly have eaten more.

Summer salad with flank steak

A little radish-heavy, but I enjoyed the pea pods. Steak was medium-rare and tender. Maybe needed a little pepper. But very tasty.

Charred haloumi lettuce wrap

This was delish. They were grilling the haloumi on site, which was cool. I make haloumi a lot at home when BBQing and I love it, but it can be a little one note. I like the lettuce wrap idea and will do this at  home.

Not pictured: oysters, because I don't like them.

And ice cream bars from Moo-Shu, because it was really hot and I ate it really quickly. There were a menu of choices, but I went with the chocoloate-covered strawberry sprinkles and had no regrets.

Next year, open up the pool.

Happy summer, y'all!

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Eating in quarantine: Chicken tacos with homemade flour tortillas

In the before times I didn’t do that much cooking outside the weekends. But now, with nothing but time on my hands I’m cooking all the time and trying some new things from time to time. I haven’t jumped on the breadmaking bandwagon, but I did come close by making homemade flour tortillas for my chicken tacos yesterday.

Some googling had confirmed it’s a pretty simple recipe and it really was, and with a few technique changes I was quite happy by the end with how most of them turned out. And I already have some ideas to kick the next batch up a notch. But first, taco fixings.

After my weekly trip to the newish Farm Boy on Metcalfe (way better than Massine’s, but keep that on the DL) I was well provisioned with fresh veggies and all the fixings. First step, dice and sauté my chicken breasts with garlic and red peper flakes with avocado oil, then set aside.

While the chicken was cooking I prepped my yellow pepper, onion and mushrooms, and then set the chicken aside and proceeded to sautee the veggies in the same manner.

I picked up a packet of chicken taco sauce at Farm Boy as a seasoning cheat (my limited pantry is pretty full already) so after heating the sauce in my pan I added back in the chicken and veggies and set that aside to simmer while I moved on to the tortillas.

I found a simple flour tortilla recipe on the interwebs which I modified based on the comments and my own whims. Mix two cups flour and one tablespoon sea salt, then add 1/3 cup avocado oil (called for olive but works fine) and then stir in ¾ cup of water. What you get is a pretty stick ball of dough you let rest for a few minutes.

There are two keys to success here: use lots of flour, and after portioning the dough into 8, roll them into balls. This will help you get closer to roundish tortillas.

While heating my cast iron pan on medium heat, I rolled out a ball of dough as thinly as I could.

I then very carefully transferred it to the pan, which I had given a spray with cooking spray. About sixty to ninety seconds is enough time to roll out the next one.

Some nice light browning as the other side cooks after the flip, and then the completed tortilla goes into a pan in my pre-heated oven to stay warm while the tortilla making continues.

Now it was taco time. My chicken veggie mix was complemented by tomatoes, green onions, salsa, sour cream and, just for fun in a last minute addition, pineapple. I was so excited that for my first taco, I forgot the cheese.

The pineapple was a pleasant addition, and the tortillas were warm, tasty and certainly had more texture than the store-bought versions.

Homemade tortillas are defintiely much better than the store versions, no surprise there. Without a tortilla press they don't look super round or uniform but that's fine, they're bespoke. It's all simple ingredients you likely have in your pantry and the technique is easy enough. What it does take is time, maybe half an hour to prep and cook eight tortillas. But when you have time, as we do now, it's definitely worth doing.

Next time I'd like to try to fancy up the dough with some seasonings. Definitely think there's room for innovation there.

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Eating off the Hill: Taco Tuesday at Toro Taqueria

After four years working on Parliament Hill, I'm always on the lookout for new and different lunching options, having tried most places at least a few times. So I was pleased during recent Google Maps and Yelp trolling to find a new taco option not too far outside my usual lunch walking radius: Toto Taqueria, on Slater at Bank.

Long-time Ottawa lunchers will recognize this location -- actually, the famed Germantown Deli used to be next door -- it's now a bubble tea place or something. Rising rents forced them out, but I guess tacos and bubble tea are bringing in more revenue.

Anyway, this ain't Taco Bell, so fancy tacos ain't cheap. The three I had would regularly run $13.50 in total, but as I went on Taco Tuesday when tacos were $4 each, it cost me $12. Another $4 for the guacamole and chips, and $3 for my Mexican grape Fanta. Still well more than my usual lunch budget, so this will be an only on Taco Tuesdays stop. Still, I do recognize that fresh and quality ingredients are worth a premium.

Arriving early at 11:30 AM to beat the lunch rush, I ordered:

Picadillo: Chopped beef and potato in taco potion, with lettuce, pico de gallo,  and salsa roja.

Guadalajara: Red chile rubbed tortilla, Pollo Asado, Chorizo.

Carnitas: Ancho, Guajilo, hibiscus rubbed pork shoulder.

So, one each of a chicken, beef and pork. I went from left to right, starting with the carnitas. It was OK, good flavour, could have used a bit more veg variety and texture. It certainly wasn't dry -- in fact, it was wet. Very wet. Dripping onto your shirt wet, so be careful. The Guadalajara was similar -- little wet, nice flavour to the chicken, but also some nice texture with a good crunch. This one came with a lime for added flavour. And the Picadillo was a nice ending, with nicely seasoned beef.

I don't go gaga for Guac but this was good, but again could have used a bit more flavour. Do you put lime in Guac? Maybe it needed more guac. The chips were crunchy and thick and certainly seemed house-made. I almost went for the Orange Fanta, but decided to change it up and go grape, which I don't ever recall having -- not since I was a kid, anyway. It was good -- very much like a grape Popsicle. Needed more fizz though.

All in all, a pretty good, if pricy, Mexican taco experience. Would like to see stronger flavours achieved though without resorting to hot sauce. Happy Taco Tuesday!

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Eating off the Hill: Mexican/Korean fusion at Barrio Coreano

After many campaign meals or biryani and chicken karahi, I was ready for a cuisine change when I met my sister for dinner after the election before heading back to Ottawa. At her recommendation, we went for Mexican/Korean Fusion at Barrio Coreano on Bloor, between Christie and Bathurst.

A quick perusal of the menu did leave the view that it skewed more to the Mexican side of the equation, which I was perfectly fine with. The Korean element seemed to largely be adding kimchi to some of the dishes. As I'm not much of a kimchi fan, I passed on those dishes.

They offer tacos priced individually or for three, and as a fiscal conservative I was initially attracted to the bulk discount. Trying to behave myself post-campaign though, and wanting to keep desert as an option, I decided to stick with two.

For an appy, we shared an order of guacamole and chips. I'm not one of those folks that go crazy for avocados; but it was tasty and I had to work to not just go all-in on the chips and spoil my dinner.

I choose two tacos, one crispy and one soft. The first to come was the crispy Braised Short Rib, which the menu described as braised beef in ancho-guajillo with mole rojo. It was tasty, though the beef was unevenly distributed. I thought at first that it was light on the beef but in a good way, but then found a lot of beef bunched up at the end, messing up the ratio. It was tasty and well-seasoned beef though, and the veggies fresh and crisp.

The beef was my favourite of the two. Next was the soft Fried Chihuahua Cheese, which the menu describes as battered chihuahua cheese and tofu salsita with habanero. I was excited for this one, but it underwhelmed. The cheese wasn't hot and gooey and lacked in flavour. It was just a taco of meh.

My sister and I shared desert -- churros poutine. (I did most of the heavy lifting). Several soft/crispy cinnamon churros in a caramel sauce. It was just ok -- I felt like it should have been something more flavourful given the doubtless substantial investment of calories I was making.

Anyway, worth visiting again to try other tacos. The beef I would repeat, but my other selections would be new.

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Eating OFF the Hill: Pricy tacos at El Camino

I've been hearing I must try the tacos at El Camino for a few years now, and despite their Elgin Street locaiton being just down the street from me, I had never gotten around to making the trip. That changed this weekend, when I decided on a late taco dinner.

Perhaps my delayed visit was due to subconcious disapointment that they had taken over the space that once housed Maroush, the acknowledged by those of fine taste best shawarma in Ottawa for many years. Or maybe it was that they weren't open for lunch on weekends. More the latter, I think.

I'd read online of service issues, but I went late evening and was seated right away on a high top chair that was inelegent to get myself into. The lighting was rather dark, making it difficult to read my newspaper -- my solo dining companion.

I ordered three tacos -- a beef, a chicken and a crispy chorizo. Rather that come out all at once, the chorizo came out first maybe 10 minutes after ordering, then a 10 minute pause, and then came the chicken and beef. Would have prefered them all at once, and don't see why they wouldn't be served together.

I'll start with the two soft tacos, which came last. The chicken was standard pulled chicken tika, seasoned nicely, with an assortment of fresh veggies on a fresh soft small tortia. Was pleasently surprised to find that the beef was not ground but was actually steak, making it probably the best value of the three tacos I had. It also came with a slice of avocado.

I was surprised to find the chorizo taco came in a hard shell. Sure, it said crispy on the menu, so yeah, but I guess I was thinking maybe the chorizo was crispy, which in hindsight I realize doesn't really make any sense. The sausage was prety finely sliced to the point of losing its character, I felt, and not standing out as I would expect it to.

There were squeeze bottles of two different sauces provided, a milder green sauce and a hotter red sauce. The red sauce tasted pretty hot when tested on my finger, but actually blended quite nicely with the taco toppings when applied to be complementary, and not overpowering.

I enjoyed the three tacos which were well-prepared with lots of fresh ingredients that went together well. However, at $6.75 a piece they were definitely on the pricy side. I passed on the interesting tequila-focused cocktail list, as $14 for a cocktail is well over my comfort level.

Instead, I ordered the churros with salted caramel for desert. Delicious, fresh, crispy, cinamony, and an excess of salted caramel sauce for dipping. Sinfully good.

A very tasty meal in a dark and noisy reasturant. Food over ambience. But at $35 with tax and tip for a meal that didn't include a drink (they were out of Mexican coke, sadly) I likely won't be back often.

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Eating up the Hill: When we weren't watching they completely changed how we make tacos

I'm taking a temporary pause from my Hill and Hill-adjacent food blogging to discuss an incredibly important food-related topic: a massive and unannounced under the radar change to the fundamental physics of taco meat preparation.

Ever since I began cooking regularly in my later teenage years (a very fair trade to get out of doing the dishes) one of the regular staples of my cuisine has been tacos. And a regular filling has been ground beef. It used to be the affordable choice, but now it seems like chicken has gotten cheaper and it can be hard to find medium ground beef -- never mind the more affordable and once plentiful regular ground beef. But I digress -- the disappearance in ground beef choice is another story in and of itself.

I have made the seasoned ground beef so many times I would rarely bother to read the instructions on my packet of Old El Paso or President's Choice taco seasoning. I'd just brown the ground beef, drain off the grease, add in the seasoning powder and a cup of water, bring it to a boil and then leave it to simmer down while chopping tomatoes and green onions, grating cheese (though now I'm all about the pre-grated bags) and all the other necessary taco prep.

Then, one day recently, on a whim I looked at the back of my packet of taco seasoning. To my surprise, decades of taco science had been thrown upside down with entirely new instructions: toss your ground beef in a heated pan, add the seasoning and some vegetable oil at the start, mix it together and brown it. No water, no browning first. And more oil? )Is this because all I can find now is lean ground beef?) What sorcery is this?

When did this change happen? I don't know. Could have been last month, could have been a decade ago. Did I miss a public consultation period? Was there an explanation given? Had taco scientists made a breakthrough to improve flavour dynamics, or had Old El Paso and President's Choice been co-opted by big vegetable oil?

The new method works well enough, I suppose. It's faster than the previous method, although I'd argue the previous method -- in addition to being less oily -- produced a saucier meat. Are people today not willing to spend an extra 10 minutes in prep for saucier taco meat?

Myself, I may go back to the old ways. Some advances are not for the better. Good tacos take time.

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