Michoacana

Today I stopped in for lunch at Taqueria Michoacana. They seem to be parked at the Puentes tienda on Maybank Highway fairly regularly these days.



My first stop at Michoacana was sometime last year when they were advertising "¡PANBASOS HOY!" It seemed to be a special treat, so I ordered one. The delicious sandwich - like a torta covered in mild red sauce - was a mess to eat, but enough to bring me back a few times.



Today the taco was alright, though made with a store bought tortilla and the pastor served in a sort of sauce, like that at El Progresso in Hanahan. The handmade tortilla of the quesadilla, though, was excellent; that and the friendly manner of the woman who operates the truck made for a fine lunch.
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One casualty of the economic recession sadly has been El Jalisciense's residence at Rosebank Farms. I hadn't seen them for some time, and this weekend the woman at the market there told me they had suffered as a result of less new construction on the nearby resorts. I hope to see the climate change in El Jalisciense's favor; his was certainly one on the nicest lunch spots in the area.

New truck on Johns Island

Dave and I stopped at Rosebank Farms this week hoping to lunch on El Jalicience's exquisite quezadillas, but were surprised to find a new Los Parados truck parked there instead.




The operator of the truck was one of the friendliest I've met, and was eager to show us the reverb-laden boom of his CB radio.

According to Dave, the quezadillas don't measure up to the bar set by Jalicience, but few do. I ordered a torta al pastor and a Sidral apple soda and was not a bit disappointed.

The best torta of my life:

El Progreso

For lunch today, my friends the Petitpain brothers and I headed to Rivers Ave to visit La Cabaña, a Mexican place we've passed many times, but never tried. It wasn't open yet, though, so we kept driving north along Rivers and turned onto Remount Rd, looking for another new place to check out. Also wanting to escape the heat, we passed a few taco trucks and eventually settled on a restaurant called El Progreso, situated next to an old strip mall which is home to a few other Latin-American businesses.



The dining room was busy, with a lot of the customers eating from the buffet. Our waitress spoke excellent English, and was able to easily answer the few questions we had. (When I asked for a translation of "cachete," though, she moved her eyes around as she searched for the word, then smiled, shrugged, and pinched her cheek.) The buffet did look pretty good, but we all ordered tacos and sopes from the menu; somehow tacos al pastor are always the first thing I want to try at a new place. Once we had ordered, we sat back at our corner table, drinking our agua de tamarindo and exchanging smiles with the women making tortillas in the kitchen while we waited for our food.

The pastor was alright, but quite different than any of us had tried before; it was a little more spicy and it seemed to be cooked in a sauce. (I asked the waitress whether this was a regional variation, but she didn't really have an answer.) Honestly, I doubt I would order it again. But the tortillas and the cachete on my sope were pretty good; between that and the warm atmosphere, and the promise of tamales de puerco on the buffet, I'm sure we'll visit again.

When we went to the counter to pay, I started to tell the woman at the cash register, what I'd ordered.

"Dos tacos y..."

"And one sope and an agua fresca?"

I smiled and said, "yeah."

Now thinking that she spoke English, I asked whether they were open every day of the week, but she only furrowed her brow and called our waitress over to answer. Sometimes there's a nice give and take to even an awkward conversation on the border.

On the way back downtown we stopped in at La Tapatia to try a churro and I picked up some pan dulce for breakfast tomorrow.

Initiation

A few months ago, my friend Jonathan, after listening to me tell another story about the great meal I had enjoyed at one of my favorite taco trucks that afternoon, suggested that I start a lunch blog. I don't know that I had ever read a blog at that point - I somehow doubt that he had, either - but I got the idea. Now at last I've gotten around to it..

This week I ate at one of my favorite spots in the area, the El Jaliciense taco truck at Rosebank Farms on Johns Island. Besides serving the best quezadillas around, El Jaliciense also offers a beautiful atmosphere for enjoying their delightful Mexican cuisine. The truck is parked between a covered farmer's market and the adjacent crops, which lie just before the entrance to Kiawah and Seabrook Islands*. It's operated out of a restaurant on Ashley Phosphate Road up in North Charleston called El Apache.

I arrived a little after noon, and there were about ten customers - more than usual - ordering or already waiting for their food. I got in line and ordered my usual there, two quezadillas de pastor, and grabbed a bottle of Jarritos out of the cooler. The single shaded picnic table was occupied by a few guys from a concrete crew, so I sat on a bench and watched the chickens chase one another around the yard while I waited for my number to be called.

The tortillas and the meat at El Jaliciense are very good, but what sets their quezadillas apart is the addition of fresh greens, tomato, onion, and pickled jalapeño to the usual meat and cheese. I don't know whether it's the style of their cooks or it's simply how quezadillas are traditionally prepared in Jalisco. Whatever the case, the combination of the warm sweet pork and cheese with the crunch of the fresh vegetables makes for an beautifully balanced meal.

When I stopped to pay before leaving, I asked the woman taking orders if she spoke English. I wanted to ask whether they were ever parked there on Saturdays (a question too complicated for my nascent Spanish). For some reason I though she did, but she shook her head and referred me to the man preparing the food behind her. Disappointingly, the answer was no. I thanked them again for the delicious food and headed back to work.


*The establishment of these two gated developments in the 1970s paved the way for the continuing exploitation of what had been a rich and peaceful agricultural sea island community whose livelihood was symbiotic with that of nearby Charleston. The land where the truck parks is owned and worked by a middle aged white farmer whose ancestor is the namesake of the old drawbridge at the other end of the island. He's a kind and quiet man, but more than a little defiant in the face of the development. And though I know he enjoys El Jaliciense's tortas de asada, I've always suspected that he also gets at least some spiteful satisfaction out of helping to provide this fair and friendly place to eat for the hard working immigrant crews who labor inside the gates, where the taco trucks aren't allowed to go.