For a city as big as New York, it’s pretty easy to pick out the good places to eat. You hear about them, A LOT. It’s seems like everybody mentions the same handful of places when you ask for somewhere to eat and usually it’s with good reason. I’ve been continually impressed how even the most hyped up places will live up to their name. It’s been especially helpful for writing this blog because if I hear people mention the same taco place enough times, I can be pretty sure it’s going to be good.
That’s why I was so bummed to eat at the Endless Summer taco truck in Williamsburg. It’s a place I had been hearing about for a while. “Have you been to Endless Summer yet? Oh you have to go!” So to kick off Memorial Day weekend, I decided to go and I could not have been more disappointed.
The only drawback to writing this blog is that I can’t sample all the tacos each place has to offer. So I have to decide which ones will best represent the restaurant when I go to make my review. I usually break it down like this: I always get a pork taco because it is the best kind of taco and is a good barometer for the quality of a place. Then I’ll get a wild card. Something on the menu that not a lot of places have and seems unusual or is at least new to me. Then I’ll pick an alternate. Usually fish since I’m still searching for a decent fish taco on the East Coast (I know, it doesn’t exist, but I’m trying!).
For Endless Summer I went with pork, seitan (because I had never heard or seen a seitan taco on the menu before) and fish. When I got to the counter I was told the fish would take a while, so I decided to switch to chorizo (another favorite of mine) but I was told that would take a while as well. So I asked which one was better. The response I got was “eh, neither” and not in the “because they’re both so good!” way. More like, “you don’t want either of these”, which is advice I should have taken. But since I wanted a third taco I chose chorizo figuring bad chorizo is better than bad seafood. The wait only ended up being 5 minutes anyway while they chopped up the sausage and threw it on the grill. All the other fillings were pre-made.
I was happy to see that the tacos looked so good when they came out. And they were stuffed with meat. I ate the pork one first (on the right) and it was just okay. Plenty of pork but the meat was a razor’s edge away from being too dry. It was pretty bland overall.
Next, I dove into the seitan (middle) that was practically over-flowing. I’ve had seitan before and I’ve enjoyed it. I still think the whole fake meat thing is weird. There’s so many delicious non-meat food options. Why not have something that tastes really good instead of something that tastes like a shitty version of something else? But I think it has it’s place and decided to give it a go. This taco did not taste like any seitan I’ve ever had. It tasted like a chopped up vegan hot dog. In other words, horrible. And the fact that there was so much of it only made it worse. This was the first taco I could not get through (and it wouldn’t be the last of this meal). It seemed so strange that they would make the choice to have this disgusting filling when cactus is such a tasty vegetarian option. I couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying this taco, veg or not.
So, last up was chorizo (on the left). My expectations were getting lower but I figured it’s impossible to screw up spicy sausage. They did. The chorizo was only split in half instead of chopped up. So in the first bite I almost took out all the filling because I couldn’t bite through the chewy skin. Also, the chorizo was almost all grisle so even in that huge bite there wasn’t much meat. I probably would have made it through this taco but the tortillas they use (Mayab Happy Tacos) are so thick and starchy that I couldn’t finish it after eating 4 already. They probably don’t need to double up with these ones.
So here are the remains. The first time I’ve ever thrown away a taco and hopefully the last.
This is one place where you shouldn’t listen to the hype. I think they’re getting away with being a cool truck in Brooklyn with a good location. But there are seriously much better tacos out there. Don’t waste your time with this one!
Endless Summer Taco Truck
Bedford Ave at 6th Sreet
Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY
