I’ve got two, TWO taco reviews to send your way today. I haven’t been posting, but hell if I haven’t been eating. Tacos are so good. It almost makes me want to apologize to anyone who is friends with me, because sometimes I act like my love for tacos is an allergy to other foods.  If you want to go to dinner, or lunch, or breakfast with me you have to take into account that I am going to want tacos, and that I can’t really eat other foods. Okay, I’m being hyperbolic here, but you get the point.

Anyway, I promised myself that I would stay away from the heavy narration today and just get to the freaking tacos.

I’ll start with the tacos I had today and go backward in time a few week to when I had other tacos…skipping my repeat appearance at El Mariachi along the way. Maybe.

Today I met a friend for impromptu lunch at a vegetarian spot here in Minneapolis called The Hard Times Café. Hard Times is on the West Bank, so it’s always full of alternative-style college students, and…well, all the Minneapolis staple weirdos. What’s really cool about it is that it’s worker owned and operated, which means that what you are paying for your meal goes directly to the workers.

I wasn’t expecting tacos, but when I saw them on the menu I had no other choice.  Also, recently my vegan friend Grant requested that I find some vegan tacos, and although these particular tacos from Hard Times had cheese on them, I’m certain that I could have asked for them with no cheese, so I hope this review gives him hope.

The tacos come in sets of 3, with a side of incredible (and spicy) salsa, sour cream, and blue corn tortilla chips all for $6.75. It’s a pretty awesome deal. Unlike the vegetarian tacos I got at Pokez in San Diego, there was no tofu or any potatoes in these tacos.  As far as I could tell the taco shells were just loaded with delicious refried beans, lettuce, and red onions.  They were really, super delicious, and the tortilla shells were soft, but fried. Oh man. The only problem was that the innards of the tacos kept getting squished out of the shell every time I took a bite, but it wasn’t a big deal. Fantastic.

If you hang on the West Bank, and you are a vegetarian/vegan and desire tacos, then you should just walk right into Hard Times and fucking demand them. Or, write them down on the order slip, with the price, and your name followed by a bunch of exclamation points, then just wait for your order to be called.

Black Bean Tacos at Hard Times Cafe

Two weeks ago I followed up a taco lead that took me to a loverly little taqueria called La Hacienda, which literally means The Estate. Sounds fancy. And it was.

I don’t want to go insane on this review, but the tacos here were so good, that they might actually rival Minneapolis’ taco leader, El Mariachi.  Although, El Mariachi has recently upped their game further with new menus and a slightly different taco style, so I can’t really declare a definitive winner without more investigation.

The tacos at La Hacienda are so good, and so inexpensive.  The decor is super festive, and they have a type of taco that I had previously not seen at any other taco place in the city: cecina.  Cecina tacos are tacos that are essentially filled with beef jerky.  How could I not love that? Actually, I noticed that with their overhaul El Mariachi is not offering cecina tacos.  I’ll have to compare.

I got three tacos: cecina, al pastor, and lengua. They were all fantastic, with the al pastor really blowing me away.  They make their al pastor in the traditional way, on a spit with the meat surrounding a peeled pineapple.  It was so good. My friend Kiki got barbacoa, and chicken and loved them.

I was worried they wouldn't want me taking a photo of this amazing thing, so I had to do it all secret agent style

cecina, al pastor, lengua tacos

Their tacos were $1.50 a piece, but there’s a month long special for the carnitas and babacoa tacos, so they only cost $1.00. Get down to Lake Street and eat the hell out of some tacos!