It’s Tuesday so that means that even places that are not “Mexican” restaurants offer specially priced tacos. For some reason the benefit of Taco Tuesday was lost on me until recently when I tried a few tacos on the special weekly offer.
Growing up, tacos meant a box of Old El Paso hard taco shells and taco seasoning. All you add is ground meat. Back then those were pretty great, and they may even still be, but I haven’t had anything like that in a while. Crispy taco shells are still widely available, but out of vogue in favor of soft corn tortillas lightly toasted on a flat top grill, little char bubbles in spots making them interesting.
And tacos circa 2025 have much more interesting fillings. I remember when Taqueria Corona got a lot of buzz with their tongue tacos, now called lengua. In modern taco world there is also chicken Tinga, and beef in both Barbacoa and Birria preparations. And of course there is Mexican “street-style” and American style dressings on the meat.
I ignored all these options because Taco Tuesday always seemed like such a gimmick. And a few weeks ago I tried some specially-priced tacos at Kantunil, my current favorite more “authentic Mexican” place. So when I found myself on the south shore today on Taco Tuesday I thought of Las Cruces Tex-Mex, a place I love but I’m not sure why.
Last time I checked they didn’t do Taco Tuesday, but I thought I’d see if maybe they had changed that policy. When I heard the list of all the choices of $3 tacos, I couldn’t resist getting an assortment. I chose chorizo, because I love chorizo, and I had to get brisket tacos because Central City BBQ is a sister restaurant and their smoked meats are available here now. And I had grilled chicken, and their ground chuck mixture, which with every bite evokes the great memory of the filling in Manuel’s beloved hot tamales.
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These were all ordered “street-style,” because I love cilantro, and to me this is definitely a better dressing for them. As I expected, the brisket was wonderful, because it’s Central City BBQ after all. Tender chunks of brisket filled the little tortilla. It had a little jus on it, unlike the basic brisket which I expected.
The chorizo oozed an orange grease from the meat, which I always consider an appealing quality when others may not. It’s one of my favorite traits about ground chorizo. This was tender and delicious.
But the best to me was the ground chunk, which I find so terrific here I would come just for it. It is so good I actually think about it for a bit after every visit here. It is especially sensational on the Taco Salad at Las Cruces.
And the grilled chicken was also very nice, though I think I should have gotten the smoked chicken, just because it was Central City meats.
I’m glad I got into the Taco Tuesday game before too many tacos were missed.
