Sit-down street tacos at Pinche Tacos
Pinche Tacos sure is a nice place, even if its name sounds a little harsh.
Pinche caused a flutter of controversy when it started up as a taco cart on the 16th Street Mall in 2010. In Mexican Spanish, “pinche” is an all-purpose curse that could be compared to the adjective form of “fucking” in English. Hence, the cheeky cart aroused a lot of hand-wringing and was almost forced to change its name.
The Pinches stood firm, though, and recently gained a new level of respectability with a brick-and-mortar joint on a burgeoning corner of East Colfax.
Freed to pour booze, the stationary Pinche Tacos positions itself as a tequila-happy taqueria, a little hole-in-the-wall for drunk-making and taco-snarfing. The space gets jam-packed at peak hours, especially around the bar, but somehow the staff manages to sort out the table situation to keep things moving.
Appetizers and tacos are ordered with a pen and paper, a la sushi restaurants. Simply choose the number of tacos you wish to stuff in your yum-hole and pass it off to the server, who will also happily and efficiently bring strong drinks to the table.
Pinche is one of those places that serve “street tacos,” the small, soft, easily devourable tacos one purchases at loncheras and taco carts all over the city. Since Pinche started as a cart, we’ll give the it a pass on the non-street aspect of its sit-down establishment. However, anyone who’s used to paying lonchera prices for quality tacos will be a little dismayed.
The tacos range from $2.95 to $4.50 each, depending on the main ingredients. It’s hard to get terribly outraged, though, since the highest-priced tacos come with expensive ingredients like shrimp and scallops. In the end, it makes some sense.
It’s worth it, for example, to pay $3.50 for the pork belly “agridulce” taco. Oh, glorious pork belly: rich with fat and melt-in-your-mouth tender. There’s a good-sized hunk of it on the taco, too, not just a stingy pile or two. The scrumptious lump reclines on a bed of cabbage-and-cilantro slaw and candied garlic cloves, with a small ramekin of the pork’s sweet-and-sour braising liquid on the side.
On the bargain end of the scale, the more basic—but still satisfying—carnitas and lengua tacos come in at $2.95 each. One of the vegetarian tacos, rajas con crema y maiz, is a stunner. It’s a simple combination of roasted poblano chile, creamed chipotle corn, cotija cheese, and a touch of sour cream. The sweetness of the corn jives spectacularly with the smoky poblano and chipotle flavors, and the creamy elements make the whole thing luxurious and velvety.
Bigger appetites can take a hit in the wallet at Pinche Tacos when the a la carte taco totals are added up. The best of the tacos could become dangerously habit-forming, too. It’s still hard to resist—pony up the pinche dinero and surrender.
