I went for a light snack of some corn in a cup with chile and lime.  Simple and so good.

After the elote we stumbled upon a junior high cheerleading competition that was promoting HIV and AIDS awareness.  I don’t know if I am allowed to describe the moves that these very young girls were doing during their performances.  Mexican interpretation is amazing. 

With a plentiful surge of condo development and construction entering the Puerto Vallarta area, farmers markets are becoming fewer and farther between.  Since the arrival of a certain super mart and its wholesale companion company moved in (*and also given the idea to other large wholesale corporations) they have reshaped the idea of the central market where all the fresh produce comes in.  The markets that do remain have greatly decreased in quality, quantity, and diversity.  The obvious competition is killing these family run markets.  I don’t want to be over critical, but why is this not apparent to us?  Welcome to our world of convenience food.  A friend of mine who owns a restaurant in the center of Puerto Vallarta simply stated, “A mexican market in Vallarta, just doesn’t exist anymore.”

This is Tacos Chabelita.  They make tacos de canasta (Tacos in a basket).  These are steamed tortillas that are usually filled with chorizo, pollo, papa, frijol, or beef and are traditional to mejico DF.  In mejico DF these tacos are sold for breakfast.  They are sold in the cloth covered baskets of bicycles and the taquero moves around to select spots of the city until all tacos are sold.  Its common that all of the tacos de canasta are sold before 11am. Tacos Chabelita has one hell of a production.  They sell 1500 tacos in the Plaza Caracol location.  This is a shopping plaza with a grocery store and other consumer driven kiosks so there is quite a bit of traffic.  They have four locations here in the vallarta area and one production kitchen that makes all the tacos.

Interesting conversations are always had in these late night street food venues.  This was a pre party snack and one of the guys at the taco stand was rambling on to the taquero about how the gringos had just elected a black president.  I think it was just drunk rambling and I am not even sure that he had any idea of what he was talking about.

We went to tacos Mendoza because its always open and I remember it being on of the better ‘mainstream’ taco places in old town vallarta.  A year has passed since I have visited the folks at Mendoza and it was not nearly as good as I remember.  Maybe it was because it was before we had started drinking, but even their salsa bar (which is usually the hit) was unseasoned and lacked overall flavor.  I don’t want to be a critic, but i guess i was just a little upset for this being my first street food taco session.

A thirty dollar round trip bus ticket from nyc to toronto? I had to take advantage of such an amazing deal. neon which is a part of greyhound sent me to the slightly colder, slightly calmer northern neighbor to say hi to old friends and work on some new food ideas. First stop was the Ontario Food Terminal. This is the place where all of the produce for the city of Toronto comes into. You need a distributors license to go in an “shop” around so I accompanied ex boss chef Stephen Gardner from fressen restaurant to load up a ryder box truck with veggies. A 530am call sent us out there before sunrise. At 615am the mexican and chinese immigrant worker operated forklifts were zooming around lifting huge pallets of fruits and vegetables and loaded them onto other trucks. We moved around from farmer to farmer to see who had the best bushels of their fresh products. Stephen has been going there for about twelve years so he is a familiar face to the local farmers and knows the ins and outs of the place. The inside warehouses were like enormous refridgerators stacked with boxes and boxes of food. It was impressive to see that much food all in one place. It seems to me though, that in the winter in toronto you could cut down on your utilities by shutting off those freon filled airconditioning units and using the frigid air outside to climatize your warehouse. Economic pinch might make people start to think a bit more energy savy. On the platform the high pitched honking forklifts fly by at accelerated speeds as you pass from one warehouse to the next. The ninety eight percent male staff of the terminal exchange grunts and simple minded jokes to keep themselves entertained. It has a strange resemblance to kitchen workers so I felt like I knew what was going on. Three and a half hours later we had a box truck full of vegetables and we were ready to head back downtown to make the delivery to both of Stephen’s restaurants. Now, to pack it into walkin fridges, then clean it, cut it, cook it, and add some flavor. Thanks to the Ontario Farmers for being amazing. Thanks to any farmer who continues to grow fresh food. You too are amazing.

Rockaway taco is closed for the season!  We want to send a big thank you to everyone that has been part of this past summer.  It started off with great momentum and a july full of killer surf.  Then august ‘month of ripples’ came and although the surf had been in a calmer state everybody still showed up hungry.  Days without waves are a little painful, but it’s also when silly antics occur (i.e. drunken wiffle ball in on 91st street, and mexican wedding shots¹ at Connolly’s).  September rolled in with some profitable early morning pre taco making sessions and it just all seemed worth it.  The patio turned into the hang out and even got a little bondfire action on one of the chillier nights of the summer.

Thanks to all the new friends for good times and good conversations over food.  Thats what food should be all about.  DiCosmos italian ice crew will be arriving for the upcoming season and will install themselves right next to the taco shack.  They will be mixing up their fresh fruit italian ices to take that salt water taste out of your mouth.   We are going to cut a hole in the wall of the kitchen so that the kitchen crew can get a steady flow of ice cream while making tacos.  Its all in the works.

Keep checking here for new updates.  Andrew will be investigating new taco making developments with our south of the border neighbors and he will post recipies and pictures of tropical winter surfing.  Again, a big shout out and a number of thank you’s go out to all of you.  Stay warm.

¹  Mexican Wedding

- Shot of Cazadores tequila (trying to steer you in the direction of good tequila)

- Lime wedge (must be ample size and juicy)

- Coffee grounds

- Cane sugar

instructions: Take lime wedge and dip one side in coffee grounds and the flip side in the sugar cane.  Using your teeth rip the lime from the rind and masticate.  Now that you have coffee, sugar, and lime running around on top of your taste buds shoot the tequila.  Dance!

*rockaway taco is not responsible for any and all debauchery that may occur.

Anyone out in surfland want to run a weekend business?  The idea is simple.  A few soups, some nice bread, hot cocoa, and hot cider could be served in the taco shack in a take out style format.  This would make many surfers happy and would be a fun project to make a few bucks for the winter.  Andrew will be heading south to surf a few waves in mexico and study some more mexican culinary techniques that will be brought back in may of ‘09 for the upcoming season.  Its a way to utilize a kitchen space so that it doesn’t sit idle and feel neglected.  If you have any other ideas please feel free to bring them to the table.

We are currently open Sat and Sun from 12 to 8pm.  347.213.7466