Ich Bin Ein Berliner Taco

Maria Peligro in Berlin~photo by Oliver Hartung for NY Times

How fun to read in yesterdays NY Times Travel section a piece on authentic tacos in Berlin. A pair of young fellows, one from Mexico City and one from Australia, have three places in the city, all riffing on the name of Maria. There’s Maria Bonita (Mary the Pretty), Maria Peligro (Mary Danger), and Santa Maria (Saint Mary), a nice rubric under which to open a whole chain of joints.

Right across the street from Maria Peligro is another Mexican place called Ta’Cabrón Taqueria, run by a native of Culiacan. Henceforth, this section of Skalitzer Strasse shall be known as Berlin’s Taco Row.

To make things even better, a taco truck will soon be slinging tacos in Berlin. Tacos Berlin, a project of writer Laurie Isola and her husband Barrett, is kicking off soon, may even be running right now. You can follow them on Twitter and get a few more details about this cool project at Laurie Isola’s personal blog.

Upscale Mexican Restaurants Are A Hoax?

There was a post by some angry dude ranting on Yelp about paying $24 for a $5 dollar enchilada. Sure, any place that serves regular Mexican antojito combo platters thinly disguised as fine fare deserves to be yelled at. But the poor angry dude should check out the work by  Richard Sandoval, Roberto Santibanez, Patricia Quintana, Enrique Olvera, Ricardo Munoz Zurita, etc. Even if you do order enchiladas, they certainly won’t be the stuff angry dude says he can get at taco village for $5.

Why Do Weird Things Happen At Taquerias?

Maybe I’m just super sensitive to things related to tacos, but does weird stuff happen as frequently at bento joints, or pizzerias? I don’t usually bother to report on all of all the offbeat taco-related events. Today, I will, just for fun.

From the Seattle Weekly blog (scroll down to item 2), we see that a corrections officer in Texarcana, Arkansas tried to smuggle needles into the county jail hidden inside tacos. I wonder what kind of tacos they were.

A couple was recently married at a Taco Bell in Normal, Illinois. Did they seal their vows with a Volcano taco?

ICE, ICE Baby! A teenage felon was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Orange, CA after a five hour standoff.  He was found hiding in the crawl space above his family’s taco restaurant. Did they pass him tacos through the ceiling tiles while he was hiding?