Taco Wars II

Taco Taco Man, I went to be a Taco Man

29 March 2014 - Hawker House, Hackney

Here we go! First post! It's happening! And seeing as this blog has been inspired by Mrs. Eatings' glorious gifting of a Big Eater pass, it seems only right that this should start with the first event in the 2014 Tweat Up calendar: Taco Wars II. 

Mr. Eatings has been a fan of Tweat Up-ing for a while, since the first Ribstock back in 2012. Despite it being a freezing, wet April day I was totally won over by the combination of booze, vibes and tasty tasty meats – the winning Redhook ribs are still the best I’ve ever tried. Since then I’ve been to Rumstock (and I won six bottles of rum: best – and drunkest – Sunday ever), the UK Chilli Stand Off (smashed out of the park by the Lucky Chip guys) and the first Taco Wars. So it was with no small amount of excitement that we headed down to Hawker House to kick off our season of big eats with the return of the taco-throw down.

Let's deal with what we considered to be a couple of minor negative points first, before we get to the foods. It was our first time at Hawker House and I didn’t think it was as good a venue as Merchants Yard from last year – being enclosed meant it was very noisy (with or without the mariachi band), crowded and was filled with smoke by the time we left (although that did mean more delicious meat smells). Also, this year there were only 8 tacos compared to the 10 we got last year – and I’m nothing if not greedy.

But, to go from negative to positive (and it’s all good), all 8 of those tacos were brilliant. Last year there was definitely some filler in amongst the killer, whereas this time the standard was very high across the board. So let’s get down to business…

We set out with a strategy – try the ones that sounded most exciting first. And so we hit up BBQ Lab: hickory-smoked peanut butter and jelly pork belly, popcorn pudding sauce, pineapple salsa, Dr Pepper gel and pickleback sour cream, all served – and this was the clever part – in the world’s first 100% pork loin taco. Thin slices of pork blow-torched and then packed with delicious fillings. The best meat-on-meat action since the start of The Inbetweeners Movie.









Beyond the awesome innovation, the taco was super tasty. The pork was slow cooked to perfection, with nice nutty hints (without being over-powering, which I liked as I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter. In fact I think it is the devil’s work.) The popcorn sauce and pickleback sour cream added a sweetness, and the whole thing had a good level of heat holding it all together. The shavings of Dr Pepper gel didn’t really add anything beyond an extra bit of theatre in the prep, and could have been left out to speed up the production process – they had massive queues as we left. But that’s a minor point. A tasty mix of flavours, a strong early contender.

We followed that with last year’s runner-up; Breddos. And with ‘The Holy Cow’, they were clearly making a big play for the prize: 50-day aged chipotle beef short-rib with bone marrow, beef dripping tortilla, cheese croqueta with a naga jolokia pipette, smoked morello cherry jam & sweet pickled jalapeños.

And my god it was good. The beef was tender, with a deep, meaty flavour. The croqueta, while not overly cheesy in flavour, added a lovely crunch to contrast the juicy meaty softness, and the jokolia juice added a real kick to the proceedings – my notes describe this as ‘a spicy little number’. The cherry jam and pickled chillis added sweet notes. I have to say I wasn’t aware of a particular beefiness in the tortilla, but even so this was a taco triumph. And they followed it up with a chilliback digestif – a shot of tequila washed down by sweet chilli juice. Which was beautiful. As an aside, this year it appears lessons have been learned from Ribstock and there was a much greater proliferation of boozy bribes to try and sway the judges. This behaviour is shameless. And is only to be encouraged.

So moving on to taco three with Rita’s Diner. They were offering up a piggy trifecta: pig’s head, belly and trotter served with burnt spring onion crema and blood orange pico. The meat was again well cooked and delicious, if slightly oily. The crema was also a nice touch, but this lacked the excitement of the first two. Although it has to be said their corn tortilla was the best of the day. And they also served us a tequila shot – this time with a bright green mojito chaser to round things off nicely – so I rated them.

Our half-way house was the effort from Benito’s Hat, my personal favourite among London’s myriad burrito sellers. They were serving succulent pork belly, crispy chicharrón, shaved fennel, lime, roasted apple and habanero salsa in a homemade corn tortilla. The chicharrón was the stand out here – crunchy and salty. The meat was good and the tortilla tasty. But we both felt it lacked something to elevate it beyond good to be a contender. They get bonus points however, for the salt they were using; mined by chef Felipe’s 60-year-old mum in her village back in Mexico. Certainly a lot more special than buying a box of Maldon down your local Waitrose.

Next we headed to Luardos, previous holders of the Cuervo Cup, which they won last year with a super-technical fish taco. This time they took things in totally the opposite direction, keeping it simple.  Only three components to it: grilled skirt steak, a chimmichurri-esque salsa roja, and avocado. All three elements individually and together were solid, well cooked (steak) and fresh and delicious (the latter two). But given the heights hit by the competition, this was never going to stand a chance of making it two wins in a row. Maybe if there had been some booze…

Number six came from Kimchinary. The official description of this was beer braised pork belly, pickled mustard seeds, Korean pear salsa, oyster kimchi, gochuang and pig crunch on a beef dripping and sesame tortilla. This proved to be my least favourite of the day – not because it was bad. But neither me, nor my taco team mate, made any tasting notes and can’t remember anything about it now. Which speaks volumes when compared to the rest. That’s about it. So, not a winner.

The penultimate morsel was from B.O.B’s Lobster. And their creation was brilliant – sashimi grade ahi tuna, wasabi guacamole, chipotle crema, Asian slaw and sesame seeds in a crispy wonton shell.

It was so different from everything else on offer, and I think that’s why I loved it. After lots of relatively heavy meats, this was so fresh and light – a real palate cleanser. The wasabi guac adding a good warmth to the only non-cooked taco. It was nice to have one hard shell too. And credit where it’s due for the presentation – silver platters handed out by sharply dressed, bow-tied men. And having a small baby dressed as a lobster was pretty adoraballs. If I felt such feelings. But being a ruddy bloody bloke, I don’t.

And lo, there remained one final taco to taste: Santo Remedio. Another seafood effort: chargrilled octopus marinated in Pasilla de Oaxaca chillies with black beans, yerba santa and serrano aioli served in an avocado leaf tortilla. And this last entry really divided opinions. I liked it – the octopus was flavoursome, with smokey spiciness. However, the better half found her octopus to be chewy and tasteless. Given the chargrilling, she must have got unlucky with a piece on the grill a fraction too long. But seeing as they were doling out the Don Julio tequila, I’m totally willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So that was it, beyond a delicious dessert of chilli chocolate ice cream (spicy and rich) and a paloma sorbet (refreshing) from Black Vanilla. This wasn’t the ice cream taco that initial reports promised, but it did round things off very nicely.

After a great deal of consideration, I backed BBQ Labs. But Breddos, with their sweet sweet chillibacks, were indeed worthy winners. And seeing as they won without my vote, I don’t feel too bad about backing the pork tortilla. At the end of it all, the real winner on the day was my tastebuds.