Our Sunday Mass
and Sunday school schedule is as follows: Van goes to Sunday school from nine
to ten, Jessica teaches Sunday school
from nine to ten on alternate Sundays, and Charlie and I go to Mass---with
Jessica on alternate Sundays--- from nine to ten. After Mass, Charlie has Sunday school from
ten-thirty to eleven-thirty.
A careful
review of this schedule reveals our weekly challenge on Sunday mornings: how to
fill the hour when Charlie is learning about Zaccheus climbing a tree. We
usually choose one of three options: we go grocery shopping, we go get
something to eat, or we go grocery shopping and get something to eat.
The problem
with the second and third option is that Charlie is hungry when we pick him up
at eleven-thirty and we've already ruined our appetites for lunch. In this situation, our stellar parenting
instincts are to buy him a donut and head for home. This is not only nutritionally unsatisfying
to him, but it puts an enormous guilt trip on me. For these reasons, we try to hold off on eating
until after Sunday school. We're not
always successful, but yesterday we managed to avoid spoiling our appetites and
picked up Charlie with our minds set on lunch.
Our route to
church passes a taco joint called Taqueria La Huasteca. I've not only passed it a couple of hundred
times on the way to church, I've passed it countless times in my work
travels. It looks like an appealing
place to eat, and the wall outside advertises a great deal of five tacos for
five dollars. And yet, somehow I've
never found the time to stop and give it a try.
Until yesterday.
Located at 723
South Beacon Street in Dallas, Taqueria La Huasteca boasts a menu that includes
burritos, nachos, tortas, menudo, enchiladas, and of course, tacos. And if fruit is your thing, they offer a wide
variety of fruit dishes featuring cream or chile and lime. In short, it's just the sort of place that a
family hungry from almost three hours of church-related activities can eat and
be happy.
Having never
been inside Taqueria La Huasteca, I was surprised to find that they had a
rather large dining area that was clean, well lit, and had plenty of
televisions featuring an exciting Mexican soccer match. Jessica and I already had our minds set on
tacos, and the boys inevitably go for quesadillas, so I took the boys to sit in
a booth while Jessica ordered our food at the counter.
After a short
wait, the very friendly and helpful woman who worked behind the counter brought
our food to us. It looked delicious, and
of course, it was.
We ordered five
chicken and five pork tacos wrapped in corn tortillas, and they came with a
lime wedge, chopped onions, cilantro, and a side of delicious green sauce. Jessica and I split up the tacos so that we
could both have chicken and pork.
I sprinkled my tacos liberally with my lime
wedge and then put the green sauce on three of them. There was a squeeze bottle of red sauce on a
shelf nearby ---Jessica overheard somebody say that it was Valentina brand hot
sauce---and I applied it to my remaining two.
I preferred the red sauce over the green, but a casual observer watching
me inhale the tacos would not have been able to tell which I preferred. Red and green were both good on Taqueria La
Huasteca tacos.
Our boys split
a cheese quesadilla and both seemed to like it.
The quesadilla came with sour cream, tomato slices, lettuce, and a
couple of avocado wedges on the side. My
boys have yet to develop a taste for anything green, so Jessica took the
avocado and put it on her tacos.
We washed this tasty
meal down with two cans of Coca-Cola that we shared, while watching the Mexican
soccer teams Toluca and Atlas battle to a 1-1 tie.
As we left, we
waved goodbye to the lady behind the counter and told her that we enjoyed the food. We were satisfied, full, and ready to face the next few
frustrating hours of watching the Dallas Cowboys struggle against the mediocre
Minnesota Vikings.
Taqueria La Huasteca
is a cool place to eat. I recommend that
you give it a try!
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