Taco Joint, next to São Paulo's on SanJac

Zipped by Taco Joint near the UT campus on Saturday to try it out, after RL of Scrumptious Chef mentioned they had top quality tortillas. It is owned by the folks next door at São Paulo's, the Brazilian-Mexican restaurant that's been there for years. Ordered a few tacos each to give it a go, and when she asked "what kind of tortillas?", I said you decide what's best. Had the fish taco, top, tilapia grilled rather than fried, and it came out on a freshly-made, thin flour tortilla...a sizable mess of fish, topped with shredded cabbage and cotija cheese, onions, and cilantro. For $3.50, we decided that it was well worth the expense.It's a really good taco.

Taco two was their pork carnitas unit, for the same price. Price-wise this puts them in the realm of Torchy's and Tacodeli, which isn't necessarily a good thing, and I'd call them fairly comparable in size. The carnitas had fairly good flavor, and the toppings were the same as the fish.

Unit three was their Wholly Mole, chicken in mole sauce, topped again with the cabbage, cotija, onion, cilantro. The chicken is moist and tender, and the mole could have had a bit more complexity to it, but it was fine. Same price, same toppings.

Art got an El Porko, which was spozed to be shredded pork, but sure looked to us like the carnitas in drag. Their salsa selection includes a light green avocado serrano, a white chipotle, and a red casera. We also tried a sweetish carrot-habanero that was the hottest of the lot. Word up: the salsas need some fiddling, and ALL of them need more chiles and more zip. If I am in the area, I would definitely go back for fish tacos, add the carrot-habanero salsa to them, and be a happy camper.

They also serve breakfast tacos, which we didn't try. Overall, I'll go here for the fish, and stick to my top taqueria list, get fantastic tacos, and save some jack: Taco Rico, Rosita's al Pastor, Taco More, Fruta Feliz, La Michoacana (Stassney's my "local" LaMich), and Mi Ranchito II:.

Taco Joint
2807 San Jacinto
473-9988

Mick Vann ©