Tortas, taco, goat and oxtail on the southside

Chef is without a job momentarily so we have been trying to get together for lunch once a week. Understand that lunch with Chef is not a normal lunch outing. It’s probably that way with most chefs. They are never happy unless they have tried about three or four items from the menu and they want you to have three or four thing from the menu so they can try those dishes as well.

So Chef shows up at my house with some food he has already picked up. We had talked about doing a taco crawl. We were gonna hit two or three taco joints in the neighborhood and than we wanted to check out this place I had found that looked like a cross between a used car lot and a Bar B Que shack. The sign out front read Tootsie Produce and Pig Grill, how could we go wrong?

Well like I said Chef shows up and he had a sandwich, four tacos and one tamale. The sandwich or torta if you will, was made with al pastor, beef marinated with pineapple. Tortas always seem to be on the large side and usually the bun is steamed. This one had all these qualities and was very good.

The tacos are the thing, I could eat a million of these and at the usual price of $1.50 per, you can afford to have as many as you like. We had one pork, one chorizo, one carne asada and one tongue. They were all good but I do have a problem with the texture of the tongue, it’s to chewy for me.

The tamale was great, it was typical of Mexican tamales except this one had a red gravy on it. I have seen this in Mississippi but not in Atlanta. Tamales are good and I could eat them like tacos if they were not so filling, all that corn ya know.

We had planned to hit another taco joint but decided we had had enough Mexican food so we got in the truck and headed for Tootsie Pig Grill. We get there and I go in the place for the first time ever. It’s a convenience store and the guy running the place tells us he has Bar B Que almost everyday except Fridays. That’s when he has to work and can’t get someone to look after the grill. And that’s today damn it. So I get some info from him and tell him I will see him soon to try his Que.

So Chef and I decide to try a place we passed that had a sign in the window offering curry dishes. Goat, oxtail, and chicken curry, sounds good. So we tell the little man with the Caribbean accent, working the counter, that we would like a goat and a oxtail. The soup Chef ask for is not available today, maybe next time. The place is cold so we get the food to go and in typical island style they are in no hurry. So about 20 minutes later we are on our way back to my house to eat.

Both dishes are good, they both come with rice and black-beans and a couple slices of plantains. The goat is the best and not greasy or gamey as I have had before. The oxtails are small and not what I am used to getting from the local soul-food restaurant. We both agree that our lunch was a success and make a plan for next week.