We all have our own priorities for choosing a restaurant to visit, our own markers for authenticity, our own considerations of the moment. If we have kids, we want to know both kids and parents will be welcome and comfortable, not bored and fidgety and stressed. If we are leaving the kids at home, we want to go somewhere where we don’t have to deal with other folk’s kids–because that’s the whole point of the evening, right? I have my own set of priorities, and, as you might have guessed, number one is food and menu, followed closely by the physical space and all the little elements of style that tell me what the owners intend. When I try a new place that identifies as Mexican, I look first to see if they serve tacos lengua and if they serve carnitas in any form. Blue Corn actually exceeded my expectations on both counts. The carnitas was very good, and the lengua was the best I’ve had in Baton Rouge. Taqueria Corona on Magazine St in New Orleans is very close, and I would have to try them head to head to be certain, but right now, having just been to Blue Corn, I would have to give them the edge as offering the best lengua I’ve had in Louisiana. If I was standing just outside the door of Taqueria Corona having just enjoyed their tacos lengua and enchiladas camerones, I might be singing another song, but I was very excited to encounter perfect lengua and a very fine carnitas at Blue Corn.
I have cooked beef tongue at home exactly once. It is a pain and takes forever and you have to find at least one other person as crazy about lengua as you are to make the time and effort worthwhile and also so you aren’t eating tongue all week. Good luck with that. And that is probably why it took so long for lengua to make it to menus in Baton Rouge. For the longest time, customers absolutely would not step outside their comfort zone. I haven’t really seen it here outside of bodega style taquerias until now. LaFonda never had it, Superior Grill doesn’t offer it, and sadly, our own tastes and limitations are why we miss out on so much authentic cuisine from other cultures. And it feels like every dish that crosses our borders gets attacked by Wisconsin cheese. Traditional tacos are not topped with tomato and iceberg lettuce and grated cheddar., but onion and cilantro with a slice of lime on the side. Now we are starting to see some Mexican cheeses incorporated in authentic Mexican dishes. Queso fresco and cotija are much more common now, but they generally aren’t glopped all over everything. I love cheese, but not if it buries everything else on the plate.
Pan fried poblano pepper, crema mexicana, queso fresco, fresh corn & onions
Blue Corn seems dedicated to being the real deal. I know that’s a pretty huge claim after one visit, but they are very new, and absolutely nothing went wrong while I was there. That’s a little outside the norm for new restaurants. There is a whole lot on the menu I want to try, and it was refreshing to be able to choose the rajas con queso y elote as a side on my two taco lunch combo. Now the one downside I have to mention is no bottled Mexican Coke. But they did have Jarritos soda, and it was very good. I see this as a good place to gather with friends. Food’s great, there’s a patio, they have tequila flights, the art is impressive, the inside is almost as open and airy as the patio, and the staff treated me special. My biggest fear about going back is that I might not ever be able to make myself try anything new and just get the tacos lengua every time I go there. Such is life! Here’s a gallery of inside and outside Blue Corn photos.
