Taqueria Corona on Magazine in N.O.

Went down to NO to visit friends this weekend. Had a great time at Haiku Sushi on Magazine, played at Henry’s uptown bar, enjoyed the smoked salmon and all the condiments with fresh croissants at the Hyatt Regency’s breakfast buffet, but the highlight of the trip (culinary highlight, there were plenty of highlights) was lunch at Taqueria Corona. I’ve lived in NO twice, been down to visit any number of times, but I sometimes think if I were only allowed to go down there once more, I would definitely find a way to work Taqueria Corona into the schedule.

I can’t eat as much at one sitting as I used to be able too, and I only get down to NO every so often, so I’ve come up with a favorite order for the Taqueria. The gazpacho, the tongue taco, and the shrimp enchilada. Used to just order the Numbero Tres and chow down, but times have changed, I’ve changed, and this is my go to line up now. If I still lived down there I would probably continue to explore the menu and at least every once in while switch it up and go with the excellent fish tacos, but this time it was all about the tried and true.

Socrates said that the very first sophistry was cooking. That you took food and altered it from its true nature. I used to tell my frycook trainees that cooking was just the application of heat to a dense object. Now I’ve come to believe that you can accomplish one of three things when you cook your food. You can help it. You can hurt it. Or you can hide it. Taqueria Corona consistently brings out the best in every ingredient. Gazpacho is so simple, basically tomato, cucumber and onion so you can take it any direction you want, Italian, Deep South, Mexico, but you always run the risk of losing the tomato, cucumber and onion. Not this taqueria. And I know I’ve compared the lengua at other stores to Taqueria Corona, but that goes away once I’ve had their tongue taco again. It is very simply the best ever. And it would be so easy to lose the shrimp in the magnificent enchilada. So much cheese, the tortilla itself, the sauce, the guac, the sour cream, but not this taqueria. Every flavor stands alone yet works together and the shrimp taste like Shrimp. As good as everything was I still couldn’t finish it all (I did eat every last bite of my tongue taco though) before I had to put the taqueria in the rearview and head back to BR.

Now that could, and probably should, be the end of this post, but I do have a couple more observations from this weekend’s trip back to NO. Since I was going to State and Magazine, I checked out of the Hyatt a little early and headed over to the Tulane campus for a little walkabout. It’s been such a long time since I worked on campus for Marriott when they had the concession and catering contract for the whole campus. I was married at the time, and memory lane reminded me of how the drama of being newly married distracted me from living in the moment, appreciating an old and lovely and dangerous and delightful city. I didn’t really remember the campus layout, and I felt that I should. I recognized some of the buildings, remembered some of the people I worked with, but again, my memory of that time isn’t nearly as clear as it should be, or as I want it to be. Comme ci, comme ça. Life happens. Here is a shot of the duplex on Audubon Street where a good portion of that part of life happened to me, and for me.