Dishers, Christopher Baccus is a taco junkie and blogger. Not just any kind of taco, primarily those found in or near gas stations. Last week he took you there. This week he takes you here.
I walked into the Flash Mart convenience store located on Walnut Hill at I-35 and turned to my right. I walked over to a purple wall with a door. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I exited the mart and walked across the store front passing a small wine section that must have been what the door inside was all about and then came to a glass door leading into Taqueria el Guache.
There were two high tables with stools, two smaller tables with wooden chairs and an order window crowded into a very small space. It’s definitely minimalist dining, but then again it is a gas station taqueria.
I went with my usual selection of starters, one of each: beef fajita, pastor, and barbacoa. I also added a picadillo taco since I had read a good review of this place on Yelp, which is how I learned about Taqueria el Guache.
The cook was making homemade flour tortillas when I arrived and I should have tried at least one taco with flour, but I prefer my tacos on corn tortillas. The container included a pile of grilled onions with a small handful of raw onions added to the the top of the picadillo taco. There was also just a small amount of cilantro with a few tacos containing a few scant cilantro stems.
My first bite of the pastor taco made me forget about the lack of cilantro as it was very flavorful and the meat was properly cooked. The flavor, while not intense, made for an above average pastor taco. I alternated dips into the salsa roja and salsa verde sauces. The verde went better with the pastor and I was enjoying it so much I forgot to add a squeeze of fresh lime.
Next up was the beef fajita. There were a couple of fatty pieces that I discarded and there wasn’t much flavor to the meat resulting in a rather bland taco. It was average at best.
Barbacoa is the most difficult to get right in my experience. Taqueria el Guache falls apart on this choice. The meat was very fatty and a bit slimy without much flavor. After only a couple bites, I was ready to move to the finale – the picadillo.
Their picadillo taco was loaded with ground beef, small chunks of potato, small carrot cubes, and some corn kernels. It was okay, perhaps some more cumin or a dash of coriander would help . There are definitely some better options when it comes to picadillo around Dallas, as I’m sure any Fuel City fan will tell you.
Overall Taqueria el Guache wasn’t all that bad, but it wasn’t all that good either. If I was in a rush, I would still buy a few tacos from here, but I’d probably stick to the pastor or try some of their other options next time.
Gas Station: Valero
Address: 2410 Walnut Hill Ln. Dallas, TX 75229
Rating (3 out of 5 oil drops):
