Taco Cabana just reintroduced a seasonal favorite, Shrimp Tampico. The recipe involves marinating shrimp with chipotle and ancho spices and then grilling it with garlic lime and cilantro. They serve it three ways: as the filling of a quesadilla, as one of the ingredients in their cabana bowls, and in enchiladas. They plied me with some and this is what I found.
Here is the Shrimp Tampico Quesadilla ($7.29). The Shrimp Tampico is combined with cheese, tomato and TC’s pineapple salsa. Having tried a couple now I can confirm that these are addictive, and an A-category narcotic if you goose the pineapple with extra salsa from the TC salsa bar. This was my favorite dish out of the three. It also travels. They package it in a pizza box, which means you can take it home, even on City of Dallas streets, and it arrives in pretty much the same shape it started. In fact, I am writing to NASA to suggest that the next time they put together one of those lists of things to put in the hold of a space probe, they leave out the Natalie Imbruglia single (you know the one. There is only one) and replace it with one of these. Won’t the Martians be surprised?
Next up is the most photogenic preparation. The Shrimp Tampico Cabana Bowl ($5.95). This is TC’s crisp taco bowl filled with somewhat customizable items. I had beans, guacamole, sour cream and cheese (talk about an orgy of Tex-Mex flavors). I’m glad to see you get the taco bowl when you do the cabana bowl as takeout now. When they introduced these last year, you didn’t. The blobs of color in this make me think that Piet Mondrian would have chosen these ingredients if he had eaten a Shrimp Tampico Cabana Bowl.
Finally, Shrimp Tampico Enchiladas is a plate of 2 or 3 ($5.99) is the Shrimp Tampico in an enchilada covered with a sour cream sauce and served with the usual rice and refried beans.
The Shrimp Tampico specials are available at all Taco Cabana stores through mid-April.
