Restaurant Review #3: Del Taco

The first restaurant Chad and I visited in California was Del Taco. The first 18 hours in Riverside were absolute hell due to poor trip planning, idiotic apartment landlords, and a moving truck fiasco. The 19th hour was the beginning of what we hoped would be a better, happier life and for some reason, we chose to celebrate with Del Taco.

That first meal, eaten on the floor of our new apartment, surrounded by the 84 boxes containing all that we owned in this world, was terrible. We vowed never to eat at Del Taco again and decided that our better, happier life would have to begin in hour 20 instead.

I don't know how it happened, but we ended up at Del Taco again. I've successfully banned restaurants in the past -- Taco Bell, Arby's, Cheesecake Factory, Perkins -- but Del Taco would not be refused. This time we avoided the lower tier "regular" tacos, the fries, chicken, fish, and everything bizarre that Del Taco has to offer and ordered the Classic Combo, pictured above. This meal consists of a gigantic "classic" taco and burrito made of premium fast-food grade beef, sawdusty but pleasingly crunchy taco shells, creamy refried beans, cheddar (not American) cheese, tolerable lettuce, and never-mealy tomatoes. It also comes with Coke, not Pepsi. And it costs just $3.

Now I love Del Taco, but I must admit that since the days of Eat Street are long gone, I rarely eat out anymore. I've found nothing to replace Christos, Pancho Villa's, or Rainbow. I see no hope in finding a CA equivalent to Brasa, Scott Ja Mama's, True Thai, or Midori's. So I've turned to the kitchen, and so has Chad, and here is what we came up with:

This is the best carnitas money can buy in Riverside! This is Chad's friend's recipe, but there was some collaboration involved. First of all, the pork is stewed with locally-grown limes and oranges that were hand juiced with the new Kitchen-Aid juicer. We got the fruit from a citrus stand at the California Citrus State Historical Park, and the tomatoes and avocados from Von's where they are on sale almost every day. We grew the cilantro ourselves on the deck and I lugged the beans home from my vacation to Minnesota. The secret ingredient is the beans: they must be Kuner's refried beans with roasted chiles and lime. We eat this so much that our supply is running dangerously low.

The cooking thing comes quite easily, even after eating out 5-7 times a week every week for the past 3 years. Both of our parents are excellent cooks and it might run in the blood. So to honor this heritage, I will review my dad's specialty -- deep fried fish.

One might think there is nothing difficult about frying fish, but it is a process I cannot master. Over the years, I attempt to fry fish as well as mom and dad, to get the breading perfectly crusty and salty, the fish perfectly hot and flaky and always manage to fail dramatically.

This is my dad (on the right) with his friend Scott cooking fish and fries during a mild blizzard in early January. Time and temperature is key. Their precision and concentration was awe-inspiring, poetic even.

Here, I got them to pause just long enough to pose for a photo before they returned full attention to the cooking process. After some time, we had enough fish and fries to feed a small army. Apparently, the four of us (mom was there too) could be a small army since we ate it all ourselves.