I found another one! This week's Taco Trail stop hosts a drag-queen revue like other taquerías around town. The show advertisement emblazoned across the restaurant's delivery van wasn't exactly the first thing I wanted to catch my eye that day, but luckily, a little salsa and a tuck mean something else when it comes to the kind of tacos I had at Los Altos de Jalisco No. 4 that morning.
The clean one-room eatery just off Northwest Highway was quiet when I entered with two thoughts. First: Ay bendito! More powdered mugs lip-syncing. Second: Give me some breakfast tacos, please.
As I sat, a waitress, one of two, brought me freshly fried chips and warm salsa that had an uneven heat. They were refreshing all the same -- if only for novelty. Who aside from college students munch chips and salsa for breakfast?
Just when I was beginning to worry that my food wouldn't arrive before the next bus and the basket of chips was depleted, the trio arrived at my table. They were a gnarled mess, a brightly colored beautiful mess. No tranny could be as tantalizing as the finger-staining chorizo with the morning-on-the-farm aroma. One whiff was tantamount to a couple of cups of coffee. No over-rouged performer could be as vibrant as the a la Mexicana breakfast taco, eggs, onions and green pepper giving it the palette of the Mexican flag. The lime juice with which I doused that taco turned the few bites into rays of sunshine that pierced the dreary spring sky.
The bacon and egg, however, flirted dangerously with raw status, giving me pause long enough to spy the stage in my peripheral vision. For a buck per taco, something was bound to give, bound to reveal imperfection.
Los Altos de Jalisco No. 4, a sister to the restaurant of the same name on Westmoreland, doesn't quite set off pyrotechnics, but its numbers are far superior to the other joint, among the first taquerías reviewed for the Taco Trail. It's a hell of a lot better than the Keller's Drive-In around the corner.
Taqueria Los Altos de Jalisco No. 4 6012 Abrams Road 214-361-6769
