Another great find...

This is two great finds in Recovery New Orleans - last week was China Rose in Metairie - a Chinese restaurant that runs three menus - an Americanized Chinese that we all know, an authentic Chinese which is about five times as long as the first (and endlessly more flavorful), and a noodle menu. My wife and I ordered off the authentic menu and were thrilled. Tonight was a Mexican place. It came about from a coupon mailer that showed up in today's mail - the food looked good and they had half off (even if the food hadn't been great I wouldn't have paid full price for all of it). I did a little digging - local paper and several other food-related sites gave Taco San Miguel high marks. It has two locations the Metairie one and then one closer to the house in Mid-City. You can't miss it...bright orange building and a bright yellow sign...not easy on the eyes but I wasn't there for the decor. I ordered my usual - Carne Asada and the wife ordered the taco special with chicken. Service was simple - the large portion of steak, grilled onions, salsa Mexicana, black beans, rice, and corn or flour tortillas. I'm used to the steak going from slightly flavorful to blah and normally stringy. Not here - richly flavored - garlic, lime, chile, cumin, and all sorts of other wonderful flavors, coupled with sweet onions, a hit of heat from the salsa (my in-laws joined us...my mother-in-law was a little surprised by the...oomph of the jalepeno in the salsa) and the flavor of the tortilla, coupled with the nearly tender steak, made for an amazing (and cheap) meal. The wife didn't say much as she was obviously enjoying the chicken tacos with what looked like a mole sauce and the same simple accompaniments. One of the oddities of this area are some of the laws that have been put on the books after the storm. With the influx of labor to clean up and rebuild came, amongst other things, taco trucks. There are still some scattered in the city proper, but in Jefferson Parish they outlawed them. Some just move across the parish line and a few said fine and set up shop. This is one of those - the story is that the owner is/was an electrician who became a restauranteur. I'm not investigating that - I just investigate food - and this was outstanding. When we can eat for $20 and have this quality of food and portion size I'll be back, as often as I can.