The Glorious Breakfast Taco
If you're a friend of mine, you've likely been subjected to this spiel: In my hometown of Austin, Texas, there is a magical breakfast creation that you can get from pretty much any coffeeshop or street vendor anywhere in town—the breakfast taco.
Unlike its massive, tortilla-swaddled peer, the breakfast burrito—which is often stuffed-to-bursting with random fillers like rice and potatoes—the breakfast taco is a more delicate affair. It starts with scrambled eggs and, generally, a small flour tortilla. From there, you can go (moderately) nuts: adding in bacon, chorizo, cheese, avocado, whatever your heart desires and the taco-maker has available.
After a few short minutes, when your little hand-held buddy is hot-and-ready, you top it with a squeeze of fresh salsa. That's it. Simple and delicious. And if you're still hungry, you order another.
Sadly, the breakfast taco seems to be a foreign concept in these parts. There are plenty of spots that offer giant, doughy breakfast burritos loaded with crap like beans and peppers, and even one place that serves what it calls a "breakfast taco" made with an oozy, over easy egg, but there's only one place where I've found a true, Texas-style breakfast taco. And it's way out in Caldwell.
Situated in a small shopping plaza with a giant Texas sign near the College of Idaho, Imelda's Mexican Food is a local gem. In addition to serving a standard line-up of enchilada plates and menudo, Imelda's also offers legit breakfast tacos on homemade flour or corn tortillas.
My classic order is two bacon, egg and cheese breakfast tacos, one on flour and one on corn. Both tortillas are fantastic and provide a totally different experience. The corn has much more heft than a run-of-the-mill grocery store brand and the flour is singed on the flat-top until it gets a slight exterior crunch. Topped with a hearty glug of homemade spicy salsa, these tacos are well worth the drive to 2C. And if you want to make an afternoon of it, make sure to hit up all the awesome thrift stores nearby before heading home.
