TL;DR: Early days yet now, so give it a bit of time to sink in. From the get go, this is a good maneuver getting into the street food craze with a cuisine that has somehow not really caught on ever around this nape of the woods. This is as much about the food, as it is the atmosphere, and as it is with getting people together to socialise over the said food. More often that not, places have found success there, and with tacos, burritos and whatnot still making a splash where they are sold, Barbacoa can jump upon this and get a good deal of luck. The time is ripe, and the time is now.
With Coorparoo Square open, it is a work in progress with all the eateries that adorn the street-level area and many of them look pretty good with a couple of them more or less living up to promise. There are some which have a much-to-muchness appearance about them, and others are simply inviting patrons to them. Here is one of the latter. The kind of Mexican that is oft talked about in America, and from American folk's perspectives. It is also one of these places, that when it comes to the crunch, showcases to you that "authentic" and high quality need not mean having to cost a mozza to try them out. Some of the best eats when on holidays come from the grunge and the backstreets, or street food to say in a more appealing term. That is exactly what this is.
It was the start of the Wrestlemania weekend, which means a double-banger of PPV events to watch. There is the big one that has practically become lexicon, and before it was the NXT event to start up the hype. They were taking over New Orleans, and wherever they were ... it was time to get some delivery via UbeEats. Well, a bit of a story here.
After knowing about how to plan things in advance with UberEats, that is often what I do when planning around these events. There has been a time beforehand, usually having to reconfirm with a restaurant - but this time was something else.
The initial plans had one restaurant in Wooloongabba, however this was an exercise in mismanagement. What had occurred with the fist place was a dodgy way about going with business, and in The first restaurant had a pretty tacky way about customer service, and in co-operating with Uber about it. Let's just say, for it being booked so long in advance, with the restaurant stating that it was open, and for it to say that it was open on the day ... only for it to have been closed ... is definitely not a way to win over a customer base - even just a cancellation of the order out of nowhere would have been something better than making a client sit in waiting all that time. To that restaurant, terrible, and to the representative on Uber to get into contact and bring up the issue, much appreciation.
That venting out of the way, what was thankful was there being back up options.
Thankfully, with that being said there was a back-up option right in here, and it was one that my house mate had liked the look of, and had stated what he heard that it was among the best that Australia had to offer in terms of Mexican fare. A burrito is good as a quick snack, and that is about what this place offers, and boy howdy was this number good. Like lightning, a few items were put to order into the UberEats app and much like lightning it was delivered to the house. Not having had much since that morning, this was like a heaven-send. Consider the total process took only about half an hour if that, when at the field the preparation must be like lightning and be efficient. That is already a mark up, even not stepping foot in the place just yet.
With it being Mexican in cuisine, this acts as a tacqueria. It makes the meal simple, and slightly in the guise of fast food via the structure of the menu. What they offer is tacos (hard or soft shell), quesadillas, burritos, burrito bowls, tostadas and nachos, then they offer the meats to put in the said snack. After that, a various lot of sides and sauces can be added into each one. As far as food goes, there isn't much more bar corn chips as a side snack to have with some dip. When at the restaurant, they have the Ensalada Bar.
Drinks are fairly simple as well. There are sodas - both the usual lot and Jarritos - plus a range of grog on hand. Being a Mexican place, of course tequila can be expected plus there is also coronas, ciders, and other such alcoholic beverages. As much as it is being talked up, this definitely has the guise of bar food about it.
Getting to the delivery order, this time around my house mate may have been sitting this one out; that did not stop me from getting enough of a range to go and give Barbacoa a solid and engaging enough critique.
Almost by default, when it comes to Mexican snack foods the big bonzana is the go. That is a burrito, which is pretty hard to beat. Right in these suckers is a combination of cheese, meat (I chose beef), beans and rice, along with a selection of sauces and garnishes. I added in jalapenos and one of the spicy salsas. When putting all these items together, it made for a satisfying and filling morsel. Burritos often come out being pretty big, and this managed to be one of the biggest that I had yet seen. It also might have been one of the tastiest.
While it was not the most stuffed, all the small components added up well. This was one burrito that was certainly toasted, in which the char-marks on the tortilla easily told that it got a good cooking. It was still soft enough to wrap around a hefty portion of plenty of items, which included some delicious rice, tender and buttery beef, good hearty beans, and the jalapenos added a bite having shown they were not skimped on. Maybe somewhat bland, the sauce could have been a bit more abundant to really spice it up, and as is the bar is set at a reasonable level.
After that were a couple of snacks. The first of these were some tacos, which came in a a pack of three. I chose the soft shell tacos, and went for the steak and onion filling with a garnish of onion and coriander. These tacos were pretty good, and while they could be eaten with one hand it would be a messy experience. Filled up with a lot of chopped tomato, and a couple of lime wedges for garnishing, this is one vibrant snack food. The steak was tender and juicy, the soft taco shells were moreish and complimented them well.
The last soul off the wagon were the corn chips, served with a side of guacamole. It is easy to write corn chips off as corn chips, but these were only lightly salted and made with a better quality recipe. The crunch in them was good, and they complimented the avocado dip very well - and that is made better knowing it is all home-made. This guacamole is a creamy and buttery concoction, and has bits of chopped tomato all through it. I generally am not here or there with avocado and guacamole, but I have to give it to this place with that.
As much as I was tempted to mark this one a tad higher in the score, consideration with the big picture had me think otherwise. This is not any knock against the place, because as of now there is none of that there. Simply put, bigger meals and ordering more is able to give a bit more weight to the hefty scores of 4.5 and 5.0, with 4.0 getting the benefit of indicating distinction regardless of it being a coffee and cake up through to it being a multi-course banquet. The point being said, the fare here definitely rates as some of the best Mexican that is around Brisbane - almost at the top in fact - and with it merely being a burrito and some chips, there is some good weighting to show its quality but it is not extensive enough to escape the hype sounding like hyperbole. Therefore, the 4.0 score gets put in place and the fare really rates as a lot better; for all this time, think of it as being packaging to something really nice. Now that is how you get a good surprise.
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