When tacos were all the craze in the States over five years ago, it seemed as though many food blogs I read were really into them. I was very jealous. Very. Jealous.
I've heard about a few decent taco joints in Ottawa. But the one that intrigued me the most was El Camino. Not only was it the newest craze in Ottawa this summer, but a friend also highly recommended it.
We had originally planned to go to El Camino on Saturday night but our family had other plans. We ended up going out to dinner with our large extended family. And of course when I checked Twitter that evening, I saw that Ottawa Senators' stud defenseman, Erik Karlsson, had been there for dinner. Bah!
My stomach still felt very heavy after brunch with my friends. We ended up leaving the apartment around 6pm. It wasn't tough to find the restaurant. We walked up Elgin Street and then saw a line up. Bingo.
We ordered our tacos and waited off to the side. You can watch the kitchen work their magic if you order from the taco window.
Once we got our tacos, we added some Cholula hot sauce to our food and began to walk back to Lucy's place. Lucy already devoured two out of her three tacos by the time we got about two blocks away from the restaurant.
My food was still warm when we arrived. I got an order of betal leaf shrimps and one crispy fish taco. The fish taco was remarkable! The warm pliable flour tortilla held the red cabbage and cilantro topped crispy fish. I believe there was also a slice of avocado too. I could've eaten four more of these if I had space in my stomach. The little wedge of lime helped.
The betal leaf shrimps reminded me of eating Vietnamese spring rolls with fresh thai basil. The flavour of the betal leaf help cut through the heaviness of the savoury shrimp filling. The filling surprised me. It was soft and slightly mushy instead of plump seasoned shrimps, as I had expected.
Lucy ordered two fish tacos and a pork taco. She was starving when we went, which was why she downed the tacos so quickly.
Andrew ordered one each of pork, lamb and ox tongue. The pork and lamb were both slow cooked and pulled apart. His favourite was the lamb. After trying a small bite of his lamb taco, I'd have to agree. I'd definitely get the lamb and crispy fish tacos next time.
He found the ox tongue to be a bit on the bland side compared to the other two tacos. It wasn't gamey though.
Andrew: "My tacos are dripping!"
Lucy: "Mine didn't drip."
Me: "That's because you inhaled your tacos so quickly!"
We'll definitely be back to El Camino. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.
It was fun celebrating my birthday with great food and better company! Thanks everyone!
~*~
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