Restaurants remembered: Taco Loco, Laguna Beach, CA 16 April 2008 4:55 pm
Posted by Tracy in : eating,pictures,restaurants,reviews,vegan,vegetarian , trackbackI find myself all sentimental and full of remembrances of the past ten or so years now that it’s all official-ish that we’re moving to the East Coast (and speaking of which, I spent a nerve-wracking few minutes on the phone with NYU graduate admissions yesterday morning, confirming that I was in no danger of meeting any deadlines even though April 15 is a pretty common “reply by” date — phew!) If I had a TARDIS, I would use it to borrow some money from my future self with which to spend a month or so touring the West Coast with Peter in the TARDIS and on our tandem, visiting people and eating at whichever of our favorite places are still around (although I guess with a time machine I could even go back to our closed favorite places when they were still in business… dude, where is my TARDIS? I digress.) One place I’d definitely like to revisit is Taco Loco of Laguna Beach.
I used to wonder whether it was even physically possible for me to do enough drugs to work at Taco Loco, then be glad that they were cool enough to feed my sober self anyway. 
Located at 640 South Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, back when Peter and I lived about a mile south of this fine eating establishment, it was open to satisfy the munchies till 10 PM on weekdays and 1 AM on weekends. The atmosphere: casual, with a hint of the psychedelic — the staff wore tie-dyed t-shirts and assorted piercings, and Magic Mushroom Thursdays were my favorite day of the week to stop by, with blackened mushroom items the special of the day — tacos, quesadillas, taco salads, tofu burgers garnished with wonderful mushroom goodness, and my personal favorites, the mushroom and tofu fajitas. (All of the above-mentioned items were also available made with beef, chicken, fish, and carnitas, but dude, I could never resist whatever they did to that tofu.) My rules of thumb (besides mmmmmmushrooms!) were: accept guacamole when it is offered (hell, beg for more), and think twice before ordering hot sauce, because you are in Southern California (medium is spicy, mild is for wussies). For dessert, they had vegan brownies and cookies, as well as ice cream.
Back in the day, it was all wonderfully inexpensive. A mushroom-tofu burger (sorry, CJ) with free corn chips on the side would fill me up for less than $3, a heaping stack of nachos around $6, and the aforementioned fajitas between $7 and $8. The OC Weekly said:
At Taco Loco you can feast for cheap without the insult of fast food taste. Whether it’s the delicious à la carte Mexican food or the cheap prices, the place is constantly swarming with the beautiful surfing crowd.
and they were right on, or at least they were seven years ago… sigh. (I kinda like this kind of feeling old, when it’s all sentimental and happy.) Ah, Taco Loco. I wonder if they could even live up to my memories. Yum.
