Tag Archives: Mexico

Mexican Omelet with a side of bacon

The King of Bacon

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Mexico

This week I decided to combine both my Saturday breakfast out with a blog relevant restaurant, Taqueria El Rey. El Rey (The King in English if you didn’t know) is a Mexican place that, as of this blog posting, recently started offering breakfast on the weekend.

The seating area is spacious and I was the only one there so social distancing was pretty easy. I was surprised to get chips for breakfast but I rolled with it.

I didn’t get any salsa and that had me confused until I saw the server, Madeline, distributing ladles at the Salsa bar. Yes, you heard me, the Salsa bar.

In addition to a lot of options they have a heat score card atop the bar so you don’t pick something that will hurt you. I opted to try the spicy version of the salsa verde and the peanut salsa.

Both had some heat but weren’t too spicy. The peanut salsa was different. There was a peanut flavor but I found it a bit thin. Thankfully I only had time to try a few chips in each because my main dish was going to be a challenge to finish.

I asked which item was the most authentically Mexican on the menu and was directed to the Mexican omelet. Madeline confirmed my impression that most of the items were Mexican with a “twist”. I went with the suggestion and because there was no meat in the omelet got a side of bacon.

The picture doesn’t do the scale of this breakfast justice. The omelet was at least a 3 egg omelet, filled with refried beans and mozzarella. It was topped with pico de gallo and sour cream with queso fresco blocks on the side. Talk about a filling breakfast and this has to be in the conversation. Presentation was nice and it tasted great. I could have foregone the bacon but I am so glad I didn’t. For one thing this side portion had to be at least 6 slices of the crispiest, least greasy bacon I’ve ever had. Ever. The title probably makes sense to you now. If you love crispy bacon it’s worth visiting just for the bacon. I had to take a break and read a few minutes to let it settle some before I could finish.

I enjoyed every bit of my experience at El Rey. Even the coffee mug was intriguing.

The inside of the mug was glazed as was the brown chocolate colored dripping around the rim. The decorative painting on the outside was also glazed but the clay was not so you could feel the texture of it. Very interesting.

It’s a shame there weren’t more people showing this place some love but at least there were more people pulling in as I was leaving. Maybe they were waiting on me to leave. If you’re in Augusta on a weekend and want something different for breakfast I’d recommend giving El Rey a shot. The fajita omelet and breakfast chimichangas sound like a reason to return.

Also check out the Tell Me More page for Mexico for some randomness.

South of the Border

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Mexico

I kept the passport close to home both figuratively and literally by choosing Mexico as the country and El Molcajete in Rock Hill as the restaurant.  This is a relatively new Mexican place that is just a couple of miles from me and web research pointed to them having some dishes more authentic than a lot of the standard tex-mex joints that all have the same basic menu.  You know, where you can just give them the number of your favorite combo and it’s the same from place to place.

I was excited to try them out and hoped they might have at least a couple of different items and they did.  First let me say they didn’t totally forgo the old standbys everybody knows and they have the lunch menu dutifully numbered so those more comfortable with consistency are covered.  For my purposes though they did have a few less common items and I indulged in three of them.  I got the lengua taco (that would be beef tongue), the carne con platano frito (grilled steak, eggs, plantains and beans) and some horchata (rice milk with cinnamon) to wash it down.

El_Moljecate-001El_Moljecate-005

I’ll be honest, having never had beef tongue before I expected it to be a little chewy but this was some tender tongue.  As you can see in the picture they keep it simple and have just onions, cilantro and a side of grilled onions on soft tortillas.  I squirted a little salsa verde on part of it after I tasted it as presented and that was tasty too.  The carne con plantano frito is just more proof that steak and eggs are good for any meal no matter your nationality.  The steak was a thin cut and cooked well but not too the point of being shoe leather.  It was lightly seasoned so the steak flavor came out.  It didn’t strike me as I was wolfing it down but I’d have to say this meal, as a whole, was very light on any flavors other than those of the food.  It wasn’t bland but more like the food stood on it’s own and if you wanted to spice it up with a condiment you could without fighting a ton of other flavors.  I don’t know that horchata is all that rare on Mexican menus because I don’t look for it that often but it caught my eye today and if you haven’t had it you should give it a try.  It is a sweet, cold, refresher that goes well with spicy foods and even non-spicy meals.

I believe this is a family place and they seem to have pride in the restaurant.  The service was good and the place was very clean and bright and still had that new booth smell.  If you live in the area you should give them a shot.

They didn’t have a web page that I could find but they do have a Facebook page, El Molcajete.

Look for a horchata recipe on the Tell Me More page and because it’s almost Easter as this gets posted you can find a bunny there as well.