Taco Asylum
2937 S. Bristol
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
I will be the first to admit that my taste has changed since I started this blog. I used to be a really traditional kind of guy. I liked my steaks without steak sauce. I enjoyed my hot dogs with mustard, relish, and maybe a little chili if I felt daring. I looked at some places we had been to when we started the blog, and I sometimes felt that restaurants were trying a little too hard to make themselves different. At the time, I did not understand that they were trying to break out of the mold of what everyone else was doing. Coming up with new twists on items to help make them their own.
Before the blog, I had preconceived notions of what I thought Mexican food was. Pretty much almost anything on a Don Jose's menu. When I heard the word taco, I assumed it would contain beef, chicken, or pork and usually comes with a side of beans and rice. Now, of course, I know better. In this age when food trucks have brought fusion foods to the masses, I have learned to open my mind to many more things. That's the way I approached our recent visit to Taco Asylum.
We are the last food bloggers to have made it to this restaurant at The Camp in Costa Mesa. Taco Asylum comes to us from the guys who gave us Haven Gastropub. At Taco Asylum, Executive Chef Greg Daniels focuses on non-traditional tacos, emphasizing global cuisines. His partner, Beverage Director Wil Dee, has created an eclectic group of beers and bottled sodas. There are no fountain drinks here.
We got to Taco Asylum at about six on a Saturday night. Usually, parking in this shopping center can be a little hairy, but the parking gods were with us that night because we got a spot in the front row. Taco Asylum is located smack dab in the middle of The Camp. It is a small place, with maybe ten tables with some seating outside on their small patio. They had a large TV hanging over their bar, which was muted so the music could play through the speakers. The music they played here was a wide array of stuff that had Katie Shazaming almost every song. Despite the large crowd at The Camp, Taco Asylum was not overly packed. They maybe had five tables full during our visit here. Ordering is done at the counter, and the food is brought to you. We waited about ten minutes for the food, which hit our table.
Okay, you have to wait a little longer because I wanted to mention the hot sauces they brought to the table. These ranged from mild to hot, going right to left. The three on the right (the Cayenne, Keeper Sauce, and Red Salva), I did not try. Katie tried them all and did not report they were too hot for her. She is a wimp when it comes to spicy things. The spicier of the two are the Habanero and the Ghost Chili. The Habanero was good but did not pack the punch I expected. I used it more to actually add moisture to the tacos. I was a little nervous trying the Ghost Chili sauce, but it did not overwhelm the flavors inside the taco. It definitely added some heat. It did not get me sweating, but it did make my tongue tingle. Really an excellent hot sauce. I also liked the labels they used for these. Since this is an asylum, the hot sauces would come with a prescription label. Nice touch.
Katie's first choice was the Wild Mushroom Taco. This one, of course, came with mushrooms but also a chickpea puree, parsley salad, and fried chickpeas. Predictably, this taco had a very earthy flavor. Katie really liked the texture provided by the fried chickpeas. She also remarked that the flavor would lead her to get this taco again.
Next up was the Sichuan Fried Chicken Taco. This taco was filled with buttermilk fried chicken, five-spice yogurt, black bean and garlic puree, and scallions. A lot was going on with this one. The chicken was less greasy than we had expected, but it still had a good flavor. The bean and garlic puree was good, but we only got a little garlic coming through. The yogurt sauce was odd but did not get in the way, adding moisture to the taco. This was my favorite out of this plate.
The last of Katie's tacos was the Steak and Potato Taco, which came with a root vegetable potato salad, blue cheese, and fried leeks. This one would be my favorite, but it had some tough pieces of steak, and the blue cheese was not as prominent as I would have liked. I did like the crunch that the fried leek contributed.
Of course, I was also going for a Taco Plate ($15.50). I was not as enthused by the side items as Katie was. I liked the lentil side item better. The chevre was a nice little touch, and the vinaigrette gave it a little punch. These two will not replace my love for traditional beans and rice, but for one night, they were okay. The main benefit is that these were not heavy side items at all. Now, on to the tacos.
I love pork belly, and I always tell people to order it if they see it on the menu. You will not be sorry. So, it is no surprise that I was most excited to try this Pork Belly Taco. At Taco Asylum, they braise their pork belly in coconut milk, then add it to some pickled mushrooms, Fresno chilies, a kaffir lime emulsion, and cilantro. With the coconut milk and the pickled mushrooms, this veered toward an Asian-style taco. I really liked this taco, but I would have liked it more if it had more pork belly included. The pork belly that I did have was very well cooked and tasted even better. Probably my best taco of the night.
It's not every day that you see a Rabbit Taco on the menu, so I had to try it. This rabbit was poached in olive oil, then joined in the tortilla by celery root puree, roasted celery, a few celery leaves, pickled mustard seed, burnt scallion puree, and a carrot-cumin hot sauce. There was a lot of celery and other things going on with this taco. First, I really liked the rabbit. It was cooked very well and could easily have stood on its own. Even with all of this stuff in this taco, the whole vibe of the taco was mellow. It could have been due to all the celery used here. The carrot and cumin hot sauce really got lost in this taco.
The Short Rib Taco is the most traditional-looking taco on the menu at Taco Asylum. The short rib is paired with pickled red onions, salsa verde, cotija cheese, and cilantro. It would not be far-fetched to see this taco on other restaurant menus. After all the other tacos, this one was boring. The meat was a little on the dry side, but some of the ghost chili hot sauce helped to cure that. I should mention the tortillas used here. They are pretty pedestrian, and their only job is to be a vessel for the fillings inside, which I have no problem with. These tacos are not overly stuffed, so this is an easy task for these tortillas to perform.
It's not part of the taco plate options, but when I saw it on the menu, I had to try the Surf and Turf Taco ($6). This one was made of surf and turf, including lobster and pancetta, and then is topped with arugula and Siracha mayo. I was disappointed with this taco. The pancetta was totally lost here. I did not get a whiff of it at all. They also piled on too much arugula, which is easy to take off, but in doing so, you also lost a good deal of the Siracha mayo, which was very thin. The saving grace for this taco was the big hunk of lobster that I got. It really added a big wallop of flavor to this otherwise bland taco.
While at Taco Asylum, we saw a young family come in and sit down. After looking at the menu, they got up and left. I can imagine that this happens quite a lot. Not because the food is terrible but because the tacos they serve at Taco Asylum are not what people imagine when they hear the word taco. I do not believe this restaurant is for everyone. If you have a preconceived notion of what a taco should be and are unwilling to change, you should do what that family did and just walk out. For the rest of you who like to be challenged and are not tired of the normal but want to try something a little out of the box, this is the place for you. I was not blown away by the tacos here, but they were good for a change. It's not a place I would always eat, but they rotate some unique tacos in and out of place, so it could pique your interest enough to visit. The service when we were here was excellent. Courtney talked to us about the restaurant, gave us suggestions, and even gave us a few of her favorite places to go in Fullerton. I'm not going to lie. The prices here are on the high side for the amount that you get. I did not leave Taco Asylum stuffed to the brim, but it did give me room to stop by Blackmarket Bakery and have a cookie or two on the way out of the Camp.
Out of five straight jackets (for obvious reasons), five being best to zero being worst, Taco Asylum gets 3 straight jackets.
For more information about Taco Asylum, click here: http://www.tacoasylum.com/
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