La Carnita UNO

To be short: good idea, terrible planning. Asking for trouble when you open up at 7 pm and only start serving people 2 hours later; crazy line ups at every station. After waiting for ¹¹⁄₂ hours, our group of 4 shared the bounty of beef and fish tacos & churros. Everything was tasty enough but at that point, a piece of cardboard may have hit the spot too. Unfortunately, nothing is worth that kind of aggravation.

Pop up Taco legends La Carnita decided to host a party at the Brickworks called #UNO. It wasn’t anything short of epic. My rating: 4.5 Stars
You can see all the buzz under the hashtag. I’m giving them some Twitter love. Go follow em at @la_carnita
VIBE
Designers and Advertisers by day; taco superstars by night. These moonlighters know how to throw a PAR.TAY. After launching a year ago by selling art with a taco theme out of their One Method office and at other various venues, La Carnita decided to go whole hog and put together the ultimate art show with a foodie twist at the Evergreen Brickworks. These guys dare to be different and it’s working for them.
Every food blogger and their mom was there. And as expected, it was crowded. As in, maybe 2,000 people will show up but about 5,000 people did. The Brickworks isn’t exactly a convenient location but it worked for so many reasons:
–It has an underground, gritty vibe with graffiti on brick walls already. They just pumped up the volume with taco themed street art with some fantastic graffiti artists and other talented artists
–they could divide (and therefore conquer) the space
–they were able to break up the food and drink stations as well as have a dance floor where the DJs were.
–AWESOME Music. 90s hip hop and old school kept everybody entertained while waiting. With the opening of the screens, it felt like a food truck concert.
How does it work?
Go in, get your tickets for tacos and drinks at the table set up for that. 4 tacos — $ 20 4 drinks = $ 20
Wait in one of three lines and get your food.
Wait in another line for either: wine, beer or margaritas/​mixed drinks
CONS
The line-​ups needed to be more organized. So instead of one «station,» have a few so it’s not snaking around. Or have some kind of partition dividing up the different taco and churro line ups.
Speaking of line ups, it was one big long line up for the whole night. This is expected. Those that didn’t expect this, should have gone home. You weren’t going to be in and out in an hour. That’s why you bring a friend and drink in line.
There should have been a section for refunds
Better drink selections or separate the tables for the margarita and mixed drink section. It was hard to get over there.
Where were the garbage cans?!
At night, in an outdoor space that wasn’t heated it got COLD. It was still a great event, despite but next time, maybe heat lamps?
The Crowd
As mentioned food bloggers and more. Lots of leather jackets, tight jeans and booties. One chick even brought her dog with her! (Is the Paris Hilton trend still in? Apparently). It was the hipster, food event of the year that’s for sure.
THE FOOD
The Carnita crew brought in some of their best co-​stars.
VOLTRON FISH TACOS by La Carnita. –YUM. Crispy, flavourful deliciousness. A bit too much radicchio (if that’s what it was).
CEVICHE TOSTADA– this was made by Steve Gonzalez. It kind of missed the mark for me but definitely an interesting fishy, limey flavour. Maybe too raw?
CHICKEN TOSTADA — by Scott Vivian of Beast. This was the dish of the night for me. Crispy cumbraes chicken was accompanied by avocado purée and thai chilli purée. It was a good mix of sweet vs. sour and crunchy. They didn’t skimp on the chicken either. Good value!
CHORIZO TACO — by the Tempered Chef — it had some a bit of flavour in there for me but I felt it needed to be accompanied by more ingredients to give it the flavour punch it lacked for me.
CHURROS — As I only had four tickets, I didn’t get the churros but that was a nice touch. I think Nick Liu of Niagara Street Café was behind that station.
I think with the crowds and wait, everything was not going to be piping hot.
I wasn’t expecting to pay $ 40 and felt it was a wee steep but at the same time, I’m happy to support local business and community and give back to these guys.
OBLIGATORY CATCHY REMARK
I can imagine how time consuming it must have been to pull off an event like this. But they had the right formula and I can only imagine what they come up with next! I’m sure Andrew Richmond’s taqueria won’t be a problem when he’s ready to get it set up (Hello Grand Electric Part 2). It’s been an interesting to see the projects that they’ve come up with.
I would also say this would have been interesting and a bit more easier in terms of getting down there to have the event on a Saturday or Sunday during the day but again, that might have been a whole other set of issues altogether!