Tamale Queen

I’ve been to the Tamale Queen a handful of times. I usually like it. However today, not so much. The spicy pork tamale was bland and tough. There was no El Yucateco offered today either. They’re a bunch of nice folks and love the cause, I just remember the food being better…

I visited the Tamale Queen truck at a LivingSocial Adventure at Red Brick Brewing over the weekend. After having left Chicago and a fantastic tamal place just up the street from my condo, it was great to run into good tamales. It was double-​awesome to run into a woman-​owned business.
I had the vegetarian tamal, which is filled with tomatoes, onions and queso fresco. I also had a bite of a pork tamal (the masa part, as I don’t eat meat). The masa is really good — flavorful and not dry. The vegetarian tamal was good. I’m used to having tamales with jalapenos and queso, but not tomatoes. It is a good flavor combination. The side of the pork tamal was pretty amazing. The sauce was delicious.
I hope to try more of from their menu in the future.

These ladies have an amazing ethos and are putting their money where their idealistic, hopeful mouths are. They donate twenty percent of proceeds from sales to fund a nonprofit program established to help refugees and their children [
and their staff is comprised of program graduates and their parents. Completely amazing and inspiring, like I can’t stop saying.
These are tamales wrapped in warm fuzzies.
That said — and the purpose of a food review — is to comment on what’s past the warm fuzzies and inside the corn husks. And on that front, I thought they missed the mark. The shredded chicken tamal I experienced was dry, incredibly bland, and doused in overreaching spicy sauce, which did nothing to redeem its mediocrity. My parents, both of whom raised me on a a hard line There Are Children Starving in Africa– Finish Your Peas approach, and believe it immoral to throw out food, could barely finish theirs.
Our group had 4 chicken tamales and 1 vegetarian and no one walked away satisfied. We are of adventurous palates and spiciness isn’t really an issue for us. It was a matter of not having much flavor to begin with and then masking it with heat. I found the spice to be a heavy handed afterthought, instead of intrinsic to a robust flavor profile. It was like sprinkling cayenne on sliced white bread. Yeah, it’s hot, but it’s not really yummy.
It seems lots of other folks like their offerings, though, and that does some to alleviate the guilt I feel over not being able to finish the tamal and delivering a less than stellar review.
The remaining guilt will likely lead me to try out the tacos.

I’ve visited the Tamale Queen food truck at Woodruff and Atlantic Station. Prices are very good, and so is the food. I like that the food comes out quickly too. I’ve had the chicken tamale ($ 2.50), and chicken taco ($ 2.50). I remember the chicken taco having iceberg lettuce, jalapenos, green peppers, lots of shredded chicken, and verde sauce … so you’re getting good «value» :) I can’t recall what was in the chicken tamale but I remember it being very good :)

I got to try the Tamale Queen at the inaugural food truck Friday at Howell Mill Food Park. It was a smaller turnout than the Tuesday event and I’ve see the Tamale Queen on Tuesdays, so I figured I’d check it out. Since I wanted to try other places as well, I opted for the fish taco. They use corn instead of flour tortillas and double up on them since corn does have a way of going to pieces on you. The fish tasted fresh and the salsa verde definitely had an afterburn.
My one complaint, as is frequently the case, they really could’ve been more generous with the cheese. You can never have too much cheese. I liked that the fish wasn’t fried either. It helped keep the fresh flavor. It was $ 3 for the taco which was reasonable for the size. Overall I think I like Tex’s a little bit better, but now I know Tamale Queen has a solid fish taco, too.

I was on my way to check out what was going on over at Pop Up Chef when I got sidetracked by Consuela. She’s a tank of a woman and lawd she cooks well.
PS: That’s the name of their food truck. I’m not actually talking about someone who works there. :)
$ 2.50 tamales?! Yes, please! Today I had the chicken and spicy pork. Apparently that was the most popular combination because that’s all I heard other people order. They also have tacos. I need to do a little more research to see if they’re corn or flour tortillas (I prefer corn).