UYE Tour-de-Taco

SOOOO MUCH FUNNNN!!! What happens when you have lunch with two nerds (Luke C & Mohamed N)? A collaboration that produces the genius idea of a «Tour de Taco».
Wow! Even though I couldn’t eat the beef/​chicken tacos, the fish ones & the cheese pupusas were enough for me. I loved watching the shock as the results rolled in. Everyone, particularly Luke C, was shocked by Los Comales’ horrible finish.
Personally, Chubby’s fish tacos outdid La Vaquita by MILES. From the tortilla to the texture to the flavors. How on earth is La Vaquita the #1 ranked restaurant of Durham Unilocal?!!
In terms of cheese pupusas, El Cuscatleco in Durham was unanimously the favorite over El Buen Sabor’s. However, the coleslaw that came with El Buen Sabor’s was better than El Cuscatleco’s coleslaw.
I almost wish we could have a permanent page to post the results of this UYE! It’s worthy of being publicized! Big big thumbs up to Mohamed N. for setting this up!

Mohamed has set a high high standard for UYE. It was a fantastic night of food tasting, catching up with Unilocalers and meeting new friends. We have to give Mohamed and his family a huge pat on the back for hosting all of us. Everyone really enjoyed themselves.
Mohamed and I had been looking forwards to this event for so long. Privately, each time I spoke about it, I got more excited. I was allocated to bring tacos from Chubby’s from 9^th street — a spot that I didn’t really have high hopes for. I was gunning for Los Comales all the way through until the results were revealed. Mohamed got tacos from La Vaquita II, Karen got them from El Buen Sabor, while Christina and Phil G. got them from La Vaquita I. It was a blind tasting of Barbacoa and Pollo (chicken tinga at Chubby’s — they had two type of chicken). Other party attendees brought homemade mexican food — tortilla of baked apple (fantastic), flan (i had many servings) and rice. Susan Z. also brought cheese pupusas — yes all nine of them.
The night went by quick and we all took turns sampling food. I made rounds and checked people’s reviews. It was fun talking to people and hearing their comments. It was amazing how so many people agreed on chicken taco from Chubby’s. There was more spread of preferences in the Barbacoa side. I was shocked by the results of my own blind tasting. My prior favourite, Los Comales, didn’t do as well. I liked tacos from Chubby’s and El Buen Sabor more. Hmmm. I will probably still go back to Los Comales — I still love the salsa bar and the gritty feel. I would certainly get more tacos from Chubby’s and El Buen Sabor. This was an amazing experience.
Mohamed and I need to dream up more ideas!!. Thanks again Mohamed. cheers,. L

«Which taqueria in town wins???»
Christina G’s review is wonderful as always, so I’ll be brief with additions– pollo and barbacoa tacos were sampled from Los Comales de Durham, Chubby’s Tacos, Taqueria La Vaquita (cow statue on top), La Vaquita II (in Kroger shopping center), and Taqueria y Pupuseria El Buen Sabor. Reviewers also got fish tacos from the two Vaquitas as well as Chubby’s (others didn’t have them). Pictures of all the pollo and barbacoa tacos are uploaded, so you can see for yourself! As Christina noted, in the pollo category, Chubby’s won hands-​down (my apologies for reversing two of the letters before). For barbacoa, La Vaquita won by a few votes, but I personally preferred Chubby’s again. For fish, Chubby’s yet again! Go Chubby’s!
We also sampled cheese pupusas from both El Cuscatleco and from Buen Sabor. Both were delicious, but the El Cuscatleco was generally agreed to be better– less straight cheese and more «flavor».
This party was AWESOME– literally one of the best I’ve ever attended in my life– thanks to the efforts of all the people who brought the tacos from taquerias around town as well as other delightful goodies. And it’s great to have data on this question– we’re blessed with so much Mexican, so nice to compare them side-​by-​side at last.

Oh noes! — Mohamed has said «stop the presses!!!» The integrity of the experiment has been questioned! Turns out Tacos B & C were reversed, meaning …
1) CHUBBY’S TACOS won for best pollo (Buen Sabor received one vote and La Vaquita I received one vote)
2) While La Vaquita still led teh pack for beef, Chubby’s actually received three votes! And Buen Sabor received one.
It would seem our taste buds are more tempted by the Americanized version! hmm…
— — — — — — — –
So first of all, I’m reviewing this under the location of La Vaquita (since that was my assigned taco pickup) since I don’t want to publicly advertise organizer Mohamed N’s house as a regular taco stop — and I want it to show up in the recent review feed.
What a ridiculously awesome UYE! Thanks to Luke C for the idea and to Mohamed for hosting and pulling off the idea. I was blown away by the Unilocal-​branded door sign and sampling instructions that greeted me on arrival; by the non-​yelpers who created accounts to RSVP for the event; and by the variety of side dishes we had to go with our blind taco taste test. In short, I’m now saddling you with the responsibility — er, I mean, the honor — of planning all future Elite Events. Just kidding. But seriously, you might have to break out that ol’ DJ equipment and spin for us one of these days!
Back to the matter — or platter — at hand: That consisted of 5 chicken tacos for me. My rankings fell in this order: Buen Sabor; Los Comales; Chubby’s; La Vaquita II and La Vaquita I. Buen Sabor won best chicken tacos by a loooong shot. The beef tacos were a bit closer; Buen Sabor was highly popular — but La Vaquita won by two votes.
I didn’t get to sample the beef tacos, but I tried a fish taco from La Vaquita — it had an awesome pico de gallo on it and I really enjoyed it. Though I heard rumors that Chubby’s fish tacos were better. Clearly, there were a lot of surprises at this event! And it would be fun to try the blind taste test with other foods…
Susan Z brought some cheese pupusas; I’m pretty serious about my dairy, but it was hard to eat even half of one: delicious but cheeeesy! And I loved the side dishes that folks brought — particularly the flan (ohmigah so good) and the apple enchiladas.
Quite the foodie event. Snaps for Mohamed for bringing us all together and dealing with the logistics and the clean-​up! I’ll definitely be paying Buen Sabor a visit soon…