tacos unleashed...Don Patron 3

A short week this week found Betty and I going out to eat lots and catching up with old friends. This time we were meeting up with a friend visiting from Oakland and dined at Don Patron 3 in Clintonville formerly Talitas. The interior of the place has changed from what I remember of Talitas as has the menu. I was surprised about the extensive number of items available on the menu. The chips were alright. Did not taste fresh or anything but they did the trick. The salsa tasted fresh but was over cilantro-y. Our friends commented that the salsa was especially fruity with a strong lime taste. No worries about the chips and salsa however because the El Yucateco pasodoble made an appearance. A quick way to this bear's tummy is to have El Yucateco on-demand, all day, every day.


chips, salsa and El Yucateco pasodoble

Continuing my trend of exploring Mexican style tacos peaked by the recent explosion of the topic on the Columbus blogosphere I ordered their taco trio platter but mixed up the meats with: pastor, chorizo and carnitas. Each was topped with cilantro and onion on 2 corn tortillas though you had the option for cheese, lettuce and tomato on flour tortillas as well. It took some time for the meal to come out -- 10-15 minutes -- which got me excited about the tacos because I couldn't help but fell they were making them fresh and putting a little extra TLC into our food. I was also eager to see how these tacos would compare to my adventures at Cazuelas and Los Potosinos.


pastor taco up top, chorizo taco to the right, carnitas taco below

I started with the chorizo taco. Squeezed some lime on it and put some of the spicier sauce that came out with it...very tasty. The meat was hot. The chorizo had a nice smoky flavor that was complemented well with the cilantro, onion and lime. I then moved on to the pastor taco. The pastor was sweet and was accompanied with pineapple chunks. A great blend of flavors especially when I added some El Yucateco to the mix. I saved the carnitas taco and apparently the best for last. This taco surprised me because I thought it would be the blandest of the 3 meats I tried but it had a simple grilled but still flavorful taste that had me wanting more. As previously mentioned I'm not much of a soft taco person but the Mexican style that features cilantro, onions, lime and corn tortillas has me hooked. I will say that the carnitas soft taco was the best soft taco I've had yet. The tacos came with beans and rice which are hard to mess up and were pretty standard. Betty had a pineapple chicken dish which was pretty tasty as well. Overall I was very impressed with Don Patron 3's tacos. Nothing too amazing about the chips, salsa, rice or beans but pretty good margaritas, very tasty tacos, El Yucateco pasodoble and the comfort of reasonable prices will make me a repeat customer in the near future. I have discovered these past months that there is crucial Mexican dining beyond El Vaquero and I'm excited to discover my next taco taste-ploration very soon.