Tacos in Paradise

Tacos in Paradise

About a year ago, I (and I do mean “I”. I am going to dispense with using The Impatient Chef in the third person schtick for this post because of the kind of prose I wish to present to the reader) wrote a post about a new, occasional series I wanted to do about take out food. The pandemic was getting worse, and there was no vaccine, so I decided to write about food carts and other take out food. Needless to say, this idea got lost in the shuffle due to, well, life. As in all things, one can only do so much.

Today, my wife and I were out in the Eastern Columbia Gorge, in the great state of Oregon, to pick up our wine club bottles at a place called “Idiot’s Grace Winery.” That IS its real name. Formerly known as Memaloose Winery, they have a tasting room just outside of Mosier, Oregon. They specialize in naturally fermented organic wines. If you are in the area, please do stop in to have a sip. While we were in the area, the familiar pangs of hunger gurgled up from the depths, and lunch proverbially called our names.

Downtown Mosier, Oregon

Downtown Mosier sits a stone’s throw south of I-84, along the Historic Columbia River Highway. They have a couple of restaurants, two food carts, a seasonal ice cream shop, and one of the geological wonders of the world: The Bingen Gap.

I called The Bingen Gap “The Mosier Gap” for a decade because that’s the first way I heard it. Besides, I like Mosier. In researching a book I am writing about the area, I discovered my error. At first, I thought, "you can have my Mosier Gap when you pry it from my cold, dead brain cells." However, that’s not, as it were, the scientific method. Correct information must drive out the incorrect, so it’s the Bingen Gap.

The Bingen Gap is an astounding collection of synclines and anticlines, heaved from the Earth by long ago volcanic convulsions, and scoured clean by successive Missoula Floods. These floods were at the tail ends of ice ages when massive reservoirs of water formed in the Rocky Mountains just wast of Missoula, Montana. Held in by ice dams, they reportedly carried 500 cubic miles of water. When the dams broke, they sent a 1,000 foot wall of water and ice down the Columbia Gorge, carrying in it the sum total of all the world’s rivers in one swell foop. Mosier was not there then, needless to say.

The exposed geology at Mosier includes the Mosier Syncline, which is at the low point of the formation, and the anticline that seemingly breaks into three pieces just to the west. Across the river is the Bingen Anticline, part of which is the Coyote Wall, reportedly one of the longest, exposed syncline/anticlines in the world.

Think of synclines and anticlines as waves of rock. The anticline is the crest of the wave, and the syncline is the way down, which is a good place to be hit by a Missoula flood.

The Bingen Gap at Mosier, Oregon

Mosier Geology

Moon and Mosier

The Coyote Wall

So, it was with a little trepidation that we moseyed (or was that meandered?) down into Mosier for some lunch. While watching for the next Missoula flood, I ordered 6 carnitas tacos from a food cart. The cart was called La Vaquita. It sits in the parking lot next to the Mosier Fruit Company (Mosier is regionally famous for its cherries), with a happy cow on its logo. From there, we drove along the HCRH as it pretzeled back up the hill to the east, and parked at a gravel overlook, where the Bingen gap was visible in all its glory.

The first thing I noticed was that they gave me enough of the “red sauce”.

I never get enough salsa from any Mexican restaurant, even when I ask for more.  This sauce is a cross between salsa and hot sauce.  It's savory, peppery, and has a bright, acidic mouth feel.  

The second thing I noticed was that the tacos were fabulous. We squeezed the limes all over the tacos, and applied a stream of red sauce down the middle of each. The meat was tender and spicy. The lettuce and cilantro were fresh, and the overall flavor was a sensory delight. The red sauce left my lips tingling for at least ten minutes after we were done with them. A little food cart in a small town with little car traffic made fresh, delicious tacos. They were probably the best I have had in years. 

6 Tacos Plus Red Sauce

I have been frequenting food carts for years, but I have done so increasingly as the pandemic has continued. I hope to be more diligent in providing readers with good places for take out food in the Pacific Northwest in the months to come. My true desire is for the pandemic to end, but viruses have a mindlessness of their own, and don’t tend to cooperate.

A personal note: I wanted to move to Mosier back in 2015, but fortune was not kind to that desire, and we moved into Hood River, which is 6 miles to the west. I could only stay for 4 years, because the commute to the Portland area turned out to be too long to do it every day, especially in the era of global warming, but it stands out as a high point for me.  While I did not get my first choice of hometowns, my second choice was a life-changing experience.  Living in the heart of the Columbia Gorge was like living in paradise.  

I hear the tacos are good there.

Thanks for reading!

Gary L. Quay —The Impatient Chef.