Avotaco
Ta’ Xbiex

Food: 9/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 7/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 9/10

They have let the street in.

This is Avotaco of street food fame and food truck mania. They soon realised they had a hit on their hands. And from the success of the Avotaco truck they have moved on to this –  a bricks and mortar eatery, a Mexican street food headquarters in the hectic hub of Ta’ Xbiex.

It’s a casual, functional space with colourful graffiti murals and easy, wipe-down tables. There’s great energy emanating from the open kitchen and good banter coming from the staff. They are passionate, eager to please and Mexican food-obsessed. Their work is a labour of love.

Mexican cuisine is a cuisine of opposing forces from a country of many contrasts, as bludgeoningly hot as habanero salsa and as refreshing as smooth, mushy avocado. There’s no subtlety to Mexican food. It is bold, it is fearless. It is fun, exuberant with enormous flavours and a kaleidoscope of tastes.

Portable, on-the-go and easy to consume, Mexican street food is big. This is food eaten without utensils and it is marvellously messy. It’s the type of Mexican fare that allows for extreme versatility and variety within a menu. 

At Avotaco you can fill your flatbread, your burrito, taco or quesadilla, with a variety of core ingredients: beef, pork or chicken. There’s also a vegetarian option.

The core ingredients are in turn topped with a layering of stirring salsas and seasonings. There are about a dozen toppings and condiments to choose from, ranging from the buttery-sweet mildness of roasted corn to the assertive aggressiveness of the habanero sauce that strikes with its ballast of untrammelled fieriness.   

The cumulative effect is electrifying on the taste buds. Consistently, plate after plate, each coriander and lime-garnished dish has us swooning.

The beef quesadilla arrives cut into wedges. Browned all over with a charred, crisped up surface, this folded-over corn tortilla is addictively savoury and unspeakably delicious.

The texture of the grilled flatbread imparts a deep, satisfying crunch. The well-seasoned ground beef is incredibly flavourful and has been topped with black beans; quite delicious in themselves having soaked up all the flavour of the garlic, onion and spices they have been slow-cooked in; and some heavenly homemade guacamole that is so much more than just a mush.

It is all sourness and salt, the crunch of onion and the tang of lime juice. This lush, creamy avocado mixture oozes out lasciviously.

The boisterous flavours, the intensity and the effervescence of Mexican street food are all captured here

And, being a quesadilla, there is naturally a lot of melted cheese that spills out salaciously from between the folds of the tortilla. A hefty dollop of rich sour cream rounds off everything magnificently. This beef quesadilla hits the spot on so many levels.

There’s a list of all time truck specials. It’s all about simple delectableness and the freshest of flavours that work together beautifully.

I take possession of a pork carnitas and chorizo sausage burrito. It isn’t simply great, it’s a flavour sensation. The spicy chorizo sausage is delicious and the tender, fall-apart threads of slow-cooked pulled pork, with its crisped up, golden edges, are intensely rich.

There is a tantalisingly complex smokiness to the meat. The burrito is bulked up with lettuce and rice and everything is smothered by a good amount of melted cheese and more of the same winning guacamole.

Topped with a flourish of fragrant cilantro cream – cool, tangy and acidic – it is mouth-wateringly good and will have you licking your fingers and smacking your lips. It is burrito bliss.

The tres tacos especial is a platter laden with three different tacos. They are the perfect vehicle for a series of dazzling toppings.

And, if a taco isn’t bursting at the seams, too full to pick up, you know it hasn’t been done right. These well-built tacos are an appealing combination of crunchiness, acidity, fat and spice.

The faces we pull as we cram them into our mouths, visibly struggling to keep everything within the confines of the taco.

The soft corn tortillas are little discs holding everything together. While wheat ones do exist, corn tortillas have so much more flavour.

And corn is, of course, such an integral part of Mexico’s heritage. The heart and soul of Mexican cuisine is corn. Going back millennia, maize has been inextricably tied to Mexico’s indigenous ancestors who, through selective breeding, domesticated it from a wild grass. They considered it a sacred source of sustenance. 

This basic grain remains an essential element in the gastronomy of its birthplace. The chicken taco is crammed with gaspingly fresh ingredients,  challenging you to hold it all together with one hand.

Tender chicken pieces totter on top, crowned with fragrant cilantro cream. An accompaniment of pico de gallo, that gorgeous salsa of coarsely chopped tomato, onion, chilli and coriander dressed with lime juice and salt, all brightness and acidity, adds extra freshness to every mouthful.

Every bite of this taco is brimming with wonderful, savoury flavour, each satisfying mouthful laden with juicy crunchiness. The vegetarian taco doesn’t disappoint either, not for a second does it allow you to mourn the absence of animal protein.

It is layered with a lovely combination of slow-cooked black beans, lettuce, homemade guacamole, pico de gallo and cilantro cream; delivering succulence and alluring crunch.

The pork taco brings more of the insanely smoky chorizo and pork carnitas. It is demolished within minutes.

There are those who think that Mexican cuisine has ambitions far above its station. How wrong they are. The street dishes alone are fabulous and noteworthy.          

It is so easy to overeat here at Avotaco. The limited menu of street foods is carried out with flourish and executed beautifully. The boisterous flavours, the intensity and the effervescence of Mexican street food are all captured here.

The quality of the ingredients is paramount. This is where the real flavour lies and where Avotaco excels. It is all sublimely done.

There’s no dessert to be had, but no room for it either. We leave, ecstatic. And not a drop of tequila has wet our lips.