Midnight at Magnolia Café

I swear, it wasn't the plan to dive so quickly into evaluating the breakfast tacos of beloved Austin icons like Magnolia Café. I'd meant to spend a while thinking and writing about tacos, coming up with detailed criteria and developing a complex rating system... and maybe starting my evaluations with a few taco trucks or less known taquerias before diving right in... but I went to dinner last night with three friends who know I've started this blog and know that I plan to start evaluating breakfast tacos around Austin and the breakfast tacos on the menu just looked so damn good.

After work last night, my colleague Amanda invited me to The Independent for their weekly poetry slam. Amanda and I work at a non-profit that runs after-school programming, so our busiest hours are between 3:00 and 8:00PM. The show started at about 8:30 and by the time we got out at 10:30 eating was long overdue. Amanda suggested Magnolia for their outrageously tasty Mag Queso. Magnolia's Mag Queso costs $6.95 and is black beans, queso, avacado, and pico de gallo in a really healthy serving... or is that unhealthy?

I considered the array of food on a menu with lots of excellent looking options, but my friends suggested if I was serious about this breakfast taco thing, it was time to get started. There was some peer pressure involved, but it doesn't take much to push me in that direction. I ordered the Three Alarm Taco. Okay, I ordered two of them.


Two Three Alarm Tacos come on a plate at Magnolia for $6.25 and consist of scrambled eggs, potatoes, cheddar and jack cheeses, and jalapeños, with a slightly spicy chipotle sauce and flour tortillas. And there's clearly about a ton of all of it... I wondered if they didn't accidentally give me three tacos with only two tortillas.

The primary categories I've established for rating tacos consist of the three main parts: tortilla, contents, and salsa. I've also established three secondary categories for when I'm rating a restaurant or taqueria overall and not simply the taco. These are: ambiance, salsa bar and other condiments, and beverages. Magnolia was NA in two of these secondary categories as they don't have a salsa bar (salsa comes on the side) and I ordered water. In ambiance, I unhesitatingly gave them a 5 out of 5. This place has a smattering of folk-artsy cuteness like the painted wooden pterodactyls swinging from the ceiling, and all the charm of a down home picnic. I think my family actually had this tablecloth packed away for weenie roasts and backyard cookouts.

But down to the serious business of the Three Alarm Tacos. I hate to start with the lowest point, but the tortilla is at the top of my scorecard. I don't really have anything good to say about Magnolia's tortillas except that they carried the contents of the taco from my plate to my mouth and they didn't taste bad. Out of 5, I gave them 2. The contents of the taco were really tasty. The eggs and potatoes were covered in a spicy chipotle sauce and there were giant, in fact somewhat intimidating, chunks of jalapeño. Oddly the cheese was all melted in the crease of the tortilla and not spread throughout or sprinkled on top... for contents, I gave them 4. Finally, the salsa was fine... just, fine. Between the chipotle sauce and the salsa, there was a nice kick to the meal, but the salsa itself was mostly generic.

Plus, I factored in an additional five as a bonus for having a rocking 'round the clock breakfast menu. 24-hours of breakfast = awesome. All told, Magnolia Cafe added up and averaged out earned a 3.8 out of 5 for their Three Alarm Tacos. Solid.