Breakfast at the Lengua Place: I Love Tacos Taqueria, Springfield, Missouri

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I run this route a lot: Indiana out to Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and California. Most of the year I can take the 80 all the way across. In winter, though, I’m not dealing with snow. I take the 80 to the 55 and drop down toward St. Louis, then swing around the city on the 270. That stretch of road has its own story, which I told in Life Between the Layovers. From there I pick up the 44 West to the 40 in Oklahoma City, and after that it’s off to the races to California.

Springfield, Missouri runs along the 44 for several exits before you get to 72, the one that matters to me because that’s where the Flying J is. That truck stop is the only reason I ever got off there. One day I pulled in for fuel, like I always do, and saw a little taco stand across the street. I was hungry, and Mexican food is one of my favorite foods, so I walked over to see what it was about.

My palate comes with baggage. I’m a spoiled Californian, raised on some of the most authentic Mexican food outside of Mexico. The Mexican food I had in Ohio was bad. It caters to the people there, and I can’t blame Ohio for that, or Missouri either. But it means I judge Mexican food two ways only: against Mexico and against Southern California. Keep that in mind for everything below.

The stand

I Love Tacos Taqueria is built from a couple of big-rig shipping containers joined together on a roadside gravel lot. Because they’re containers, the whole setup moves. This summer they picked it up, set it across the road by the Shell for a month or two, then moved it back where it’s always been.

The kitchen is completely closed off. In California you get bulletproof glass, so you can still watch them cook. Here they open a small window, take your order and your money, close it, and go back to work. You can’t see a thing. It’s not a big deal. It’s just how they do it.

Inside there’s a small waiting room with two or three seats and air conditioning. This morning a guy was bringing in a heater, so they think about that kind of thing. Out in the lot there’s a covered patio with four or five tables. It’s cute, honestly. It’s also a truck stop.

Why I keep stopping

Nine times out of ten I skip steak, chicken and pork and go for the uncommon meats: lengua, tripa, buche, cabeza. The first time I stopped here I got the lengua burrito. It’s very good, and lengua is hard to come by around here.

They’ve got green and red salsa. The green is really good, high quality, with real spice, though it’s tame. There’s just enough heat that you reach for some water to cool your mouth down. It won’t put that warm feeling on your brow or start the sweat beading up while you’re eating.

In the summer I’ve sat out on that patio with a burrito, a horchata and a jamaica and had a good old time. It’s become a regular stop on my route. When I’m in Springfield and need to eat quick, this is where I go.

I was back on October 20 and got it again. Tongue takes a long time to prepare, and you can tell they put the hours in. It tastes braised, it’s seasoned well, and it’s so tender it melts in your mouth, the way lengua should. It comes with rice, beans and cheese. I sprinkled some cilantro on top, added the green salsa, and it was great.

I also tried a tamale that day and regretted it. It was almost all masa, with nowhere near enough meat, and it came with bad lettuce all over it. Even the green salsa couldn’t save it. I won’t get it again. My order here is the lengua burrito. Hard stop.

This morning

I’d never been here this early, so I tried the breakfast burrito. You get one meat, so mixing chorizo, bacon and ham isn’t an option. I went with ham.

It came out hot. They make it to order, and the eggs were cooked fresh. The potatoes were real, cut by hand, probably cooked ahead and thrown back on the grill. Nothing out of a bag.

I sat down at one of the patio tables, took a couple of pictures and had a bite. The tortilla was grilled, which I enjoy. That first bite was crispy, crunchy enough to hear, and you could feel it on your tongue.

The problem is that the potatoes were the burrito. The ham was sliced thin, more lunch meat than chunks. There was maybe one scrambled egg, with some of the cheese melted into it, holding everything together. The rest of the cheese sat in a pile of loose shreds that never melted. It could have used a little more of everything but potato.

It’s winter now and cold outside, so I got in the RV to finish it in the driver’s seat. Once the ham, egg and cheese ran out, I was down to potato and tortilla with about an eighth of the burrito left. I started driving, decided that was enough potato, and threw the rest away.

I should have asked for the green salsa. It wouldn’t have made this one any less potato-heavy, but it would have helped.

In California, breakfast burritos are a huge thing. Hash browns, home fries, chorizo, sausage, bacon, ham, turkey bacon, any configuration you can think of. Next to those, this one falls short.

It wasn’t bad. It handled breakfast for $11.66, which gets you more than the same money buys across the street at the Flying J or the Wendy’s inside it. It’s not the same food, but those are the options at this exit when you’re traveling and need to keep moving. Would I pay $11.66 there again? Yes. The people at the window were nice.

It just didn’t give me what I expect from a breakfast burrito. My expectation and its quality are two different things. I should have ordered the lengua for breakfast and kept on driving.