Anthonny-R S
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Unexplainably, Wichita Has No Tongue. How Else Do You Explain the Food?
There’s a theory—mine, naturally—that everyone in Wichita is still emotionally stuck in early 2020, wandering the foggy ruins of a COVID-era palate. Flavor was suspended indefinitely, replaced by something beige and haunting. It’s not that the food is bad, exactly—it’s that it seems to have never come into contact with memory, seasoning, or a sense of purpose.
Into this muted culinary wasteland arrives TJ Tacos, and frankly, it feels suspicious. Implanted, maybe. Dropped from our of space. Whatever the case, they don’t belong here—and I mean that as the highest compliment. These tacos, against all odds and zoning laws, taste like something. Not just edible, but arresting. Bold. Illegally good. I chewed fast, half-expecting ICE to burst in and detain me—by mistake, of course.
You take a bite and get the sense that the cow didn’t just die for this—it volunteered.
This is not your below average restaurant betrayal, slumped in soggy paper and served with a side of regret. This is Tijuana in a tortilla. The undisputed Queen of the South when it comes to tacos, making a mockery of anything within five miles that dares call itself “Mexican food.”
One friend arrived late, naturally—he believes entrances are more meaningful when there’s a chance someone might have rolled out a red carpet. He made a beeline for the bar, oblivious to the fact that I’d gently tied a napkin around his neck like a bib. In my mind, he was wearing flannel. He wasn’t. It was some kind of shiny, white polyester shirt, but his full beard and generous body hair gave off strong, hungry-lumberjack energy. A man with a single mission, destroy!
Without uttering a single vowel—no names, no greetings, like a particularly juicy booty call—he annihilated the burrito. No hesitation. No resistance. No tears. He didn’t eat it so much as inhale it.
The burrito offered no struggle, left no trace—not even a smear of salsa to prove it ever existed. It was disturbingly efficient. Like the perfect murder.
He was the Dexter of food.