It was a lovely sunny day in Dana Point but eff the weather – we came here for the beer and tacos. I was fortunate enough to be asked to judge the tacos again at Sabroso so I came armed with my friend Jenny (yes – the Jenny from #luncheswithjenny if you follow me on Insta from way back when) to eat all the tacos and judge them as best as we know how.
While we were waiting for the onslaught of tacos to come our way, we killed the time by taking photos and musing about all the #superbloom photos we’ve been seeing. Why go all the way to some trampled field of flowers when it’s springtime and there’s literally flowers bloomin’ all around us? We decided to take some flower pics from the convenience and safety of the concrete and with the help of editing it looks like we’ve driven hours to a flower field – imagine that!
The tacos arrived and we took pics, took a bite, and rated each taco until there was no more tacos to eat. I was happily surprised with the spice level of most of the tacos this year being a lot more spicy because I love a good spicy taco (hey-o!).
Instead of talking about each taco – I’m sure that’d be boring for everyone – let’s just talk about the winners! This taco is the 3rd place winner: Sol Agave’s Pork Belly taco. It had decent spice, a well-cooked pork belly, and the sweet pineapple was a nice kick. It was not terribly big, so that was a welcome change from the giant tacos we’d had trusted at our faces all afternoon. I enjoyed this one!
Who doesn’t love fried shrimp?! I love fried shrimp as much as the next person. See that deep red sauce? It was spicy AF but it had a complex smokey quality that was really exciting to eat. I just wish they put a few less of these sprimpies because it was all over my face and falling out the back, not the easiest to consume. This lively taco easily took 2nd place and is from Fiesta Gourmet.
Da Da Da Daaaaa~ it’s the winning taco! This octopus chorizo taco from Pink Taco took first place, and it was a damn fine taco. Not only was it pretty, but it was easy to eat, and it had smoke, spice, chew, and the nice hit of acid made it a very well balanced bite. I am not a huge fan of octopus in general but I enjoyed it. It was very well done.
Here’s all the other tacos we had:
I’m not sure who made it (because the judging was blind) but there was a few other tacos I really liked. The crunchy taco with the slices of sausage (because I love me some sausage *wink* ) was really good and I’m a sucker for texture and crunchy tacos are where it’s at. The other taco me and Jenny really liked was the steak taco that was really spicy with big chunks of steak, we made sure to eat all the pieces of meat because it’s a crime to waste good meat. I think I need to put a missed connections post on craigslist so I can find out who made these tacos so I can get more stat!
After the judging was over, we ventured into the crowd to take advantage of the unlimited beer tasting before time was over. I was adamant about wanting to see the Mexican wrestling because that’s always fun to photograph, and while it was entertaining, I missed the part where they’d clime the sides and jump off because I love to watch them fly…
In terms of beer, I was stoked to see some hard-to-find breweries in attendance like Russian River. The Burgeon and Acoustic was the best of the beers in the lower grass area and Russian River and Fall had the best beer in the upper sand-y area.
Sabroso has become a hybrid festival where lots of the focus is also on the music and the bands that are playing but that’s not really my focus when I’m there. As the saying goes: I’m just here for the food (and beer). It’s really cool that they have a ton of bands and it’s now two days long! It’s one of the few festivals that we attend every year and if you haven’t been I totally recommend it.
