Taco Mac

The new neighbor here in Midtown turns out to be Taco Mac.

When I first heard about the place, I hoped the odd name was a tribute to what I imagined their signature dish would be: a crispy taco shell packed with ground beef and gourmet macaroni and cheese. When friends explained that, no, Taco Mac was a wings and beer joint, I lost interest.

But when Taco Mac opened up a chrome-colored new location just five blocks from our house, we dropped in — and learned, among other things, that the place gets its name from the sign on the Virginia Highlands location. A “Taco Mac” sign was already affixed to the building when the owners bought the place in 1979. On a tight budget, they faced a choice: renovate the kitchen … or buy a sign?

The fact they’re still called Taco Mac tells you the answer to that story, yes?

But, I digress. Taco Mac is, indeed, a wingy and beery kind of joint, with a twist: they serve about five hundred gazillion brands of draft beer and seventy-‘leven bazillion brands of bottled beer. (Alas, they do not serve one of the very few beers I’ll drink from time to time: the rare and delicious Guinness Extra Cold.) And while I cannot vouch for their wings (friends tell me that, for a signature dish, they’re a bit tobasco-y), I can reveal that the burgers are pretty good, the salmon entree is tasty, and the fries are better than you’ll find at most places.

As far as I’m concerned, the star of the show is the chili con queso platter, which features a spicy cheese dip (with the consistency of whipped mayonnaise!) and a pile of chips (expected) and unfried flour tortillas (surprising!).

All in all, it’s not a bad place to have within walking distance of our home. The cuisine is, unfortunately, forced to compete with an aggressively urban, high-tech dining room design (think lofty, sparse, black spaces, punctuated with five hundred thousand wide-screen plasma televisions playing ESPN) and a peculiarly robotic staff. Our server tonight actually said, “We thank you for dining with us at Taco Mac, and it’s our sincere hope that you’ll chose to dine with us again at every opportunity.” It’s a great script … but a little unsettling when delivered with all the sincerity and humanity of a department store mannequin.

Will I seek it out? No. Will I object when friends want to go? No. In the end, it’s the kind of place folks from out of town will want to visit … and, when they do, I’ll take ’em there, order some chips and queso, and have myself a high old time.