Earthy. Sweet. Salty. Straight-up delish. Our beet tacos have earned a cult-like following that would make Dwight Schrute proud. Here’s five tidbits you should know about our beloved vegetarian taco:
Unofficially it's the most talked about taco at Pica's. People looooooove to talk to us about the beets.
The beet taco was inspired by the BEET fries and kewpie mayo at Austin's East Side King.
The Queso a la Plancha taco from Pinche Tacos was the inspiration for the griddled cotija we start the beet taco with. Thanks Pinche - we love your food!
When first introduced on our specials board, we had a lot of big dudes ordering the "BEEF Tacos." They were puzzled when the beef turned out to be purple and sweet.
We tried to take the beets off the menu and people got ANGRY!
Beets make your pee pink!!! Seriously, it’s a thing with a name: Beeturia. Go ahead and look it up on Wikipedia.
A CONSOLIDATED HISTORY OF THE PICA'S BEET TACO
Rewind a few years and we were looking to introduce more vegetarian options. This was coming off the beet/goat cheese/hazelnut salad craze, but we were still loving beets on everything.
During that time we ate at Paul Qui's East Side King in Austin and LOVED the Beet Fries, togarishi spice and kewpie mayo combo. Inspired, we began experimenting with what would become the beet taco. We knew we wanted a salty cheese to pair with the sweet beets. And we wanted some kind of aioli to match that kewpie mayo we really liked.
After many variations, and honestly becoming pretty sick of beets at this point, we introduced the beet taco, expecting it to possibly have a short life on the specials board and be gone. But the beets persisted. We kept trying to strike them from the specials board only to face some serious beet backlash. So, finally, when it was time to revise our menu a couple of years back, we made way for the beets and never looked back.
If you have never tried them, there’s no time like now. My personal recommendation: one beet taco, one baja shrimp taco, and a small chopped salad. It’s the perfect meal. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
