Rusty Taco is a franchised chain of taco fast casual restaurants with locations primarily in Texas, but also with a handful in Colorado, Nebraska, and Minnesota. The name was foolishly semi-rebranded to R Taco after the founder Rusty Fenton died, but they still call it Rusty Taco around here.

Rusty Taco is a place I've wanted to visit for a while but not the kind of place that beckoned me either. I was basically driving by it one day and decided to stop in for lunch. They do their own take on tacos, including their flagship Rusty Taco. Don't ask me why it's not #1 on their menu, but read on to find out why it is their #1 taco.

The Place

Rusty Taco is a place I've wanted to visit for a while but not the kind of place that beckoned me either. I was basically driving by their St. Paul, MN location one day and decided to stop in for lunch. It's situated at the end of a small strip mall on a main drag nearby a freeway, with a parking lot adjacent to a Trader Joe's store.

^{Faces grayed because the guy on the right was angry I used a big scary camera to take interior pictures, with the permission of the manager. I wonder if he'd have cared if I used a cell phone? I wonder if he was as angry with Rusty Taco or his own employer across the parking lot for taking his picture with multiple security cameras? You're in public, guy.}

The interior is nice, clean, and modern looking. The tables were long and as you can see could seat larger groups. The tables got cleaned right after I saw people leave. There's also bar-style seating near the front door, facing the kitchen, and on the back wall. A bit too much of it in my opinion. One bad thing that stood out was the A/C vent was dripping water from above in a couple spots. That kind of thing should get taken care of at a restaurant where there's open food. Another thing was the bathroom didn't have a paper towel dispenser. Those air dryer things are crap and much worse than paper hygienically.

Me too.

The restaurant offers a good range of tacos, mostly different recipes and combinations from what you'd find elsewhere. Standing out is a good thing, if the tacos are good. They have more standard taco meats but dress them up fairly uniquely. The roasted pork (carnitas) taco has pickled red onion, a standard ground beef taco gets some potato, the asada gets fajita spices and grilled onions. For seafood they do fish (grilled or fried) or shrimp tacos. They also have a classic American taco on a flour tortilla.

Then they get a bit more creative. While some Mexican taquerias offer a brisket meat choice, Rusty Taco offers both a standard brisket and a BBQ brisket with BBQ sauce and slaw. They also do a fried chicken taco with jalapeño ranch sauce. I didn't try any but their vegetarian options sound good to me. The Rajas has grilled poblano peppers, mushrooms, red peppers, and onions. The black bean taco has something I've never seen done before, toasted pumpkin seeds. And last but not least, there's the Rusty Taco.

The place has a liquor license and you can get a margarita, wine, or beer (on tap or bottled) to go with your tacos. They also have Jarritos and Mexican Coke on top of the fountain sodas, juice, and milk.

The Tacos

Never having been here before, I ordered the three tacos that sounded the most appetizing. A steak fajita, BBQ brisket, and the Rusty Taco. Each taco was served on a single thick corn tortilla in an individual paper boat, all in a circular metal tray. Most Mexican taco places will double up corn tortillas because they have a tendency to fall apart in some conditions, but a single thick one works fine here. The tortillas were a bit dry, warmed without oil.

Presented as served

Steak Fajita

The menu said fajita spices but barely any of it came through to my tastebuds. The steak texture was standard for an asada flank steak taco, right in the middle between the extremes of tender and chewy. Not dry either. The grilled onions were done right and delicious. For a "fajita" taco I would have liked to have grilled bell or jalapeño peppers in it as well. Out of the three tacos I ended up liking this one the least. The steak's flavor didn't live up to expectations.

BBQ Brisket

I've had brisket tacos before but never one with barbecue sauce so I had to try this one. The house BBQ sauce was good: a tangy, sweet, and slightly smoky one. Combined with the bit of carrot, cabbage, and cilantro slaw on top, the brisket tasted good but the texture disagreed with its description on the menu. "Very slowly roasted brisket" is their claim but its toughness and dryness said otherwise. Overall it wasn't bad, but in the end I wish I had just gotten three of the house's eponymous tacos.

The Rusty Taco

Looking at the description on the menu I was happy to see the Rusty sounded like a twisted take on traditional pork tacos. Achiote pork is a marinated BBQ pork, also known as cochinita pibil when a suckling is cooked. Added to it are pineapple chunks, making it reminiscent of my favorite al pastor meat.

The meat was a reddish orange and full of flavor, especially compared to the other meats. The pineapple chunks mixed with the standard onion and cilantro were new to me but went with this taco incredibly well. It hits all the right buttons in flavor — sweet from the fruit and savory from the meat — and texture — crunchy from the onions and fruit and tender meat. The pinneapple seemed like it was from a can and possibly roasted along with the pork. The meat wasn't too wet or dry, just right. If you can't tell by now, this was my favorite of the three. And the reason I'll stop by here again.

Salsas

I should mention the salsas. They had three house salsas: a habanero, a red, and a green. The habanero was really good. It had the sweet and fruity habanero flavor with a good bit of heat too. The red salsa was more like a well-blended garden salsa. It tasted good with a balance of tomato and onion flavor. The green was a tomatillo salsa, and was incredibly salty. It tasted like someone accidentally dumped a whole can of salt in there, yuck. I'd rather have a jalapeño salsa verde.

Conclusion

With two mediocre tacos and one great taco (of the ones I tried) Rusty Tacos is a mixed bag. The value is on the low side, $2.50 or $3 per taco plus tax and the tacos don't include a ton of meat. The eponymous Rusty Taco carries this place though. I'd say stop in for a few Rustys, and maybe try one of the gimmick tacos like BBQ brisket or fried chicken.

3 ½ Pineapple Piggies out of 5

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