O! Don Pedro’s! How have I missed thee since the summer of 99? Let me count the ways.

I wrote letters from Africa to my Mexican-American aunt, begging for the secrets of handmade tortilla making. I had it all: the beans, the tomatoes, the peppers, the onions, the garlic, the corn flour… I lacked only expertise, which alas, constantly eluded me.

I ate pupusas in the storefront restaurants of my El Salvadoran/neo-hippie neighborhood in DC and was delighted but not satisfied.

I visited the most highly touted Mexican restaurant in Baltimore only to find ground beef, iceberg lettuce, yellow cheese, and indie rock T-shirts.

O! Don Pedro’s! No one in the whole restaurant spoke English and I navigated your menu by pictures and pointing. Girls with ponytails and tattoos brought heavy oval plates, steaming with shredded chicken. I loaded the flat, greasy tacos with pickled peppers and radishes and green salsa and lime juice. A dollar or two each. Perfecto.

Even Mexico didn’t have Mexican food that good. Back in my youthful idealist phase I worked for a few months in an orphanage where the food was positively Dickensian. At breakfast, all the kids would fill up on fresh tortillas from the lady down the road and I quickly learned to follow suit. My fellow staff members and I regularly cleaned out the pastries sold in the corner store, and we lived for weekends at the office where we could get tacos from a little stand on the street; the meat was chopped into tiny squares and grilled to the crispiness of crackers. Back at the orphanage, the teenaged residents took turns “cooking” meals which usually featured (I kid you not) boiled-practically-unto-a-paste cabbage as the main ingredient.

O! Don Pedro’s! I thought it inevitable that there would be hundreds like you in Phoenix, and it used to make me dance– nay, shimmy– around the kitchen in anticipation. Your brethren surely must be here somewhere. But the Pink Taco is not your brother. Nor is Filiberto’s, the 24-hour-place where the rice is orange and the refried beans soak the whole styrofoam plate in brown liquid. Nor is Chino Bandido, the strangely yummy mexican/chinese takeout place where you can get your General Tso’s cooked up in a quesadilla.

O! Perfect Taco! You are out there in the Phoenix Metro Area. One day soon I will find you. Keep the radishes fresh.