I do love to keep up on the local food trends because I always feel the need to know whether or not whatever the new trend is is actually good or just some wacky idea that has propagated through social media just because. So when I heard about the “Tacro”, I knew it should be something I should try. “What is a Tacro?” is a question you may indeed be asking yourself right now, and the answer for you is that it is the new croissant hybrid that has hit San Francisco. When you think of California, you probably think of Mexican food and the glorious taco. So did the people at Vive La Tarte, the makers of this creation, so their idea for their kiosk at the Ferry Building was to combine the quintessential California taco with the quintessential French pastry: the croissant. That’s right, the tacro (or TAco/CROissant) is a croissant “tortilla” filled with taco fillings. I mean, the whole thing seems a bit far-fetched, and I was dubious. But I had tried croissants from Vive La Tarte before and honestly, they make a pretty spectacular laminated pastry.
I’ve tried two different croissants from the Vive La Tarte location in Soma, and I highly recommend the Orange Blossom and Za’atar croissant as it really showcases the laminated dough with a nice Middle Eastern flair. The other pastry I had was the almond croissant, and that was more disappointing, but not for the pastry, but because the almond filling had a very fake almond flavoring taste. I dated someone who worked in a bakery once, and he told me that a lot of places will grind up old pastries into a paste and add almond extract and make that the filling for their almond croissants and bear claws. I hope it isn’t the case here, but the taste of almond extract only made me think about fake fillings. But as I said, the laminated dough is almost perfect, so I really was excited to give the Tacro a try.
I mean as a concept, it does sound kinda weird; the tortilla is the gold standard for Mexican. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a tortilla is a lot like the Indian chapati. And while I will eat my curry with a chapati if that’s all that’s available, a naan bread is better, and for me at least, a paratha or roti really wins. And a paratha really just is a type of layered, flaky flatbread, so in reality, a flaky “tortilla” on a taco could be a game changer for me. They start selling the Tacros around 11:00 AM at the kiosk at the Ferry Building, so I made sure to get there when they opened in case there was a queue. Apparently the Tacro craze was not nearly as bad as the Cruffin craze as there was no body else there but me. They have three flavors of Tacro: Chicken, pork or jackfruit. I had no idea which to get, so I asked the (probably) New Zealander working there, and he said the pork was his favorite, so I decided to go with that one. They are a whopping $10 each, but the croissants themselves are usually around $4-5, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch considering there was going to be meat loaded into it.
I do have to say, it did look impressive. I was also told to grab a lot of napkins as they can be messy. So, as someone who can get any type of food all over themselves, I opted to go the fork and knife route. Which means I didn’t lift my Tacro up to the sky and exclaim “YAS TACRO! Get in my belly!” in order to take the best Instagram photo I possibly could. I’ll leave that to the experts, so if you really want to see the Tacro in it’s full, unboxed glory, just do a search for it on the ‘grams.
But we all know anything can LOOK good, but does it TASTE good? So the croissant “tortilla” is pretty revolutionary. It’s definitely a taco game changer in my opinion. It’s light, it’s flaky, it’s everything you want a croissant to be, but you can use it to stuff with delicious Mexican goodies. However, the pulled pork filling itself was quite lackluster. It was well cooked, but it wasn’t that interesting on its own. The pineapple added a lot of sweetness, and the pickled onions really added a zing every once in awhile, but this is screaming for a nice chile verde or chile colorado. California-Mexican food really does need a good punch of flavor for me, as most places really just make bland meat. Or maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe the accent swayed me incorrectly. It was served with two different salsas though, and while the red one did nothing for me, the green one did have a bit more spice to it, so that was helpful. On its own though, the Tacro is also not really quite enough for lunch. I think it’s about the equivalent of two tacos. And you know you really do want that third taco. And maybe some chips and salsa. So you may need to grab something else from one of the other vendors in the ferry building…or maybe just have a really nice afternoon tea around 3:00. I definitely give the concept of the Tacro a 5/5 and the execution with the pulled pork filling a 3/5; perhaps one of the others is better. And I guess I’m going to have to try them all to find out….
Score: 4/5
Vive La Tarte
Ferry Building Marketplace
San Francisco, California 94111
