EAT: Taco Bamba
SHOP: Springfield Town Center
The music is blasting. The bar is hopping. The place is packed. It’s Sunday at 5 p.m. and tacos are the answer.
The third iteration of Taco Bamba, the casual, fun taco shop from the otherwise fine dining chef Victor Albisu, is now across Interstate 95 from the Springfield Town Center.
The big, four-sided bar takes over much of the space, plus a few tables and counter seating against the window to the parking lot. Again, it’s loud in here.
Tacos come with pop-culture names such as Ricky Bobby, starring lusty brisket suadero with a host of peppers and chiles in various forms: pickled chile, serrano salsa, poblano ranch, blistered shishitos; and the Vic-fil-A Deluxe, an ode to fast food with fried chicken wrapped in a cheese quesadilla. The arabe is served on fluffy pita and filled with chunks of spice-covered chicken splattered with an ancho mayo. All of these are tidy and small enough to keep the legs moving from store to store, unlike the gut bomb Torta Bamba. It should come with a warning. Stuffed inside a bun, it is almost every kind of meat imaginable from a smoky hot dog to chicken milanese to carne asada plus beans, pineapple and avocado. This is an after-shopping event, enough to feed a whole family.
