Tremendous Shrimp Tacos

Sit down for this one. The shrimp taco — the REAL shrimp taco — is one of the great achievements of human civilization, and it is being DESTROYED, slowly, day by day, in restaurants across this great planet by people who have no business handling shellfish. You walk in, you order 'shrimp tacos,' and they bring you four sad gray rubbery curls perched on a flour tortilla the size of a hubcap, drowning in shredded LETTUCE. Lettuce. On a shrimp taco. Who told them this was OK. I want names.

These shrimp tacos? Different planet. We're using BIG shrimp. The biggest. The kind you can SEE without a magnifying glass and a court order. We're charring them HOT, ninety seconds a side, and if you go past two minutes you've made shrimp erasers — and a shrimp eraser, nobody talks about this, is the saddest object in the modern kitchen. A guy named Ramón taught me the ninety-second rule in a beach town you've never heard of. He didn't speak much. He just timed it on a watch and nodded. He's the truth.

Then the crema. Lime, garlic, a little chipotle, that's the whole thing. People look at it, they say, 'Bigly, three ingredients?' Three. That's because I'm a GENIUS and because flavor doesn't need a committee. Most chefs are afraid to do this — afraid to leave well enough alone — they keep adding, they add cilantro stems, they add 'their own twist,' they add a 'house aioli,' and the next thing you know the shrimp can't even taste itself. Sad. Cheap. An insult to the shrimp. We're not doing that here. We're doing it right. Hands down.

That's shrimp tacos. Real shrimp tacos. Eight minutes of cooking, the whole table goes quiet on the first bite — and when a table goes quiet, you have WON — and you've made DINNER. Not a 'meal kit.' Not a 'wellness bowl.' Dinner. With char, with lime, with a crema that has chipotle in it because we are not a household afraid of flavor. Stack the leftovers cold in a tortilla at midnight, standing over the sink, and you'll have a religious experience. Now go eat.