The reddening sky dripped down over the Southside like a sweet fresa topping. I leaned against the side of the car as strands of hair blew into my face, trying to focus on the dessert menu painted skillfully on the food truck; tonight, I was desperately craving a mostly sinful selection of dulces from Churros Meoqui, 5728 S. May Ave.
Situated in a cracked and aged parking lot where I think a church once met, Meoqui is a favorite that I have sampled before in a somewhat different life, once when I covered an Energy futbol game having a special celebration of Latinx culture. While I can’t exactly remember what I ate back then, I sure do remember that I liked it quite an obsessive bit.
With Meoqui’s specialty being churros rellenos—fried-dough internally filled with your choice of tasty flavors like cajeta, vainilla and fresa; as good as that all sounded, I settled on a gordo cheesecake churro ($2.50), the window showcasing the work that goes into each and every order.
Chocolate also sounded good, so I ordered a chocolate churro with strawberries and bananas ($5.00), served in a paper bowl. It seemed like a great way to get my daily allowance of fruit and then some, I told myself as the cashier squirted a large stream of chocolate sauce all over the top. I think there was a little caramel on there too.
Illustrated on the smallish truck was a lively picture of corkscrew-cut potatoes on a long stick called Spira Papas ($3.50); with nothing to lose but possibly a few salty years off my sodium-less life, I ordered one of those as well, a long stream of Valentina hot sauce dripping down the circular path as it was gently handed to me.
Taking a measured bite out of the said Spira Papas, it very much reminded me of a less-messy version of state fair food, reasonably portioned and delicately parted, pieced on a thin piece of wood. The fried potato easily pulled apart into separate pieces of barely salted deliciousness that made this a razonable snack before the less reasonable sweets.
Just a little short of a foot, the girthy churro with its cinnamon-drenched fried skin dripped sticky cheesecake filling out of its precise tip and right down my half-open shirt. A sueño crema come awakingly true, as I bit into it, I finally remembered how much love I fell in the last time I had this sensual snack.
Perhaps better than an actual slice of cheesecake—blasfemia, I know!—the warmth of the hardened dough keep the insides viscously flowing, every bite filling the corners of my mouth with a sticky mixture of cream and cinnamon. It was a more-than-filling dessert and, had I not been reviewing Meoqui this agglutinative night, probably would have stopped right there.
But how can you stop when this bastardized bounty of fruit salad is laid out in front of you? With cut chunks of the chocolate churro on one side and sliced strawberries and bananas on the other, thick streams of multiple toppings made them all hermanos for life, my fork sadistically breaking up their happy family.
Beautifully sweet, both in a highly natural and unsurprisingly artificial way, I think this may be one of the best desserts on any side of this town. Mixing up the plump fruit and plumper churro in every bite, I felt the button-fly of my jeans tighten just a little as I calmly tried to enjoy this begotten taste.
In the now artificially-lit parking lot, a crew of well-built firemen had been running exercises, straightening a hose out before rolling it back up again. Finished, as they drove by, they honked the engine’s horn, the sound of which caused a small startled jump that shot a dense splatter of chocolate across my face. Cómpralo ya!
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