Hundreds brave heat for downtown Las Vegas taco, beer fest

Beef tongue, spiced goat or chocolate. According to the sign at the Hexx/Chayo booth, those were the three options by chefs Carlos Buscaglia and Carol Garcia. But with a little over an hour left in the second annual Hopped Taco Throwdown on Saturday night, the team seemed to be out of dessert tacos.

Eventually a worker was able to round up a few final shells filled with bittersweet dark chocolate, tres leches flan and cider-marinated fruit, and a few last guests were allowed to enjoy the team’s trio of traditional, creative and sweet tacos. Even if some guests at the beer festival and cooking competition did miss one or two offerings, nobody left the event hungry.

Zappos hosted the Throwdown in the “backyard” of its downtown campus. The event showcased chefs and restaurateurs from throughout the valley, and drew a sellout crowd to eat drink and mingle. Hosted by Motley Brews, the main draw for many was the beers, although the food was certainly set it apart from the typical brewfest.

“I was hoping to find some local breweries to be able to frequent in my free time, and get some tacos,” said Mario Hercules, a newcomer to the area living in the north valley. Fortunately, there was plenty for him to discover on both fronts.

Twenty-two breweries brought their best to the event, including locals Big Dog’s, Crafthaus, Ellis Island, Gordon Biersch, PT’s and Triple 7. To supply the munchies, organizers turned to more than a dozen operations, including traditional restaurants, a food truck, a caterer and a pop-up operator currently raising money for a brick-and-mortar. Most booths offered two kinds of tacos. Creations ranged from traditional Mexican options, such as Hexx and Chayo’s goat birria taco, to wild cultural fusions, such as Jammyland’s taco interpretation of Jamaica’s national dish, saltfish cod.

“The taco shell is such a convenient vessel, and putting things into tacos — presenting them in a different way but still a familiar way — is still very approachable,” said Jammyland’s Jen Len, as she helped the reggae lounge/Jamaican kitchen’s chef Bubba Grayer serve a line of hungry customers.

Motley Brews said all 1,250 general admission and VIP tickets sold. But Zappos’ sprawling Stewart Avenue campus, which wound from its interior courtyard into a grassy exterior and even onto a loading dock, never seemed overly crowded. Nonetheless, food went quickly. About two hours into the four-hour event, the Goodwich booth ran out of the traditional taco shells it was using for its Le Cubano Doblado taco of pate, ham and pickles, and was forced to substitute the sourdough bread wrappers from its other creation, Like Chowduh.

It was that non-traditional creation, a tribute to San Francisco clam chowder that wrapped the bread around a chile and Tabasco-spiced cream of chopped clams and potatoes, that secured The Goodwich the Taco Loco award for most creative taco.

“I love the event,” Goodwich owner Josh Clark said of the Throwdown, shortly before learning he’d emerged victorious. “Everybody loves tacos. I love to see everybody’s take on tacos. Everybody loves beer. So it’s a fun overall event just as far as seeing the creativity.”

John Simmons and his pioneering off-Strip tapas restaurant Firefly also emerged victorious. His 4 B’s taco of beer-braised beef barbacoa with pickled watermelon radish, grilled scallion and cilantro, won the Hopped Taco award for best beer-infused taco.

“It felt great man,” Simmons said of the victory. “I really honestly didn’t expect to win, we were probably the underdog. There were a lot of great chefs there, and I had some good tacos.”

The evening’s third award, the Taco Dolce trophy for the best desert taco, went to Andre’s Bistro & Bar. It’s creation was a sophisticated and sweet combination of coconut mascarpone and tamarind-chocolate ganache topped with spiced pineapple on pie crust-style shells fried to order by chef Chris Bulen.

“I was just trying to think out of the box,” Bulen said of the inspiration for dish. “I might have actually been looking at a candy bar, like a Mounds.”

Bulen says he plans to display his trophy, shaped like an ice cream piñata, near the hostess podium in his restaurant.

Contact Al Mancini at amancini@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter.