The 3 Amigos

It was Sunday dinner time, and my original three restaurant choices were all closed. I know we’ve griped about the confusing choice for Wichita businesses to close on Sunday as opposed to, say, Monday or Tuesday when people are less likely to be at home all day with no food, but come on, you guys.
With no viable options in the memory bank and nothing but a hankering for tacos telling me where to go, I started driving around Nomar, though my finds there were almost equally as lame. I was just about to give up all hope of ever eating anything ever again when my eye caught the glow of one dilapidated business window that still had the lights on. There was also a surprising amount of traffic congregating around said business, a testament of either the quality of the place or kindred spirits bound by an unwillingness to cook. This place, my friends, was Tres Amigos.
The most surprising part of Tres Amigos wasn’t its location nor its popularity, but that they primarily deal in hamburguesas, an inferior version of the hamburger that’s not necessarily prized for the quality of the ingredients, but the amount of crap you could put on them. Case in point, the hamburgesa ranchera came with carne asada, ham, avocado, beans, salsa, tomato, onion, sausage, and mayo. A bolio-​type roll is sometimes substituted as the bread, too. They have a handful of tacos, too, but the majority of the menu is on the burgers, and I can only assume (most of the orders were to go) that most of the patrons were eating them up.
They may only have a handful of tacos, but the meats — carne asada, barbacoa, al pastor, and tripe — but the three I were able to purchase using the change in my car (cash only!) were very much the double-​wrapped onion-​cilantro-​lime legit-​type of tacos you expect to find in this part of the city, though at this point it’s almost becoming cliché for me to rant and rave about them, good as they may have been, since there are quite a few places around here that know how to make a good taco. They took the time to grill me a whole jalapeño — though I only indulge in such stupidity on Friday or Saturday when I have the next day to recover — and they’re not pulling any punches when it comes to the heat in the salsas — the red one’s nothing but water and chile, though the green one finds a little more flavor in tomatillos.
Maybe it’s the opposite case of those people who go to Carlos O’Kelly and Felipe’s expecting to get authentic Mexican cooking. Maybe the people of Nomar just want a local version of a hamburger that’s working with flavor profiles that are close to home. Maybe I kinda want to taste a burger with eighteen different ingredients, if only to satisfy my curiosity, though maybe I don’t want to put up with the undoubtedly strong feelings of regret and shame that would plague me afterwards.
So anyway, good tacos.