Childhood cravings fulfilled with fried burritos

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Why do we like what we like? What determines our tastes? Why do some people stick with meat and potatoes for their entire lives while others are ready and willing to sample the most exotic foods they can get their forks on?

These are questions that constantly run through the mind of this food writer, never to be answered. As a person who appreciates all cuisines, I am always ready to try something new, to taste something that looks disgusting, to blow my entire paycheck on a wondrous meal in a restaurant I have no business walking into. I'm pushy, too, constantly nudging my companions to order something they normally wouldn't, to take the culinary road less traveled. Some share in my gastronomic enthusiasm while others stick with their meat and potatoes.

Yet for all the experimentation, for every time I try out a new recipe or blindly follow a chef's recommendation, there are more of these unanswerable questions popping up all the time. And here's another one:

Why do I love Taco Time?

Granted, I have a lifelong connection with this fast food franchise. Like myself, Taco Time was born in the rainy college town of Eugene, Ore. A World War II veteran named Ron Fraedrick opened the first store in 1960, feeding the hungry students at his alma mater, the University of Oregon. He worked out his own recipes for taco seasonings and hot sauce. They were good. Good enough to open the first Taco Time franchise in Tacoma, Wash., two years later, and things continued to grow from there. Now there are around 300 Taco Times all over the place, including here in Las Vegas.

When my family moved from Eugene to Vegas in 1987, we thought the days of happily munching Taco Time's crisp fried burritos were over. Not so. It wasn't until I was in high school that I discovered a franchise close to home, on Decatur Boulevard and Smoke Ranch Road. Taco Time was back.

Until it was gone again. That location closed sometime in the late 1990s, and once again I was without my beloved burritos. I really don't even know why they're so good, other than the fact that they offer 552 delicious calories and 1,000 mouth-watering milligrams of sodium consisting of seasoned ground beef hand-rolled in a flour tortilla and deep-fried to golden perfection. You can't get that at Taco Bell.

Years went by with no sign of greasy relief, until a revelation: in the Las Vegas Travel Center gas station on Blue Diamond Road, across from the Silverton, a Taco Time. Sure, it was out there, and it was in a convenience store, but it was worth it.

There must have been some sort of Taco Time revolution since then, because another store opened last year at 4125 S. Eastern Ave., at Flamingo Road. On my first joyous visit there, I overheard a table of women talking. "My husband was asking me why I drove all the way over here for a taco," one said. "I told him, 'It's the burritos. They're the best.' "

The circle of life was truly completed earlier this summer when a Taco Time opened at 6450 W. Lake Mead Blvd., near Torrey Pines Drive, cutting the burrito commute from my west side headquarters significantly.

Several local chefs from fancy restaurants have told me that although they prepare some of the most elaborate and expensive food in the city, they still love to grab some Panda Express or In-N-Out burgers on the way home, so perhaps I don't need to feel guilty about the Achilles heal that is the Taco Time burrito. Maybe some questions don't need to be answered.

Brock Radke's food column appears twice monthly. Contact him at bradke@viewnews.com.