Tonys Tacos - Swindon, United Kingdom

I used to go to Tony's Tacos when I was a student in Swindon in the late nineties; Mexican food at the time was a chain restaurant like Chiquitos, smothering everything in American cheese as a substitute for flavour or providing anything authentic. I stumbled upon this place, quite by accident, tucked under the Brunel Rooms and was introduced to amazing tex mex food, like nothing I've had before or since.

Tony, who was from California, introduced me to burritos and chimichangas all with an amazing dipping sauce and homemade lemonade so wonderfully tart I could happily feel it eroding my tooth enamel as I went. No Saturday in Swindon was complete without a visit to Tony’s (and inexplicably buying 3 videos for £20 in HMV), and I took any visitors and friends and family there.

I used to bump into a lad who worked there in Eros / Cairos (‘Swindon’s million dollar nightclub’) and after TT had closed down he told me that there had been an unpaid tax bill; probably because no bugger but me seemed to eat there.

I doubt anyone else remembers Tony’s Tacos, a restaurant under a nightclub in a town whose pricipal claim to uniqueness could be the music of Billie Piper. While I’m at it I don’t think anyone else has ever heard of Yelu as a website either so I write this review, for a restaurant that closed twenty odd years ago, because of just how much I loved the food at this place and the extent to which it created for me a lifelong love of tex mex food. Wherever you are Tony, and I hope it's a place with a non extradition treaty, away from the clutches of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, you were ahead of your time muchacho, I salute you, and really want to say thanks.