Fresh Perspective
Taco and pizza spots offer complex flavor profiles
Staff writer
I drove past Taco’s Food Truck at That One Place on Marion’s Main St. hundreds of times before I had the good sense to stop by for lunch.
I eat lunch at my desk — or at the lake, with my horse and miniature donkey friends — most days. After finishing up an interview, I decided I wasn’t up for another frozen meal.
Greeted warmly by one of Josh and Alison Tajchman’s employees, I sat at a bar next to a Hillsboro woman who regularly orders from the food truck.
She and I had a surprisingly deep conversation for having just met each other — though now that I wrote that, I realize that tends to happen a lot in my life.
Street tacos are my jam (though I’m waiting for someone to open a Thai restaurant in Marion County because Thai is my favorite type of food), so I ordered a shrimp taco with citrus lettuce, chipotle-lime sauce, cilantro, radish, and cotija cheese and a pork taco topped with Thai sauce, citrus lettuce, pickled jalapenos and cotija cheese.
I asked for a half order of chips and salsa, and I’m glad I did. The salsa is so yummy I returned the next day to buy a pint of it.
Tajchman serves fusion food, and it shows in the flavor profiles of everything I tasted.
I’ll definitely be back.
You can order ahead by calling or texting (818) 635-4886.
Later, I tried Pizza Rehea’s in Burns. The restaurant’s name is pronounced — wait for it — “pizzeria,” a clever use of Rehea Huls’s first name.
Rehea makes fresh pizza dough daily, husband Daniel said as she readied a medium barbecue brisket pizza for me to take home. Their daughters, Katie, 15, and Emma, 9, work at the restaurant at 110 E. Broadway St.
The building housed Daniel’s small engine shop at one time. He joked that his wife “kicked him out” in 2016 to open a restaurant — Burns’ only place to dine these days.
They smoke their own meats and offer sandwiches, pasta, salads, chicken wings, and appetizers.
Next time, we’ll try the Triple S pizza — Canadian bacon, smoked bacon, onion, jalapenos, and diced apple.
The pizza’s crust was perfection. But the best part was seeing a family work together to run a business.
Katie, 15, helps in the kitchen that the family built in one weekend, and she ran the cash register when I was there.
Emma, 9, clears and wipes down tables.
When I arrived, Katie, Emma, and Rehea were using sidewalk chalk to create colorful flowers and butterflies. My guess is a torrential rain later in the day did it in, but it was pretty while I was there.
You can call (620) 726-5524 to order from Pizza Rehea’s.