Location: 318 Pelisser Street, Windsor, ON
Contact Information: 519-817-6871/ rob.preteroti@gmail.com
Hours: Friday & Saturday: 11PM-3AM
Cuisine: Tacos
Hiding out within Terra Cotta Pizzeria during the later hours of Friday and Saturday nights, Midnight Special is an extremely focused setup that you don’t see very often in Windsor: they offer a small selection at very select times through the week, almost like a food truck, an idea that’s sorely missing from the city of Windsor. Me and my wife had heard about the place through an article that was posted to Facebook from CBC and we were excited to give it a shot. We both went there last Friday and I have to say, while the parking, like all parking downtown, was hectic, and the crowds were full of some of the same types you’ll find there during the weekend – drunk, loud, obnoxious, and oftentimes, aggressive – but the trip was well worth it.
You see, Windsor faces a bit of a problem right now: if you want food late at night, you’re either getting fast food, hit or miss Chinese food, extremely hit or miss pizza, and your options really vary depending on what you want from those, especially if you’re ordering past midnight and those choices dwindle quickly. It wouldn’t be such a problem if some of these independent and local gigs could run they way that they want to but that’s a different story for a completely different article. Me and my wife, when we work, we don’t work conventional hours for good food: we’re often ordering out, cooking in – that’s a separate issue, as well, for a whole other article – or we’re just stuck getting from whatever’s open when we both finally get off of work.
Enter Midnight Special: it’s just the thing for us. Local food that is made in-house with all kinds of options and flexibility for just about any taste you can think of – so long as you want tacos, that is.
As you can see by the menu above, there’s a lot of focus in the items available but it gives you enough flexibility to account for just about any taste you can think of, regarding tacos.
Being extremely hungry that night, me and my wife got quite the order: two lettuce wraps with extra cheese, two quesadillas, and a double decker taco with a side order of sour cream. That all came to 19$, though we ended up with a regular taco instead of a double decker in the first order. That was completely forgivable, though, considering how packed it was when we placed our order and that the order might not have been clear when we placed it. The price was right and everything came in an extremely portable and durable small pizza box, which seems proper considering they’re borrowing space from a pizzeria.
I didn’t end up eating the regular taco as that one was for my wife but I did have a quesadilla and the lettuce wraps and there’s only one word to describe what I experienced: amazing. It’s one of those things that makes you realize how poorly done and churned out all the other Mexican cuisine you’ve been having for years has been. The lettuce wraps were easily the best out of my first order and I would order a couple for every day if I could; they were refreshing and so full of flavor. It was a completely new experience for me as I had never had a taco like that before and I’m so glad I made the jump. It was crazy. The quesadilla was good but it definitely needed the chicken and the sour cream to cut through some of the cheese and the base flavor of the tortilla. Both of those added a very much needed balance and it definitely made the quesdilla, in my mind.
If it means anything, we actually went back for a second order almost immediately after finishing our first order. I went back for a couple more lettuce wraps and she got a double decker – which she actually got that time so I think the one time was definitely a fluke – and a quesadilla. I sincerely cannot get over those lettuce wraps. They are one of the best things I’ve had in a long, long, long time.
If I had any complaints at all, it’s that they don’t really utilize the dine-in space at all – I’m sure there’s a very good reason for that, though; or, at least, I hope – and that causes the place to get packed in quick with people looking to order and if any of the usual downtown crowd comes sneaking in, it… could get rowdy, no doubt. Of course, another sore spot for me is that it’s not open more often and doesn’t have a place of its own but that seems to be another issue altogether, one I learned a little bit about and plan on investigating in my own time.
That being said – guys, keep up the great work. Everything was top notch.
The Laymen's Foodie 