For the month of August we added another stop to our monthly car meet tour. On Saturday nights we are out in mundelein at Prestige Auto Spa, Tuesday nights we are at Nella's Beef and now we have Carmina's Mexican Restaurant joining the list. I see a trend starting to pick up here and it involves two things; that being the first most obvious thing... cars, but also food.

Something you may not know about me is I enjoy cooking and cook often. Plus, it doesn't hurt when a few of my friends are executive chefs and love to pass on tips and recipes. My natural love for food and cars I see evolving into more car meet and eat type of premium automotive gatherings. 

I'd like to see this grow into more locations across the chicagoland so we all can try different types of cuisines. Along with my normal write up of the day, I will also include an honest review of the food, service and overall experience. This is something I am looking forward to exploring more of.

Well let's get started, Carmina's Mexican Restaurant in Elgin, IL was the location for our first brunch time premium automotive gathering. Carmina's is actually about fifteen minutes or less from my house and I also drive past it all the time. I couldn't help but notice how big of a parking lot they have and the amount of traffic that goes by on this strip of randall road. 

So one afternoon I decided to message the location and see if they would be interested in allowing me to host a car meet there. A few exchanges and an in person meeting later, we reached an agreement and the show was on. It was actually a pleasure communicating with Carmina's and even through out a few ideas of their own.

Like having a taco cart outside for all the automotive enthusiast to enjoy. I thought that was a great idea to bring the food out to the people. Not only were there tacos on deck but they were also serving up fresh elote. I'm not the biggest fan of elote so I asked a few people I saw eating it for their opinion. Everyone said they enjoyed it and that the elote was good.

But let's get to the real reason we are talking about food here and dive into the tacos. Carmina's was serving three types of tacos for brunch. One the menu there were Carne Asada, Chorizo and Al Pastor tacos to choose from. I went ahead and ordered one of each. I came hungry and straight from a morning photo session with Tony and his stanced out Honda Oddessey.

I waited for the first few waves of people so that the line would go down. I noticed the line was moving pretty fast though and that the cooks were hustling. Once I placed my order, I was approached by a Carpentersville Committee member in regards to my interest in being a part of their city parade. I graciously declined because it landed on the same day as PGP Milwaukee. 

Then my order was up so I grabbed my plate of tacos and went straight to the salsa bar. Before even putting on any salsa my mouth was watering just smelling the meat straight off the grill and the fresh onion and cilantro to top the taco off; I already knew these tacos were about to be flame. 

For salsa, there were three greens and a red to choose from. The red and two of the three green salsa's were pureed while one of the green salsa's was a bit more rustic of a chop to it. I went ahead and put each green on all my taco's and saved the red salsa for just one taco, the carne asada.

Each salsa was fresh and very tasty but the red one did have a little kick to it. Not to overpowering but I definetely knew it was there. Within minutes my plate of taco's were consumed and no trace of tacos were left. 

The car meet itself was mature and family friendly. More quality than quantity, which attracted some far out builds to stop by and join in the festivities. Like this 1940's looking thing. The steering wheel was literally between his legs, wild! 

My good friend and NvUs member Jason brought his TL to debut some new pieces. A carbon fiber hood along with carbon fiber fenders. Jason is the only one in the world with these pieces because these pieces are prototypes for a company. I am thoroughly impressed with how far Jason's TL has come in such a short amount of time. The fenders are sick and the hood is my new favorite piece on Jason's car.

Overall, the day was exactly how I wanted it to be. A delightful photo session in the morning, followed by a nice cruise to our brunch time taco meet at Carmina's Mexican Restaurant. The weather was perfect, Derek our resident SDL Dj was playing nothing but good vibes and the tacos were on point. Couldn't ask for anything more... maybe some orchata. Be sure to follow us on facebook to stay up to date on the next car meet and eat premium automotive gathering.