By Ava Brendgord
Welcome to Margaritaville downtown State College.

On a typical night out in Happy Valley, you’ll probably see plenty of folks ordering vodka crans, tequila sodas, and Miller Lites. But when was the last time you saw someone order a margarita? Exactly.

It’s time we normalize ordering margaritas at the bar. They’re good, and I’m done pretending that I’d rather have a vodka soda.

In order to break the mold, I set out to find the best marg in town. Read on to see our ~official~ rankings of margaritas in downtown State College.
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by: Caleb Wethington
Tacos, it’s a dish that can be fused with any cuisine in the world and can be as simple as a tortilla and some cheese or as complex as your foodie mind can conjure up. But there are not many concoctions out there that can compete with some grade-A fish tacos.

It’s a beautiful time to be talking about this delicious dish as Wednesday, January 25 was National Fish Taco Day! “Today, one can find fish tacos on Mexican and non-Mexican restaurant menus worldwide. Fish tacos are delicious snack meals that can be enjoyed at any time of the day. On Fish Taco Day, many restaurants offer discounted or free fish tacos,” National Today said.

But where can you find the best in the country or even Texas for that matter? We checked out a report from Love Food on the best tacos in the land, and several states’ top taco is a fish taco, and while there are incredible taco spots in every town/city of Texas, the state’s best taco is in Austin.

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By Kristen Cabrera - Arts & Culture, Food & Drink, Texas Standard Original

Austin is known for its trendy food scene, but a lone stretch of “diamond-in-the-rough” food spots and taquerias have earned the moniker “Austin’s Taco Mile.” They prove once again it’s best to not judge a book by its cover.

And who else would we invite to talk to us about the taco mile but the Taco King himself – Mando Rayo. He’s a James Beard Nominee, a taco journalist and host of the podcast “Tacos of Texas” and he spoke with the Texas Standard on his experience on the Taco Mile and how its existence shows a history of gentrification, but also a celebration of immigrant culture.

Texas Standard: So paint a picture of Austin’s Taco Mile, would you? What is it? What does it look like? And where is it?

Mando Rayo: Yeah, if you head outside of the trendiest spots in Austin, Texas, you got to go to where immigrants go and eat. And that’s off of Rundberg Lane and Lamar. Out of that stretch of one mile, there’s over 40 places to get yourself a taco spot. But it’s not just that. It’s also taco cousins: there’s immigrants from Mexico, but as well as Central America. So you got pupuserias, you got quinceañera shops, tire shops. You have abarrotes Mexicanos. So, in a sense, it’s the barrio, if you will, that’s still kind of in the city of Austin that, you know, unfortunately goes unnoticed a lot of these times because they’re not trending on Instagram or what have you.

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