Mexican Authorities Stop Restaurant From Selling $26 Tarantula Taco

There's a Mexican restaurant that served a single taco for $26. If this was a taqueria on Manhattan's Lower East Side, c'est la vie and whatevs my man, but in fact this taco is was sold in Mexico City, a place where tacos don't cost $2.60 USD, much less $26.

The Associated Press tipped us off to a restaurant called Mexico En El Paladar, which describes itself as serving "Gastronomia pre-Hispanica y exotica"—pre-Hispanic and exotic cuisine that delves into Mexico City's Aztec past. The restaurant utilizes a number of unorthodox-in-2018 ingredients including moth larvae, crocodile, deer chorizo, ostrich. Here they are serving chocolate-covered scorpions.

One special, however, drew the attention of Mexican authorities. In a Facebook video from the restaurant, we see a cook fire-blasting the hairs from a Mexican red rump tarantula. Apparently you can't turn these into a taco, as this species of tarantula is a protected species.

The A.P. reported that authorities "seized four tarantula corpses that were ready to be served up on tortillas," which were being sold for 500 pesos, or about $26 USD. Perhaps the Mexico City chefs can bring the tarantula taco up north; after all, Tucker Carlson tells us tacos are an American food, no take-backsies.