Monthly Archives: September 2012

by | September 28, 2012 · 1:12 pm

Taco Ticker: Underground, on the Hill & Free

Friday on the trail means Taco Ticker, a selection of light, taco-related reading from around the web. This week’s pickings include free tacos, tacos on film and one town’s culinary transformation. Around these parts, I reviewed two amazing San Antonio breakfast taco joints as well as Mi Tierrita in Oak Cliff, where I found regional treasures (in flour tortillas). Over at Nation’s Restaurant News, Ron Ruggless announced Chili’s is testing a taco pizza in the Dallas market and Teresa Gubbins gave us a pre-opening look at Soleo Mexican Kitchen that will specialize in tacos and food from Jalisco, Mexico. Before we take in jalisciense cuisine, let’s take a trip to the Garden State.

Blueberries to tacos: South Jersey town’s shift de cuisine — Philly.com

Documentary Filmmaker Chronicles the Lives of Local Taco Truck Operators — Columbus Underground

Taco Cabana Celebrates Free Taco Day With 30,000 Chickens — QSR Magazine

Taco Bell expanding Cantina Bell menu — The Orange County Register

Taco Bell thrives inside a Cobble Hill hospital — New York Daily News

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by | September 27, 2012 · 2:43 pm

Mi Tierrita Taquería y Pupusería

It only takes one layer—gazing at the Davis Plaza storefront—to realize that El Cebolla Taquería doesn’t exist, contrary to what the red and green letters above the door indicate. And don’t bother asking the pregnant woman who stops peeling tomatillos to take your order what El Cebolla refers to. (My research indicates a soccer player.) She only knows that it should get the feminine article. The restaurant is under new management, she’ll say, after explaining you can sit wherever you’d like.

“We’re really Mi Tierrita, now. Who knows what the old name meant?” Continue reading →

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by | September 26, 2012 · 10:42 am

André Natera, Pyramid Restaurant & Bar Executive Chef

“Lengua Sessions” is a bi-monthly interview series with taco-loving chefs, bartenders, civil servants, artists, persons of interest unluckily cornered and grilled about tacos.

There has been no shortage of accolades for André Natera as the executive chef of the Fairmont Hotel Dallas’ restaurant, the Pyramid. The 35-year-old El Paso native is a wonder. He quietly transformed the Pyramid into a more than a hotel’s food establishment. Natera made the restaurant a fine-dining destination where patrons are awed by classically informed seasonal, largely locally sourced (some of it from the Fairmont’s 3,000-square-foot terrace garden) dishes. Stuffy, Natera and the Pyramid, are not. Continue reading →

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by | September 25, 2012 · 11:49 am

Taco Garage & Tito’s Mexican Restaurant

San Antonio and Tex-Mex are as inseparable as Philadelphia and cheesesteaks. The Alamo City’s influence on our homegrown cuisine is greater than any other Texas municipality. It thrust Tex-Mex into the national spotlight with chili queens, later with the puffy taco and the prized breakfast taco. The latter has been gaining traction in American cities such as New York but remains the wake-up meal of San Antone, where its burst free of the egg-and-one-protein (maybe some cheese) restrictions.

On a recent visit to San Antonio, that variety kept a friend, and I sated during a duo of breakfast stops.

The first, Taco Garage, can be best described as a Tex-Mex joint with a rock-n-roll sensibility slapped with grease lightning housed in a former auto mechanic’s shop. Jones, my amigo and driver, went for the huevos divorciados, a segmented platter of eggs, beans, bacon and green and red salsas he had lauded on the ride from Dallas. I went for a trio of substantial morning munchers.

Continue reading →

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by | September 21, 2012 · 9:23 am

Taco Ticker: Breakfast, Torched and the Best

Friday on the trail means Taco Ticker, a selection of light, taco-related reading from around the web. This week’s pickings include hipsters, Canadian television and lighting a fire under the rear of an Austin-import in Houston. Closer to home, it’s been great for tacos. Tacos La Banqueta and Tortilleria La Nueva Fresh & Hot, my top two taquerías in town, were given Best Of nods by the Dallas Observer. Cafe Maya, my go-to restaurant for tacos de cochinita pibil was listed as having the best queso. Also, the weekly’s food critic, Scott Reitz, added a barbacoa de cachete taco to his 100 Favorite Dishes of the year. Goghee re-opened in a larger space and will celebrate its grand opening tomorrow. Farther afield, in Roanoke, Chef Jason Boso unveiled his new concept, Tacos & Avocados, giving the suburbs a taste of the specialty taco craze that is running its course in cities. Taco Bell’s popularity, however, is unwavering.

Passion Pit Address Taco Bell ‘Take A Walk’ Controversy: “It’s An Amazing Opportunity” — Fresh 102.7  FM

Tepid Torchy’s: A beloved Austin food truck goes corporate, and while much of the charm is lost, the breakfast tacos still deliver — Houston Press

‘Taco Wars’ Is Coming to Tuscon — Tuscon Weekly

What to Eat in Austin: Breakfast Tacos — The Daily Meal

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by | September 20, 2012 · 4:43 pm

Five More Favorite “Specialty” Tacos

I’ve taken up to five buses and a DART rail line to get to a taquería. Several, including La Nueva Fresh & Hot and Tacos La Banqueta, are worth more than that. But not all the businesses I visit are tried-and-true Mexican joints that impress with south-of-the-border signature antojitos. Some are gourmet food trucks and fast-casual counter-service concerns that deserve as much kudos as the aforementioned treasures. Adding to my previous assembly of favorite non-traditional tacos, here are five more.

Latin Love at Taco Ocho
One of two remarkable Richardson fast-casual taco joints, Taco Ocho cruises into pan-Latino territory. Among the eight tacos available, the Latin Love is hunk. Its threads of salt-tinged beef lead into the sweetness provided by slice of fried ripe plantain, accented a by smear of refried black beans, a drizzle of salsa verde and a sprinkle of cotija. And to wrap it up, the corn tortilla withstands the heft of the fine contents. Continue reading →

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by | September 18, 2012 · 8:41 am

Fito’s #2

Image: Ben E./Yelp

The writing is on the wall at Fito’s #2, a West Davis Street taquería with walls bearing Spanish aphorisms. My favorite translates to “Look at your mother-in-law with the same wonder you look at the far-away stars.” Above the kitchen door: “Love enters through the kitchen.” A mural of lotería cards (resembling a Tarot set but used to play a Bingo-like game) conceals the bathrooms.

It’s all very sweet. It also shouldn’t have been a surprise. The building’s colorful façade was a dead giveaway I ignored. What I couldn’t ignore and what led me to Fito’s #2 was the promise of trompo, pork that takes its name from its shape (a spinning top) and the vertical spit on which it is prepared. Essentially, trompo is traditional pastor, a local rarity. Not many Dallas-Fort Worth restaurants have the space and patience to allow heat to work its quiet art on a large hunk of pork. Continue reading →

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by | September 13, 2012 · 10:54 am

Plato Loco Mexican Cafe

My family likes to hike, even the cantankerous three-year-old who pretends to lead a platoon (his mother and I) through Texas’ hilly wilds. Whenever and wherever we can, the three of us take to trails in search of animal tracks and “clues”—to what, the boy won’t tell us—in step behind our son who periodically commands us to “keep your eyes peeled, soldiers” or stop so he can take a picture with his toy Vtech digital camera.

After an easy hike at Cedar Hill State Park, we stopped for lunch at Plato Loco Mexican Cafe. The boy’s reward for behaving well was a crunchy taco—“no lettuce or cheese or chocolate”—while the missus and I grubbed on a trio of Tex-Mex standards. Aluminum piñata lamps and strands of Mexican folk art cut-out paper, papel picado, hanged from the ceiling. Continue reading →

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by | September 12, 2012 · 11:26 am

The Tacos of Southern Methodist University

A version of this post was originally published on MSN Postbox, which until the project was terminated Sept. 1 was my day job. The piece was part of the website’s Campus Guide topic. Now that students have settled into the course load I’d like to share it with Taco Trail readers and recommend several places to get your taco fix near Southern Methodist University.

Pizza fuels many a college town in the Northeast. In Texas, however, higher education finds nourishment in tacos. No other Dallas university campus is as sustained by taco shops and Tex-Mex restaurants than that of Southern Methodist University.

Across from SMU on Hillside Avenue is Digg’s Taco Shop. The fast-casual operation takes inspiration from Austin’s music scene (wall-mounted LPs), but it’s not a dump with sticky counters. The restaurant’s clean orange and white color scheme marks it as acceptable for mom and dad on parents’ day. More than acceptable are the mahi and the carnitas tacos, kicked up a notch with a margarita ice pop. Continue reading →

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by | September 11, 2012 · 7:06 am

One Shot: Off-Site Kitchen

“One Shot” is an occasional series reviewing non-taquerías’ tacos.

The Design District is coming up in the world—the restaurant world. It began with the 2010 opening of the Meddlesome Moth, a highfalutin gastropub from the team behind the Flying Saucer beer-bar chain (Shannon Wynn, Keith Schlabs, Larry Richardson and co.). When Oak opened in December 2011 near the Moth, critics were floored by the fine-dining destination. Taco Stop served its first eponymous offerings in February 2012. The anticipated October opening of Matt McCallister’s restaurant, FT33, will probably top foodies’ Best Of 2012 lists. Also destined for year-end accolades is Nick Badovinus’ Off-Site Kitchen, a casual luncheonette evoking an Alpine beer hall-fast food joint hybrid. Among the menu items is the much ballyhooed Crispy Sloppy Taco. Continue reading →

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