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.

Thankfully, at Fito’s #2, it’s flabbergasting good and lacks the grimace-inducing citric tear of pastor cooked with too much pineapple, which allowed the slow-roasted, burgundy-hued pork to shine with earthy achiote and chile, a poke of cumin here and there. It wasn’t perfect, though. Had the tortillas not been drenched in oil, the trompo at Fito’s #2 would be the best of its kind in Dallas.

New to me was the way in which the lengua was presented: shredded with clumped ends. Mild and looking more like pulled beef, the tongue would make an ideal introduction to the meat.

While the bistek was pummeled into pebble-sized morsels, it hadn’t lost any flavor and only improved with a lacing of salsa verde.

My only regret was that I hadn’t visited the taquería on Sunday, when a man helms a grill on the restaurant’s sidewalk. Its unfurling flames can be seen from blocks away. I’ve seen cars slow to a rubberneck pace, their occupants suffering temptation.

Don’t resist the temptation of Fito’s #2.