Taqueria Laredo

It’s not difficult to find handmade or housemade tortillas in Dallas-Fort Worth. Tortillerias are plentiful, and any business offering them will make sure you know it. Taqueria Laredo along U.S. Highway 67 in south Oak Cliff is one such establishment. The words are painted large across a retaining wall on one side of a parking lot usually full of cars, pickup trucks mostly. The same wall bears a menu in the form of painted signposts. It’s a fanciful touch that has  Taco Trail written all over it.

As its name suggests Laredo Restaurant serves Rio Grande Valley-style eats, namely barbacoa and flour tortillas with the radius of the wheel from a child’s bike. Those items, and by the looks of the food on tables, pozole,are the hits of the house, available only on specific days at a taqueria whose days of operations are Friday, Saturdays and Sundays. Laredo is a special place.

But not for the tacos in handmade corn tortillas. They’re acceptable in general, though the al pastor is not cut from a trompo as advertised. It’s a dryish cut with coy flavor.Barbacoa, on the other hand, is a shining filling worthy of ordering by the pound or in a taco employing flour tortillas. One should suffice.The chicken taco is fine with enough salt and not zapped of moisture (I can’t say the same for the chicken flautas). As expected from a Valley-style restaurant, the fajita does not disappoint.

Unfortunately, as is common in the Rio Grande Valley, the tacos aren’t automatically hit with avocado, cilantro and queso fresco.When I asked about the presentation, the owner’s daughter-in-law, who runs the register and the waitress of the small restaurant,said they’re available by request only. The prospect of those little delights and barbacoa in near-translucent, heavenly flour tortilla are reason enough to return to Taqueria Laredo.