Category Archives: North Texas

by | January 27, 2013 · 10:39 am

Taquería La Ventana

La Ventana

Mike Karns has it made. In one corner—in one building, actually—across from the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science and a Frisbee’s throw from Klyde Warren Park, The head of Firebird Restaurant Group has three restaurants for three demographics. Anchoring the property is the de facto flagship outpost of the El Fenix chain. Next door, the second Meso Maya—the first is on Preston—offers chef Nico Sanchez’s gourmet Mexican fare for a chic set. Behind that, walk-up Taquería La Ventana serves classic tacos in tortillas made from nixtamal, for those who might only have enough time for a nosh at one of its outdoor tables. And for that, it’s perfect. Aside from food trucks, you’d be hard pressed to find such convenient and adequate grub at the border of Uptown and Downtown. Even if La Ventana’s menu contains offensive language (more on that later). Continue reading →

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by | January 24, 2013 · 10:16 am

The Best Tacos in Dallas, Give or Take

Dallas Observer Gives Some Taco Love in 2011 Best Of Issue

If you’ve picked up the February issue of D Magazine—and if you haven’t, you should—you’ve seen my feature, “The Top 20 Taquerias in Dallas.” Unfortunately, between press time and the newsstand date, two of the restaurants listed shut their doors for good, although both cited they have future projects in mind. Each cited lack of customer traffic. Taco Republic, which wowed me with the Thai Chihuahua and use of tortillas made from nixtamal, closed last month and was ranked number 7 on my list. Taco Republic didn’t make to its first anniversary. Owner Ron Guest placed the blame squarely on the fast-casual joint’s location. Taco Republic was a pain in the neck to get to. Café Maya, made it past the year mark before closing in January, but not by much. The loss of Café Maya hurt. When co-owner Sergio Pinto broke the bad news to me, it felt like someone had thrown hundreds of slap bracelet around my gut. It hurt. And not just because it meant I’d be missing the killer cochinita pibil. Café Maya was a family-owned joint that put it all out there. I hate seeing family restaurants shut down. We need more of them.

What follows are additional write-ups that could’ve been on the list for some reason. About the first: Had I visited the truck more than once before I filed my story, the mobile concern would’ve broken the top 10, as the best taco truck in the Dallas. The second, a Dallas institution owned by one of the standard-bearers of Mexican food and Tex-Mex in this city, was edged out by a late entry. Nevertheless, it’s worthy of an honorable mention, as are Birrieria Aguiñaga, Fito’s #3, La Tejanita and Taco Ocho (which I’ve reviewed in the past). Continue reading →

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Filed under Best of, Dallas, DFW, food truck, News, North Texas, one of the freaking best, Reviews, Texas

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by | January 22, 2013 · 6:13 am

Reveles Panaderia

Reveles Exterior

Between the railroad underpass and Singleton Avenue on Sylvan Avenue and among the seemingly abandoned, dilapidated warehouses in an industrial section of Oak Cliff sits Reveles Panaderia, whose parking lot is packed with pickup trucks each morning.

One rainy afternoon, hoping Reveles also sold tacos, a couple of friends and I walked into the little Mexican bakery and gazed at dessicated taco fillings next to pristine pastries under banners for C.D. Guadalajara (aka Chivas), the soccer team for Jalisco state’s capital city. Aside from the potato and chiles, the only decent-looking options were the puerco en chiles colorado (pork in red chiles) with potatoes as well as fajitas, shimmering green peppers and translucent onions included.

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by | December 27, 2012 · 7:13 am

E Bar Tex Mex

EBarCarnitas

Within seconds of being seated, our waitress at E Bar Tex Mex boasted, “our taco de carnitas is an award winner.” It won best taco at the Great Taco Run, a Luke’s Locker-hosted race with a parking lot full of taco vendors at the finish line, I was invited to judge.

The taco that day in September had the characteristic roasted flavors and seared edges of standard carnitas: non-traditonally prepared (read: not fried in fat). It was an approximate facsimile to the real thing, much like modern barbacoa (read: not pit smoked). The carnitas was given a shot of cheese, providing a pleasing pungency.

I was at the restaurant, which opened in August from Eddie Cervantes (Primo’s Bar & Grille), to determine if it held up to the honor my fellow judges and I unanimously gave it.

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by | December 20, 2012 · 6:15 am

Taqueria Burritos Locos

P1100492

With a name like Burritos Locos, I didn’t have high hopes for the Grapevine restaurant. Mentally ill donkeys, after all, seem better suited for a margarita-soaked refuge for co-ed buffoonery with a foundation of chile con carne than a restaurant offering solid tacos of suadero, trompo and hidago con cebolla. The latter being liver and onions.

I was pleasantly surprised by Taqueria Burritos Locos, not just because of the quality of the tacos but because finally I was able to enjoy liver and onions, mildly mineral in taste. The birria, however, was dominated by a metallic flavor. Continue reading →

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by | November 27, 2012 · 6:44 pm

Urban Rio Cantina & Grill

Mark Miller is to New Mexico’s cuisine what Stephan Pyles is to Texas foodways. Each is a big shot in the Southwestern cuisine movement that swept the country in the 1980s and ’90s. Pyles opened his latest restaurant, Stampede 66, in early November. This summer, UrbanRio Cantina & Grill, part of part of an entertainment and culinary complex in the Old Downtown Plano Ice House, seated its first guests within sight of the DART Downtown Plano station.

In the run up to Urban Rio’s opening, Miller was brought in as the consulting chef by owners Nathan and Bonnie Shea, who also own the Urban Crust pizzeria in Downtown Plano. His involvement in what was being billed as “Next Mex” had me excited. Recipes in Miller’s cookbook Tacos, are some of my family’s favorite and are in regular rotation at Casa Ralat. His The Great Chile Book is a concise, reference book. Then there was the fact that I could take light rail to its doorstep. Man, I was down right jazzed for a seat in its contemporary Rio Grande Valley-inspired interior.

So off I went from Dallas to Plano to meet a friend and hit up a couple of hole-in-the-wall taquerías before capping our day exploring a suburban taco scene at a well-received newcomer nurtured by a renowned chef.

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by | October 23, 2012 · 11:49 am

The Taco Pronto Café

Amid construction, industrial workshops and medical office buildings sits the Taco Pronto Café, a greasy spoon with house-made flour tortillas and specialties like spam and beans. A wood-carved portly, bearded man, tattooed with the years of greetings and messages from customers and adorned with religious paraphernalia stands just inside the entrance. It’s the kind of eating establishment that even when frantically busy is a place where one can take a load off, sip coffee and decompress with comforting tacos, maybe menudo.

Although we didn’t request the stomach soup, my family did order the fresh flour tortillas the waitress recommended. “The corn tortillas are store-bought. Go with the flour.” They transformed what could have been mediocre tacos into meritorious ones packed with stick-to-your-ribs goods, particularly the long list of breakfast tacos served all day.

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by | October 16, 2012 · 3:01 pm

Taco Party

No city’s food truck scene is complete without taco trucks, and if they’re good, even better. Thankfully, Dallas’ taco trucks are exactly that and Taco Party, the latest rig to roll out, continues the trend. But it’s different.

Instead of the aggressive flavors common in north of the border tacos from our area’s other food trucks, Taco Party, owned and operated by cousins Rafael Rico and Eduardo Ramirez, offers the nuanced, dialed-down flavors of Mexico. There are exceptions, of course, namely the brisket with ancho sauce and the fish with a standard chipotle crema accompaniment.

The confit pork in green sauce (similar to a guisado verde) is an impressive mound of cubed meat laced with a tomatillo salsa that could’ve been a touch tighter. Tucked into the springy pork were pulpy strands of fat that completed a terrific taco with teasing heat in non-greasy yellow corn tortillas.

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by | October 11, 2012 · 11:35 am

Mi Fondita Restaurant

The yellow, peach and blue restaurant at Jefferson Boulevard and Tyler Street isn’t shy about advertising its daily specials, whether on the windows or a sidewalk board on which the deals are scrawled in permanent marker. Prominent among the announcements is that the flour and corn tortillas are made by hand—not in a press. By hand.

“Platters only,” the woman explained as she patted her hands back and forth demonstrating the method used to shape the tortillas. Unfortunately, I hadn’t ordered any entrées and she told me this nugget of critical information as I was paying my bill.

I knew I should’ve ordered the rajas con queso, I thought to myself. Better yet, another of the house specialties, like quail, grilled or fried with optional salsa roja. The pozole, a hominy stew believed to have originated in Michoacán state, the homeland of Mi Fondita’s owners, was also tempting.

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by | October 9, 2012 · 1:24 pm

What I Ate on National Taco Day: Tacos al Vapor

Street tacos come in a plethora of forms: pastor/trompo, guisados, chapulines, etc. While I’ve enjoyed those, I have been unable to sample until National Taco Day a hard-to-find variety in Dallas: tacos al vapor. These tacos are steamed treats sometimes listed as tacos de canasta (basket, referring to the vessel in which they are kept warm and steamed) and tacos sudado (sweated). But at the two taquerías I visited last Thursday, they were labeled as al vapor. Along for the ride was Alex Flores, the graphic whiz who gives this blog its visual appeal.

The tacos al vapor at Taco Rico on Clarendon are priced at a dollar a piece and available by cash only. We didn’t know what to expect. For that price, we could easily be presented with cold, gummy envelopes hiding sad fillings. What we received was a plate of iridescent pockets containing deshebrada de pollo, potato and frijol, each of which could be piled with cabbage and chopped tomatoes. Continue reading →

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