Welcome to the new Taco Trail. The clunky URL is replaced by a spiffy address, layout, extras and more tacos—lots more tacos—but the content from the blogger site has found a new home here.
Sure, there will be a few tweaks in the coming weeks, but taco trekking just got a bit cooler.
Beginning with the latest review: El Rey Del Grill on Maple Avenue. It’s below.
Filed under News
I spend a lot of time among chipped Formica, cracked tile and sticky counters. And do so happily. The joy I find in tacos is the sense of amazement 1977 audiences experienced when the star destroyer filled the screen in the opening scene of Star Wars. There are a lot of woahs, holy cows and what the hells. Whether my time at a taqueria is positive or punishing, though, I always learn something.
During a recent outing to Maple Avenue, I stepped into El Rey Del Grill, a restaurant reeking of cumin and floor cleaner, serving tacos not much more palatable than the mop used to with said floor cleaner.
With only four options on the menu, which included quesadillas, burritos and a carne asada platter, I had my work cut out for me. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Since the May 16 friends-and-family preview, Rock and Roll Tacos food truck owners James and Mary Ann Quiñonez have been adding the finishing touches to their brick-and-mortar operation, the Kitchen inside LaGrange. Thursday, May 31, the restaurant will get its grand opening and have LaGrange rocking harder than ever before.
The 1954 Chevy truck bed salsa bar, not installed at the soft opening, will be stocked with America’s favorite condiment in variations like guajillo and habanero, ready for a plate of tacos with handmade tortillas or chips at the massive guitar tabletop. Continue reading
Filed under Deep Ellum, DFW
Sunset Avenue is an easily overlooked eight-block strip north of Jefferson Boulevard, but missing it means missing El Tocallo, a taquería inside a converted house with a satellite elote stand in the parking lot it shares with the Christ Episcopal Church. Serving decent taco as well as an array of tortas, quesadillas, sopes and gorditas, the restaurant is a pair of rooms with a narrow counter running along the walls.
When I entered, there wasn’t a soul in the main space, behind the register or working on the other side of the stuffed display case with snow cone syrup lined atop it. A telenovela (a Spanish-language soap opera) was blasting from an unseen TV in the other room. Peeking inside, two women and a young man sat behind another counter eager to see the next plot twist, be it a deadly love triangle or mistaken identity. The gentleman sauntered across the eatery and to the cash register as I scanned the menu above him Continue reading
Filed under Oak Cliff
Two days from now, I’m leading an unknown number of taco tourists through the Northwest Highway-Webb Chapel area of Dallas. The region offers some real gems, including my all-time favorite joint, La Nueva Fresh & Hot Tortilleria.
As the establishment’s name infers, La Nueva is not a restaurant. Rather, it’s a tortilla factory that offers some silence-inducing dishes, not just tacos filled with outstanding guisados. La Nueva also offers tamales and gorditas as well as other delights—all of it made in-house. Continue reading
Filed under Bachman Lake, Northwest Highway, Taco Tours
Last night, I attended the friends-and-family soft opening of James and Mary Anne Quiñonez’s Rock and Roll Tacos brick-and-mortar operation at LaGrange. Below is a photo catalog of the night, mostly of subpar images of the dishes prepared by Chef Gustavo Fernandez and his crackerjack team. Not included is a shot of the adult snow cone hut in the back patio. Rock and Roll Tacos officially opens to the public Thursday, May 31. Continue reading
Filed under Deep Ellum
When I’m passionate something—um, like tacos—I go all in. In the realm of tacos, I’m passionate about Rock and Roll Tacos, the Dallas So-Cal-style taco truck that rolled out in December 2011.
Quickly, Rock and Roll and its owner James Quiñonez were everywhere, organizing food truck events, forming a loose confederation of like-minded mobile food vendors, partnered with Dos Equis for the 2012 Feast of the Brave semi-exotic taco promotion and now, as I’ve been detailing, is taking over LaGrange’s kitchen and opening a full-servicerestaurant.
The ambitious and indefatigable James and Mary Ann Quiñonez —with six kids, they need to be—aren’t content to replicate their truck’s menu in a brick-and-mortar setting. No, they’re going all out with a food program and a design scheme. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
On our first date, my wife lured me back to her Brooklyn apartment under false pretenses. She said watching Secretary, a movie I’d never heard of, would be the perfect ending to a night of rollerskating and pinball. We’ve been together since. I hope the same goes for Café Maya Mexican Kitchen & Cantina, especially for the Oak Cliff restaurant’s punchy cochnita taco.
First featured by Teresa Gubbins on Pegasus News and recommended to me by Steve Cruz of Might Fine Arts Gallery, Café Maya sits in the former Ojeda’s space and is owned by Sergio Pinto, the grandson of the original Ojeda’s founders. In its dining room, replete with dark wood, black-and-white photographs and folk art—think Calaveras, jaguars, a map of Yucatan—is served a mix of traditional, old-country Mexican fare, Tex-Mex and playful hybrids. Cobb Maya salad, anyone? But I was there for the tacos.
Barely had I slid into my banquette, when I was asked if I liked spicy foods. My affirmative answer excited the waitress who soon brought me a bowl of a fierce habanero salsa, described by Pinto as perfect for the trio I ordered. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
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| LaGrange, Deep Ellum, Facebook |
James Quiñonez is a tireless taquero. One of the founders of the DFW Food Truck Group events coalition, the co-owner (along with wife Mary Ann) of Rock and Roll Tacos, a printer, the victim of the recent tornadoes that tore through DFW and now restaurateur. Quiñonez is partnering with the owners of Deep Ellum music venue LaGrange to fix what co-owner Stephanie Schumacher said just wasn’t working.
“We were operating at a loss but didn’t want to nix the kitchen,” she told me from across the LaGrange bar, while workers were covering the windows with paper. “So, we began looking for a taco place to come in and revamp the program.”
When Quiñonez, at last Saturday’s Ciclovia de Dallas, mentioned to Schumacher that Rock and Roll Tacos was looking for a kitchen in Deep Ellum, the club owner knew that she had found her taco place. Continue reading
Filed under Deep Ellum
“One Shot” is a new, occasional series reviewing non-taquerías’ tacos.
The unpredictability of fire and the variables of environment require a pitmaster to be equal parts mad scientist and wide-eyed child with a natural, boundless sense of wonder. Talent helps, too.
Lockhart Smokehouse Pitmaster Will Fleischman is certainly talented. If you’ve had his brisket, you know that. If you read this blog regularly, you know that. But have you tried his remarkable smoked salsa roja? When he pours apple cider (not vinegar) into the mixture, the result is a triple whammy of sweet, tart and smoky that can improve practically anything. Continue reading
Filed under Bishop Arts District, Oak Cliff, One Shot
The Taco Trail 