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 Photo by Laurie Smith Daily Meal’s 35 Best Tacos in America feature came out Monday and it listed El Real’s Chicken Puffy Taco as #7 in the nation. It’s a little embarrassing to be rated higher than Henry’s Puffy Tacos in San Antonio, the taco that we modeled ours on, but we aren’t [...]  Gustavo Arellano’s oft-stated opinion that “Tex-Mex is dying,” has been forwarded to me repeatedly by Tex-Mex enthusiasts. They think I should challenge him to a debate–or a duel. Few people seem to realize that Gustavo and I are friends and allies. Gustavo will be in Houston on Thursday. He will launch the The [...]  UNITED TASTES Rapping About Tamales and Deportation Photo by Axel Koester for The New York Times Chingo Bling enjoys a taco dinner before performing at the Key Club in West Hollywood. By JOHN T. EDGE Published: May 24, 2011 Chingo Bling talks tamales with John T. [...]  Chicken Puffy Tacos at El Real Back in August of last year I posted an item about the Tex-Mex puffy taco. We were building the menu of El Real Tex-Mex Cafe at the time. In the process we sampled a great many puffy tacos in hopes of perfecting our own. It took a whole lot of trial and error, but when we opened we had our puffy taco ready. If you haven’t tried it yet, I invite you to check it out and tell me how it rates compared to the greats.
The puffy tacos at Sammy’s Mexican Restaurant in La Vernia are among the best I’ve had. They were a lot sturdier than most. As you are probably aware, the biggest problem with puffy tacos is the lack of structural integrity. read more The Making of a Puffy Taco » 
We had some excellent barbacoa y sesos tacos at Gerardo’s on Saturday morning. You don’t see brain in the tacos much anymore. Meat packers stopped shipping brains after mad cow disease made everybody so nervioso about eating them. The only place you see them anymore is in carnecerias where they make old fashioned [...]
“Everybody in San Antonio makes puffy tacos the same way,” Ray Lopez at Henry’s Puffy Tacos told me. You make tortillas out of raw masa and throw them in the deep fryer in a form to keep their shape. The resulting taco shell has a bubbly, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside texture that Tex-Mex fans in the Alamo City love. Puffy tacos are also popular in the Valley, in Austin, and elsewhere. But in Houston, puffy tacos are something entirely different.   California-style taco truck with skylights This deluxe “California Style” mobile catering center is being assembled on a 1999 rebuilt panel truck. It features a quilted stainless kitchen with glass cold cases on the outside–the cantilevered skylights are distinctive of the “California” style. The finished product will cost $45,000. To build the same food truck on a brand new chassis would run you about $90,000, Daniel Rodriguez of Rodriguez Brothers Catering Trucks estimated. The company designs, custom builds, and repairs food trucks in their Garrow Street garage on Houston’s East Side. read more Cooking Up Some New Food Trucks » Chicken Puffy Tacos at El Real Back in August of last year I posted this item about the Tex-Mex puffy taco. We were building the menu of El Real Tex-Mex Cafe at the time. In the process we sampled a great many puffy tacos in hopes of perfecting our own. It took a whole lot of trial and error, but when we opened we had our puffy taco ready. If you haven’t tried it yet, I invite you to check it out and tell me who it rates compared to the greats.
The puffy tacos at Sammy’s Mexican Restaurant in La Vernia are the best I’ve had in awhile. They were a lot sturdier than most. As you are probably aware, the biggest problem with puffy tacos is the lack of structural integrity. read more UPDATE: The Making of El Real's Puffy Tacos »  Fruit stand at the Airline Flea Market in Houton The “Flea Markets” on Airline Drive in North Houston form a giant mercado that draws some 50,000 Latino shoppers every weekend. Each flea market has its own taquerias and food stands.  Agua Fresca de Tamarindo De Buey Y Vaca is the most famous taqueria. (Buey y vaca means ox and cow, or steer and cow.) My favorite dish there was the barbacoa soup. Barbacoa soup belongs in the family of menudo, posole, and caldo de res. It’s a weekend breakfast soup eaten with a squeeze of lime, chopped onions and cilantro and a stack of tortillas. If you like barbacoa, this stuff will knock your socks off. read more Houston's Airline Flea Market/Mercado »
This recipe originally appeared during the rodeo barbecue cook-off. It’s complicated, but the results are spectacular. Borrego actually means mutton in Spanish, but for some reason, Anglos are more comfortable translating it to “lamb.” Which is odd when you think about it, since Anglos are usually squeamish about eating veal, suckling pig, tiny cabritos and other baby animals. Mutton used to be a traditional meat in Texas barbecue and is still found at a few African-American barbecue joints such as Ruthie’s in Navasota and Sam’s in Austin. So call this “Mexican mutton barbecue” if you like.The smoky-flavored, falling-off-the-bone tender meat this recipe yields is even tastier than the the stewed goat dish called birria. Mexican barbacoa is still made in a smoker by a few Tejano barbecue enthusiasts, but commercial pit barbacoa is all but extinct in Texas. Vera’s in Brownsville is one of the last restaurants in the state to use a real pit to make barbacoa. In the old days, Mexican ranch hands used to wrap cow heads up in canvas or maguey leaves and bury them in the coals. (In the movie Giant, Elizabeth Taylor faints when they unwrap the package and show her the head.) But health departments frown on such traditional barbacoa these days.  |
  
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