Tacos Frontera on Highway 6.
Texas Monthly wrote about a "Tijuana Style" taqueria here in Houston.
Showing posts with label Mexican Restaurant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexican Restaurant. Show all posts
May 25, 2024
October 1, 2023
Comalito HTX in the Airline Farmer's Market Complex
I came away thinking, “I don’t want to eat Mexican food anywhere else from now on in Houston.” I would normally wait several months before trying out or commenting on a restaurant that had just opened. To allow them time for new restaurant growing pains.
But everything about today’s meal was very good. Perfectly CDMX to be specific. Because of family, I have been traveling in Mexico for over 50 years. Our family friends live in Mexico City, a.k.a..CDMX. And you can imagine just how many meals I have enjoyed in that wonderful city.
My tacos were bistec. This is a good taco to gauge a place by. Because in Mexico where there is such intense competition between the different Taquerias and price cutting is common you can go the full range of very tough and gristle-y ones to very tender ones. My taco today was as tender and perfect as it gets. And the sauces that came with it were excellent. in addition, I ordered some thing that is typical of CDMX But not as common up here. And that is the.”costra”, or, chicharrón de queso. A thin slice of cheese is grilled and then rolled into a crunchy deliciousness. And theirs was about as good as it gets.
The mushroom soup was excellent. In style of the La Marquesa area on the way to Toluca. Mushrooms, stock, onion, garlic, and strips of guajillo chiles. Perfect.
I’d skip the tortilla soup as it was more like a thick chile puree gravy than a soup. Not recommended.
But definitely try the flan. I saw, but did not sample, their churros, which looked perfectly made.
Tortillas. They use several special types of corn to nixtamalize. It's one of the things that they feature. The tortillas are good, but dry. They could be softer and more flexible. But the tortillera making them does have the technique down to make them puff up. You typically need two-three different heat zones so you can move the tortillas from a lower temperature area to a higher temperature area. I've had tortillas in Oaxaca and Puebla that were so soft and pliable that you'd swear they were flour tortillas. But here at Comalito, that is not the case. These are harder and drier tortillas, still within the tortilla spectrum but not to my liking.The sign that a tortillera knows her stuff is when you watch the tortilla release its interior steam and puff up. You have to properly sear it, flip several times, do some heat transfers, and then know precisely when to give it a press to cause it to inflate. .
February 7, 2023
Tacos - Tacos in Houston - An Ann Nava Discovery
Houston Chowhound member, Ann Nava, put together a list with links, recommendations from various sources for tacos in Houston. A pretty exhaustive list actually, and a job very well done. Thanks, Ann!
Links to Top Taco Lists in Houston (2022-2023)
25 top taco spots in Houston area
Foursquare - 15 Best Fish Tacos
Foursquare-15 Best Places -Tacos on Washington Avenue
Foursquare - 15 Best Fish Tacos
Foursquare-15 Best Places -Tacos on Washington Avenue
January 29, 2023
Mexican Breakfast - Cucharita
Could this be the best chicken and vegetable soup in Houston? And the best mole tamal in Houston?
I’m beginning to think so. Yep. They are imho.
I had an opportunity today to pop in to the new Cucharita, on Fairview, for breakfast for the first time and because I am not big on eggs I defaulted to the caldo/soup and a mole tamal. Both were so good and I am already dreaming about coming back again for another tasting. The tamal was the bigger, CDMX style that I love. The “ambiente” here, is wonderful.
They have an extensive surtido/selection of breakfast breads, and pastries. You can skip the coffee in my opinion, because it is roasted dark (unless that is your thing).
But the soup and the tamal…Oh my.
I left with a big smile on my face.
A tip of the hat to Ana Beaven for a job well done.
If you go, please report back on the other breakfast offerings.
January 25, 2023
Puffy Crispy Tacos at Doña María on Navigation
This Houston institution slipped by me. I’d never been. I knew that it was historically significant to the max. On previous attempts, it was always too crowded. “Next time”, I would say. But recently, having seen a photo of their puffy taco, I knew that it was a “must”.
Damn, that puffy taco plate was good. The rice and beans that accompanied it were great. As were the tacos. Crunchy. Not those softer, chewier, thick masa ones that SA is known for. A tad thicker than the ones at the (now closed) beloved Fiesta Loma Linda.
And, I saw that caldo de menudo is a daily feature. Not just on weekends.
This is a breakfast and lunch place. It closes at 2:00 pm.
Adán Medrano, culinary historian and author of two superb books on the cuisine of Mexicano cuisine in Texas, wrote the following for The Houston Press, part of articles he did as he explored Mexican restaurants on Navigation. Here is a link to the Houston Press article:
The Houston Press - Adán Medrano
Both of Adán's books are available at the River Oaks Bookstore and also online from Amazon (support local businesses as your first priority though)
He wrote:
"Doña María Mexican Café serves the type of breakfast tacos that are at the heart of traditional Mexican American home cooking. The cafe is one in a six-cluster of restaurants on Navigation that reveal the original, indigenous culinary traditions of Houston.
Taco choices include scrambled eggs with either chorizo, potato, chicharrón (bits of pork skin), or with country sausage, all of them cooked to order, à la minute. A delicious option for any of the tacos is to add pinto beans cooked in the traditional way, mashed and pan-roasted with very little oil, if any. As for me, I’m hopelessly in love with the straightforward combination of scrambled eggs and pinto beans, just a little salt. Why gild the lily?
The menu offers full breakfast plates like the familiar and well-executed huevos rancheros and eggs a la Mexicana with diced fresh jalapeño, but also the lesser known machacado con huevo, this last one truly a core tradition. Machacado is made with meat that has been salted and air-dried, a technique employed for centuries in Texas, salt being central to Native American cooking. It was first employed because it was necessary for food preservation, but today it’s the flavor appeal that keeps the technique a constant one.
My dad and most of his generation dried venison and also beef. He sliced it as thin as paper, cut it into large sheets (sábanas) then salted and air-dried it. To make machacado from these sheets, they are pounded on a mortar, crushed into strands, like thin threads. “Machacar” means to crush. Then the strands are scrambled with eggs, sometimes adding a trio of diced green chile, onions and tomato. The breakfast machado plate is served with traditional mashed pinto beans, cubed potatoes, and a side of tortillas. It’s a favorite of the regulars at Doña María and if you’ve never tried it, go ahead and step into the welcoming world of Texas Mexican cooking. “It’s a corner of culture,” says Anna Hernandez, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Juan. To Anna and Juan, culture means hospitality, the welcoming context that all home cooking has in common, in every part of the world. Dr. Alston Thoms, Professor of Anthropology at Texas A&M, explains that the Karankawa and Atakapa people who flourished in Houston for 2,000 years until the conquest were all groups of families. “The sense of family and community is decidedly indigenous,” he adds. At Doña María there’s a non-clubby family feeling to the small frame house that seats 50.
Doña María was founded in 1988 by María Piñeda (hence the restaurant name) and in 2005, Anna and Juan took over the business, keeping some of the recipes but replacing many with those of Anna’s family. Anna is from Houston and Juan is from Mercedes in the Rio Grande Valley, so their menu is 100 percent comida casera, home-cooking, of Texas Mexican American families.
Picadillo and fideo are prime examples of this unique cuisine. Picadillo is ground beef stewed with onions, carrots, bell pepper, potatoes, and seasoned with a trinity of spices unique to Texas Mexican cooking, the combination of garlic, black pepper and cumin. Order that, and I’m back home, with mom and impish siblings.The production secret for delivering such good-tasting picadillo without fail is the expert kitchen staff that Anna hires. The sous-chef is Ever Ochoa. She is skilled in making mole and other sauces, and she heads the cooking line. “Es puro sabor casero,” Ever says, the flavor is pure home-cooking.
Fideo is another dish that is iconic in the Mexican food of Texas. Vermicelli pasta is first pan-roasted to acquire color, then boiled with tomato, onion and seasonings. Chef Ochoa adds a large slice of chicken breast, and it’s a full, scrumptious meal. Like the picadillo, fideo is so traditional that it’s an indelible taste memory of the East End community.
No truly Texas Mexican dish is complete without flour tortillas, the wheat culinary creation born in the Texas and Mexico region that extends along a band 150 miles north and 150 miles south of the Rio Grande, once just a river to the indigenous peoples, now a geopolitical border. You know it’s an expert tortilla when it balloons magnificently on the comal, griddle.
Griselda Delgado Lamas makes them daily at Doña María, mixing and kneading the dough before shaping small balls that she rolls out and cooks. She’ll make about 300 each day, and sometimes 500 for a big catering job. Griselda has been making the Doña María tortillas already for 10 years. She’s fast, making them in the San Antonio and Rio Grande Valley style, laying them on the griddle for a few seconds, then turning them over and watching them puff up, soft and lithesome. Simply delicious.
Hours are from 7 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on weekdays and 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on weekends. The restaurant is closed on Mondays. On weekends, diners leisurely congregate in conversation outside the door, their names on a waiting list. The combination of hospitality and traditional Texas Mexican home-cooking is the formula for success.
January 20, 2023
Tex-Mex - Vintage and Retro Menus (and Memorabilia)
I began collecting Tex-Mex restaurant menus and memorabilia several decades ago, with the hopes that I could preserve this history. From the early 1900's to the 1970's, as I came across menus and other interesting stuff. Above is a link to the Facebook page where I have "housed" this collection for you.
July 31, 2022
Los Tios Mexican Restaurants - A Houston Treasure
The Los Tios restaurants in Houston are some of the oldest, along with Molina's, El Patio and Spanish Village. Historically significant to the max and great Tex-Mex.
When I was growing up in Houston, the style of crunchy and puffy tacos was fairly common. Our family ate at a Mexican restaurant on Telephone Road at least twice a week that featured them (El Patio for those who grew up in the East End...there were several unrelated El Patio's around town at the time, one in River Oaks Shopping Center; the one still in existence on Westheimer; and others).
With the closing of Fiesta Loma Linda on Telephone Road, Los Tios is the only restaurant that I know of that carries on the tradition of the Houston style puffy taco and queso and also, the pecan praline candy that came with your bill at the end of the meal.
A lunch special here of a taco, guacamole, rice and beans will cost you less than a burger, fries and shake at Shake Shack. Here's the lunch special (actually you can pick two items from a list, but, I'll always go for the taco)
The manager of the Beechnut location confirmed to me what I already knew, having tried to make the puffy taco in my home kitchen. It is HARD. It is an art. And something that requires a skill that comes with time to perfect, in the hands of some ladies who have been with the Adair family restaurants for many years. The manager told me how, although new items have been added to the original menu, the classic "Number 6" is still the most requested and most popular!
Highly recommended.
Tacos in the Heights - La Chingada on Cavalcade
A local taqueria in my neighborhood (The Heights) just down from Airline on Northwood/Cavalcade. An extensive menu and very good tacos. An unforgiveably bad name, though. Still that won't keep me from coming back. If there was any mis-step, it would be the greasy flour tortillas. But hey...just get corn tortillas (more authentic anyway).
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