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Dear SXSW Hipsters: Don't Follow The NY Times Advice About Mexican Food
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10 Mar 2010 | 14:53
Comments: 42
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Papisongo
[caption id="attachment_106433" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="The NY Times recommends Tamale House, but anyone who doesn't know the singular for tamales is tamal, shouldn't be cooking yours."]
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This morning we were amused to read a headline in the New York Times that said, "Tacos in the Morning? That’s the Routine in Austin." As any of you who are Mexican-American probably know, tortillas are basically bread to Mexicans, so of course they are present at breakfast. They are present at every meal. It's like saying, "Bread at breakfast?" Well, yeah. It's called toast. We're used to that kind of ignorance from Americans, but what really got us all wound up was this line:
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This morning we were amused to read a headline in the New York Times that said, "Tacos in the Morning? That’s the Routine in Austin." As any of you who are Mexican-American probably know, tortillas are basically bread to Mexicans, so of course they are present at breakfast. They are present at every meal. It's like saying, "Bread at breakfast?" Well, yeah. It's called toast. We're used to that kind of ignorance from Americans, but what really got us all wound up was this line:
When it comes to breakfast tacos, however, Austin trumps all other American cities.Oh. No. They. Didn't. Look, America. We love Austin. Some of us choose to make it our homes, we love it so much. But, we're sorry. Austin did not invent the concept of serving breakfast tacos, nor does it own the title of Best Tasting Breakfast Tacos. Nor does it even own the title of Good Tasting Breakfast Tacos. It may own the title of Creative Breakfast Tacos. Like any modern, progressive American city, Austin took the idea of the breakfast taco, (which, by the way, is owned by the Rio Grande Valley and done very, very well in San Antonio, too.), and figured out how to gringofy it (cover it in cheddar cheese), produce it more efficiently (store-bought tortillas) and re-interpret it five ways to Sunday (our favorite is filled with Texas BBQ). Of course, the SXSW hungover crowd will not know the difference when they dig into some eggs and bacon on a store-bought flour tortilla buried alive in orange cheese. But just know, gringo hipster, that you are eating the McDonald's version of the breakfast taco. In the Rio Grande Valley, and in particular Brownsville, where your editor's experience mostly lies, breakfast tacos are listed alongside oatmeal and eggs and bacon on the menus at Mexican diners that are only open for breakfast and lunch. These have been operating since Tejanos put food to mouth. The tortillas consumed are primarily flour, are always homemade and usually twice the size of your head. There is never, REPEAT NEVER, any cheese involved. The beans, sigh, are cooked in salt pork. You will never taste beans this good again in your life. In the Rio Grande Valley (and most of South Texas including San Antonio) they eat them filled with things like machacado (dried beef), chorizo con huevo (mexican sausage scrambled with eggs--our circle calls it "The Orange" for the orange grease that drips down from it as you lift your taco to your mouth), carne guisada (stewed beef) and papas con huevo (eggs scrambled with potatoes). They melt in your frikkin mouth. So when you go to Austin, the best thing to do is eat what Austin does best which is innovative Mexican. Like at Bouldin Creek Coffee House where they make this VEGGIE chorizo to die for. We are not vegetarian and we actually used to make special trips from New York just to eat this stuff. They serve it in tortillas with cheese. We get them on corn without cheese and a side of cantaloupe. Mmm. We have found a place in Austin that makes their beans with salt pork! It's a little off the beaten path but it's called Casa Maria and it's on South First below Ben White. This joint also serves menudo--the breakfast of champions. They also have a panaderia, or Mexican bakery next door. One of the restaurants listed in the New York Times story, El Chilito, does make good tacos de barbacoa. Barbacoa is a Mexican barbecue that is traditionally eaten on Sunday mornings. Of course, los americanos have made it available every day of the week. Don't ask what's in it, but it's goooood.
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Comments
Brownsvillites unite! I could really go for a chorizo y papa from Trevino's right now.
ReplyTelling people that the singular is "tamal" gets them to respond with "Well it's 'tamale' in English!". I've never been to Texas myself, and am a proud L.A. native and defender of her local cuisine. Still, Cindy is probably waaay right about everything she just said. And damn, I could really go for some chorizo y papa too. Stupid oatmeal, why can't you be chorizo y papa?
Replyajua! that's what i'm talking about! having lived in brownsville, san antonio AND austin, i can say with authority that austin's breakfast tacos are the worse! san anto has KILLER breakfast tacos, and brownsville's almost see-through flour torts made with manteca are, sigh, to die for...hm.....
ReplyI'm partial to the beans at Cafe Amiga, myself. Also, shout out to El Torito.
ReplyI read that amongst the truck driver set, Corpus Christi is nicknamed "Taco Town." Half of my heart is in CC and each time I go there, I HAVE TO eat at Acapulco's and get papas con huevo y salsa ranchero. Sooooo good!!! And yes, there is absolutely no cheese to be seen on those platos.
ReplyAs an Austinite and former resident of the RGV, I can vouch about the mediocre Austin breakfast tacos. Hell, b. tacos from Circle K gas stations in The Valley taste better than almost anything you can find here in Austin.
Replyaustin is like the borg. they try and claim everything within a hundred mile radius as their own. and yeah not only do their so-called breakfast tacos pretty much suck, they pay 4 bucks for them. stupid gringos.
ReplyWhile your statement is true, I blame clueless yanqui journos for this one.
ReplySo since we agree, does that mean you don't hate me anymore? http://guanabee.com/2009/12/eva-longoria-tony-parker-grease/#comment-63618
ReplyIs it wrong to admit how I'd kill for a sausage & breakfast taco from Bill Miller's or the ones from the Arizona Cafe in San Anto here in L.A. ?
ReplyAll I can say is that I received multiple facebook messages and emails this morning from enraged fellow San Antonians re: this article. Any Texan knows that the original fast food breakfast taco is Taco Cabana, which started here in SA. Now that is the McD's of Mexican food! Also, I think SA is the only place in the world where on Friday your boss brings in tacos for the office instead of donuts.
ReplyNope. They do that in Austin, too.
ReplyAnd everywhere in Texas.
ReplyThat would explain the high obesity rates in Texas.
ReplyOh we may be dumb, but we know how to eat.
ReplyWell, not that New Mexico is some sort of culinary or intellectual ashram either.
ReplyThank you editor and anyone else who corrects the usage of the word tamal. I grew up making tamales for Christmas at my abuela's kichen...so i take it personal when they gringofy it. Best breakfast tacos are in Laredo, Texas...though the RGV is also fab.
ReplySocial comments and analytics for this post... This post was mentioned on Twitter by tacotown: Taco purists @guanabee put foot dwn on @nytimes article :: breakfast taco motherland is actually RioGrandeValley :: http://bit.ly/bp4Md1...
ReplyYou guys... now I want a tamal y some chorizo y papa too
ReplyI lived in Austin for years and cried about the lack of a decent breakfast taco. The local taco joint was Stop #1 whenever I visited my parents in San Antonio - a country sausage & egg and a bean and cheese taco, both on tortillas made in the taqueria moments before. Divine! Gringo-fied Mexican food is what you find in Austin. BTW - I'm a gringa :)
ReplyOh my god. Ignorance about the correct singular form of the word tamales in America is one of my biggest pet peeves. Especially because A LOT of Mexican-Americans don't even know it.
Reply...says the woman who can't even speak Spanish properly. LOL.
ReplyI may not speak Spanish, but i speak food.
ReplyI lived in TX for many years and NO ONE does food like the RGV. I'm always annoyed when people talk about how great Austin is because it is the only place in TX where *ahem* yuppie liberals feel comfortable.
ReplyPS- I miss Taco Cabana, but no lie, Taqueria Pinocho in Dallas is the bomb for tacos in North TX.
ReplySorry but your sour grapes are showing. Have you ever been to Tamale House #3? Besides not actually selling tamales, they are the best value in the breakfast taco going. All the joynts you mention are hipster hangouts. Try the trailers. Taqueria la Canaria (the yellow trailer at 51st and Airport) Best barbacoa this side of Saltillo... Just because it's not YOUR breakfast taco, doesn't mean it's not better :-) Seriously though, can't we all just beat up on that bastardization of the breakfast taco: the breakfast burrito?
ReplyI live close to Tamale House #3 and guess what? They're cheap and mediocre tacos at best.
ReplyOh, and by the way, have you SEEN the people that go to Tamale House #3? There's nothing but hipsters.
ReplyCasa Maria is a hipster hangout? Listen, daughter of the Tamale House owner or whoever you are, any fool can see from the photographs in the Times story that a) the tortillas are straight out of a package and b) all the customers are white as ghosts. Not to mention we've lived in Austin a combined ten years so we have done our research.
ReplyI've been to the RGV...yes, your food is good, but I can find it in Austin. If you can step away from the salt pork, you might find homemade corn tortillas at Torchy's, the best barbacoa or fajitas rancheras at Habanero's, homemade flour tortillas (and a menu that closely resembles any RGV place) at Joe's Bakery, any kind of Taqueria (al pastor) taco at Rosita's trailer on Riverside, melt-in-ur-mouth fajita tacos at Las Rosas trailer on S. 1st, and pretty much anything on the menu at Nueva Onda on College Ave. near Congress is also delicioso. Expand your horizons. And whoever mentioned Taco Cabana needs to get shot.
Replyditto, bellat...... If everybody thought like those rooting for the RGV - well, let's just say that pizza would've never left Italy. American pizza is way different from Italian pizza. Food adapts to the region. Austin has good choices in tacos, every city probably does unless you're living in a desert. At the end of the day, who really wants to drive 5 hours for a breakfast taco?
Replyooooh, snap!
ReplyI said it and I stand by it. We can't all be foodies 100% of the time.
ReplyPS- Also, I guess tongue in cheek doesn't come across in a comment. My bad. Taco Cabana reminds me of being 21, broke and road trips all over TX. I will always love TC.
ReplyYou lost me at step away from the salt pork.
ReplyEl Chilito has the best Carne Guisada and Barbacoa in Austin. Why? The people who run it are from San Antonio. I haven't had too many breakfast tacos in Austin that rivaled S.A. but El Chilito is where I'll go when I'm in A-Town.
ReplySome of this is just ridiculous, I've lived in Laredo, San Antonio, Austin and grew up on a ranch with hands straight from Mexico cooking for us. I know the joys of a home made tortilla are great, but having store bought doesn't necessarily kill a taco. If the barbacoa or chorizo within are awesome, it can make up for it. Honestly I like my collection of east side Austin taco joints better than any I've yet to find in San Antonio, although Laredo had some quality tacos I have to admit. That being said, good places in Austin exist, and can be had. I still always eat eggs with cheese (unless chorizo is involved), so I don't think that's a factor. As an aside, I can't believe you Cindy, you insist that if a place has mostly white customers it must suck??? Most of the "Brown" people I know speak worse spanish than me, have never been to mexico and know about as much about mexican food as a Canadian. Every chicano in San Antonio who recommended mexican food to me gave horrible advice, all the places they suggested were Taco Cabana like or poorly prepared. The best advice I actually got was from pale food snobby types. I used to love the carne guisada from mi madres, but I heard their prices have gone through the roof. ONe thing that is missing from austin is a good adobado. I could find it in Laredo, and decent in San Antonio, but I don't know where in Austin. South Lamar Drafthouse does have fantastic puerco guisada though.
Reply"I know the joys of a home made tortilla are great, but having store bought doesnOt necessarily kill a taco." Wrong.
ReplyCindy, you don't speak Spanish??!! WTF??
Replymy opinion: practice is different than theory.
ReplyAs an amateur chef/long-time foodie who's studied under some of the best, most renowned Tex-Mex chefs in the world for the past 15 years. As a Mexican-American vying to improve and expand common conceptions of Tex-Mex cuisine in Houston & elsewhere, I will concur that anything away from the source (be it geography or via manufacturing processes) will be deficient. Think of Spiderman 3 or Saw V. Now, migrating Italians who make a different type of pizza from scratch with fresh ingredients is completely night and day from those same supposed Italians using machine-made crusts and frozen pepperoni. The same goes for Tex-Mex You pay a premium for the ingredients, but the intention to reproduce is not soley based on profit. And as most brown people (not just what Texans--or Richard Rodriguez--think of when they they say "Brown") around the world will affirm, it's ALMOST always worse when they're are mostly white people around. Other than the interstate highway system, classical music, Cops (which is really is a 50-50 split), and iPods, there's not much in the world that connotes amelioration by the presence of a large gaggle of white people. Maybe financial stability, but let's not go there. Either way, annecdotal evidence usually gets trumped by longitudinal and latitudinal observation. Done.
ReplyI do. just not perfectly. which is probably the case for that cara de mierda, too.
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