Jose R. Ralat

Silvia Hernandez, with her hair pulled back into a long ponytail, is visible from the kitchen only when she comes to the metal-framed pass, where the server grabs plated dishes to run to customers. Her glasses are precariously balanced on the lower bridge of her nose, but she snaps them back into place as she turns to attend to the cooking at her restaurant, Taqueria Gael, in Andrews. Crossing north five years ago was the easy part of her life’s journey, Hernandez says. Growing up in El Salto…

Sergio Quijano ended up in Texas by following a girl. The Mexico City native was fourteen. She was sixteen. The young lady, who is now his wife, gave him a directive. “ ‘If you really love me, you’ll come to Texas.’ And I did,” he recalls. “I was in the [best] shape of my life,” he jokes as we sit across a metal table from each other. “I was very handsome. I was a knockout. I used to practice boxing, and I had a six-pack.” Age, he claims, has gotten the better of him, but his humor remains intac…

In high school, my town’s Bennigan’s was where my friends and I filled up on Cokes, burgers, and Monte Cristos; we flirted, were friend zoned, and convinced the servers it was someone’s birthday when it wasn’t. The chain, which was started by Steak and Ale founder and Pillsbury executive vice president Norman E. Brinker in 1976, was where my parents often took my sisters and me for post-Mass lunches. Those were nervous outings. I didn’t want to get the Monte Cristo’s jelly or powdered sugar on m…

The Tex-Mexplainer series explores the ingredients, techniques, history, and culture of Mexican food in Texas. On May 13, an Indiana judge ruled that a taco is a “Mexican-style sandwich.” The contentious statement created a kerfuffle, with media outlets chiming in with their own opinions. Allen County Superior Court Judge Craig J. Bobay probably didn’t expect the national blowback when he sided with the Famous Taco owner Martin Quintana, who argued that tacos are sandwiches and therefore didn’…

When you’re ordering at Tacos Frontera, the bursts of flame from the grill behind the cashier are distracting. But, at the same time, the fire sparks anticipation for the Tijuana-style tacos served by husband and wife Erik Leal and Maribel Rangel at their small operation in far west Houston. Tacos Frontera is easy to miss in its beige shopping center, but keep an eye out for the black and white sign with the taqueria’s name and specialty. Once inside, the aforementioned fire welcomes you, as…

Culinary purists and many Mexicans have long denigrated Tex-Mex as a bastardization of regional Mexican cooking (which is one reason why I started my Tex-Mexplainer series). At the late Urban Taco in Dallas, owner Markus Pineyro, a Mexico City native, had a cheeky doormat at the taqueria’s entrance that read, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Eat Tex-Mex.” Now Pineyro, who also cofounded ghost kitchen Oomi, says he’s come around to it. “I have an appreciation for everyday Tex-Mex,” he says. That att…

On a late February evening in 2023, the winds off the Gulf of Mexico turned the temperature in Corpus Christi from mild to teeth-chattering. Nevertheless, a friend and I were determined to cross Birrieria y Mariscos El General off our day’s itinerary of seven stops. I wasn’t jaded or tired from the previous six meals of serviceable tacos in commodity tortillas, but I was hopeful Birrieria y Mariscos El General would change my mind about cheesy beef birria. (I’m not a fan of the tacos that we…

I’m not from Texas, and I didn’t get here as fast as I could, but as crooner and Klein native Lyle Lovett told me, “Texas wants you anyway.” My transition from Brooklyn to Dallas in 2009 was a bounty of culture shock. The politeness of Texans couldn’t have been any more different from the direct sincerity of New Yorkers. I moved here because I married a native Texan. After we had a son, we realized we needed a larger support system than we had in New York. So Texas—along with my wife’s mothe…

Arturo Flores and Eduardo Mendoza can’t help but smile when they talk about Mexican wine. Standing inside their five-month-old, 330-square-foot wine shop, Vinito, their effusiveness lights up their faces. With their neat haircuts and trim button-downs, they resemble the proprietors of a big city storefront rather than one in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Oak Cliff, just south of downtown Dallas. Located near the corner of Polk and Jefferson, Vinito sits along the edge of the histor…

Taylor Kearney’s cooking career makes one wonder why he’d want to come back to Texas. The chef has worked at restaurants by Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer in Las Vegas, Michelin-starred spots in France, and high-end eateries in New York. Yet the East Texas native felt the pull of his home state while living in Boston. “My phone rang no less than ten minutes after I’d made up my mind,” he says. “It was one of the directors of operations and an old friend of mine who worked for Harwood [Hospital…