Welcome to Tejas

He came seeking opportunity. He stayed for the tacos.

A wandering Cajun boy, I recently re-re-relocated to Dallas, Texas, seeking a share of its uniquely fabled Lone Star fortune and adventure. Dallas defies preconceptions, and those ideas that do sneak through the cracks are promptly squashed upon arrival. It's a big and uniquely beautiful city, rather exhaustive in its possibilities and its variety of cultural offerings. One such delight with which I became immediately smitten was the complex and delicious Tejicana fare I discovered waiting to try in the many taquerías and cantinas that pepper the city's sprawling landscape.

"T" is for Texas, and me is for Taco.

Thing is, I'm ever-Jonesing for scrumptious south-of-the-border especialidades upon which my grub may be gotten. It also so happens that my best buddy from Dallas--a man who suffers me referring to him as Old Bull with fine temperament--well, he's found guilty of the same delicious crime as I. Once bitten, twice re-fried. Could the heat be on? Could be. Mutual interests were identified. Plans were made. Blogging about the food in question seemed like great fun and an opportunity to learn and to share neat shit we might find. Armed with eager appetites, a GPS unit, and a dream, we set out on a quest--a quest to find The Great Taco In The Sky, and not surprisingly, a whole bunch of other delicious eats along the way, too.

Incidentally, there is no #2.

The greater Dallas-Ft. Worth area (the DFW) boasts an incredible variety of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine. That now being said, we gotta point out what a ridiculous over-simplification such verbiage presents when considering the cuisine in question. Mexico ain't Delaware, and neither is Texas (with apologies to our friends in the First State). The region that birthed our Sacred Menu knows both expansive geography and history , and the truth is, Old Bull and Cajun T. are neither food critics, nor cultural anthropologists. They're gringos. And that's kind of the point. They enjoy learning nearly as much as eating, and both dudes are capable of incredible taco disappearing acts. Naturally, they wanted to document--even remember--the crowded market's finest fare. If a taco is eaten in the forest, someone ought to hear that sucker.

With apologies to these fellas.

So, bearing in mind that this is done with a mind for discovery as well as for burpin' and belly-pattin', allow us to tell you what we think about it all. Whether it's Tex-Mex, authentic Mex-Mex, dreamy Cali-Mex, or even corporate variety Pseudo-Mex, there's an abundance here to sample, and we'll see if we can't sort some things out for ourselves and other like-minded taco crusaders. There are a number of longstanding institutions here upon which many agree, but plenty of folks are also heard passionately plugging their own favorite lesser-known honey-holes they've discovered along the trail. With luck, we'll try far too many of them, and we'll share our notes in these pages.

The A-List.

 For the record, we ain't here to thoughtlessly rubber stamp reviews upon the the pack of our fair city's taco slingers and proprietors using one of those star-based ranking systems. Don't come here to find that so much as honest impressions and cross-sections of the culinary Mexi-verse that envelops our fine town(s). We pledge to never send you on a twenty-mile sojourn for a bad tortilla, but we do ask that you keep this in mind: we sure enough love this stuff. If you love it too, please check in with us for semi-regular updates, hungover rants, and Pepto-infused retrospection concerning the finest corn-rolled curiosities, sizzling skirts, and night-capping margaritas we can bring to you. Ole'.