Instead of making Texas taco fanatics wait until December for its list of "120 Tacos to Eat before you Die," Texas Monthly published the master list on Wednesday. The results give Houstonians a lot of eating to do.
In all, the Houston-area's 18 restaurants make for a surprisingly democratic mix of traditional Mexican street tacos and more elevated fare from some of the city's most prominent restaurants. Breakfast tacos from Villa Arcos receive equal footing with lobster tacos from Jonathan's the Rub.
The magazine already revealed that two tacos, the chilorio at Picos and the cachete at Gerardo's Drive-Inn, made the top 10 list. That ties Houston with Dallas and San Antonio for the most from any city in the top 10.
Hugo Ortega emerges as one of the city's taco authorities. Both the dorados de papas taco at Hugo's and the ostiones taco at Caracol make the cut. For those unfamiliar with it, the magazine describes the dorados de papas tacos as featuring a shell made with corn masa and mashed potatoes that's rolled thin and fried then filled with cabbage and pickled onions.
Taco trucks and trailers like Tierra Caliente, Tacambaro and Taconazo Veracruz all earned spots on the list, but one obvious candidate seems to have missed the cut. El Ultimo, which is the truck that food writer and cookbook author Robb Walsh cited as his personal favorite place for breakfast tacos back in 2013, doesn't appear on the list.
Quibbles aside, the exhaustive list provides taco connoisseurs with a culinary bucket list of places to try. Eating more tacos is never a bad thing.
Jonathan's the Rub's lobster taco made the list.
