So, where can I find the best tacos? (Breakfast Edition)

It's the question I'm most asked when people find out I have a taco blog or that I appeared in a taco book. The thing is, it's not a very simple question to answer. Further, the person asking sometimes just wants to argue with me and defend their favorite place. Luckily, I'm a patient individual and really, there's plenty of room for several great taco spots in this town, and in your belly.

Why so complicated, you might ask.  Well, there are different reasons and seasons why we taco. There's breakfast, lunch, dinner, late-night. There's tacos for bringing to work, tacos for catering a theme party, and tacos just because. There are tacos with meat, without meat, on flour, on corn, and everything in between. When you ask me what the best taco is, I kind of feel like this girl:

Today, we're going to taco bout breakfast tacos.

I think a ranking system is overly simplistic and unfair. So I'm going to offer you a few places where you can get excellent breakfast tacos.  By no means is this an exhaustive list and I'm sure there will be some contention with it, but let's face it, we have different palettes.

One more thing: tacos are more than just a filling inside of a folded tortilla. Tacos are about sharing an experience with your community - be it family, your best friends, or the waitress that just brought you two bean and cheese on flour and a cup of coffee.

Really, breakfast is broken up in two categories: weekday and weekend.  Weekdays are for picking up something quick on your way to work. That means that your favorite is likely to be based on being near your home or near your office, Weekends are for calling the family together to have a much more leisured experience.


For weekdays, I have at least two of these spots on my favorites list. I ask Siri to call one as I enter my vehicle so that my tacos are ready when I walk in their door.

Taqueria Datapoint 
4063 Medical Dr. (210-615-3644) and 1702 W. Gramercy Pl.(210-733-1323)

You'll find soft tortillas and perfect fillings on all the standards (bean/cheese, chorizo/egg, potato/egg, etc.) Though it faces Gramercy, that location is really on Fredericksburg and offers a drive-thru. The Medical Dr. location can get quite busy, so if you want to pick them up, it's best to call in. Bonus: a 3-taco special (no mix) for $3.75. (The fact that I know it's $4.06 w/tax should tell you how often I frequent this place.)

Old Danny's Cocina
250 W. Old Hwy 90 (210-598-5673)

A little spot on the Westside with a drive-up window. They offer a two-taco/one drink special that's usually cheaper than a gallon of gas and much more fulfilling. Try the papa ranchera - you won't regret it.

Fina's Kitchen
914 W. Hildebrand (210-735-2524)
You can't miss the orange building and you shouldn't because Fina's has dollar tacos. That's right, dollar tacos! It's a small list of standard fare, but nevertheless you'll find good quality at an excellent price.


Weekend tacos are more of a Tejano brunch experience. Weekdays I might be more into bean/cheese, chorizo/egg, potato/egg, or my favorite - chorizo/bean, but weekends are all about machacado, chicharron, and of course, barbacoa (and Big Red).

La Bandera Molino
2619 N. Zarzamora (210-434-0631)

This place screams San Anto in the best way possible - without doing anything but being itself. There are Christmas decorations still up from several Christmases past, bumper stickers from failed political campaigns long forgotten, and all the smells of a Westside kitchen. Order a taco at the counter from a visible menu with an array of choices and then sit and absorb the atmosphere.

Los Angeles Tortilleria 
300 N. Zarzamora (210-435-2400)

You can smell fresh corn tortillas from the parking lot so busy that an attendant guides you to your spot.  People come here just for barbacoa, so there's often a line out the door for that.  Avoid the line and grab a seat and you can have the same barbacoa without all the frustration.  Whether you're old school rancho or adventurous hipster, try the barbacoa de borrego, a selection not found at many other places.  And before you leave. grab some pan dulce to take to your abuelita so she'll forgive you for not inviting her to breakfast. Maybe.

Tommy's Restaurant
6702 San Pedro (210-822-6702), 8823 Wurzbach Rd.  (210-558-9777), 1205 Nogalitos (210-223-9841)
Tommy's Cafe
107 S. Flores (210-222-9944) Note: this location is closed on Saturday and Sunday.

If you believe there can't be good tacos on the Northside, I have two questions for you: why'd you move there and why haven't you been to Tommy's? They specialize in the South Texas favorite - barbacoa and Big Red, but don't be afraid to try anything else on their exhaustive taco list. 

Garcia's Mexican Food 
842 Fredericksburg Rd. (210-735-5686)

If you're thinking, man, I'm tired of barbacoa all the time, keep that thought in your inside voice (lest you be slapped upside the head) and come here for a brisket taco wrapped in one of the best flour tortillas you'll ever taste.


Like I said earlier, this is not a ranking. These are places you ought to know in this town if you're on a taco quest or just plain hungry. Have fun trying them out or visiting them again. Then send me some feedback, so we can tacoboutit.  

Fightin' Words from Austin

The Chili Queens deserve an apology, in the least. I might go so far as to say they deserve a blood sacrifice (bovine, porcine, and whatever the chicken one is), but I'm sure they would settle for, and appreciate, a simple, "Perdoname, Doña Cuca," because they have been offended by our presumptuous neighbors to the north.

Matthew Sedacca published an article for Austin Eater whose very title is incendiary - How Austin Became the Home of the Crucial Breakfast Taco. Though it might be true that Austin is home of the phrase "breakfast taco," the article posits an opinion that seems elitist to those of us here in San Antonio and South Texas who firmly believe that taco-migration went, and ought to continue going, South to North, not North to South or (gasp) South by Southwest.

Further, is there any way to really know who invented the phrase? Moreover, does it really matter? What is necessary is to understand that no one can monopolize the term "breakfast taco" any more than Disney can own the rights to Dia de los Muertos.

The article goes on to state that "the breakfast taco’s origins lie in the kitchens of immigrant Mexican families living in Texas." It's statements like these that ought to make us demand changes in the Texas education system, especially with regard to history.  Texas, as part of a larger region that included some current northern Mexican states, was established by Spain. After Mexico's independence, it was of course a part of Mexico.  The Texas we know now was an independent nation in 1836 and an American state in 1845. There's been Mexican food in Texas for nearly three centuries.  

Corn was the original type of tortilla, as it was used by native population of Mexico.  Flour tortillas were a Spanish innovation because they didn't want to reduce themselves to eat an ingredient they considered to be pig-feed.

Tex-Mex cuisine is a product of several influences, most notably the availability of ingredients and the clever improvisation of home-cooks when a particular cheese or pepper or sausage was needed.  The primary innovators, it seems, were the Chili Queens that ruled Alamo Plaza, starting in the mid-1800s.  (See fellow San Antonio Taco Council Representative, Edmund Tijerina's article about the Chili Queens here or an NPR Hidden Kitchen report about these legends, here.)  

To make claims about Austin's breakfast taco scene as if it was the birthplace and chief innovator of the item, ignores an entire region of abuelitas waking up early to make tortillas, mom and pop restaurants that have built robust breakfast crowds, and all of the busy workers that didn't have time to make their own morning meals.  It seems that maybe the new European-American immigrants to the Austin area discovered breakfast tacos in the same way Columbus discovered America - just because you found them, doesn't mean they didn't already exist.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the best breakfast tacos in Texas are the ones you grew up with.  If you started growing up in your 30s, so be it.  

Let's keep peace among the taco community and not make incendiary statements.  Grab a tortilla, a good filling, some salsa, and taco bout it.