Dawn of time to approx 1981: Felix's (Kirby location) defines all. (I am aware it is properly "Felix" but nobody ever called it that.) In my mind, deviations from Felix's meant bad Mexican food.
1981: I am taken to the Valley / Matamoros where I discover the concept of "Mexican breakfast." While there, I use the tortillas that come with my breakfast of huevos, bacon, and frijoles and invent the "breakfast taco." I take this concept to Austin shortly thereafter, where my innovations are imitated, thus giving rise to the myth that Austin invented the "crucial breakfast taco."
False.
And you're welcome.
1983-ish: Doneraki on Fulton comes on our family's radar. Poor Felix's is unseated as the standard but remains the sentimental favorite. We discover fajitas.
1974-1984: I divide time between Nashville in Houston. When too long away from Houston, I stare at this gatefold from ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres and get so homesick I weep:
It’s not just the food you miss. It’s the experience. I think we all were reminded of that during the pandemic.
1984-85: I move back to Houston full time and somehow, immediately, as if by instinct, I discover Las Cazuelas on Fulton. Their "nachos compuestos" become my platonic ideal not just for nachos, but for Mexican food in general. In a car driven by a sophomore, as a freshman, I take an eighth grader there on a date. We all get Margaritas, no questions asked. I feel like a badass.
1985-89: Palate expands. My aunt Laura discovers La Mexicana when it was a supermarket with two or three tables; I see that my "breakfast taco" creation has thrived and traveled far and wide. I begin to develop criteria for the judgment of Felix-style old-school Tex Mex joints, much of it revolving around matters like the size and quality of the iced tea served. Chips and salsa also play an outsize role.
Other restaurants enter the mix: Ninfa's, a long-gone place in River Oaks Plaza a few doors down from Birra Porretti's, and Chapultepec to name a few.
“Victory Nachos,” photographed by reader Amanda Nichole Boling at Chapultepec.
Still Doneraki reigns for authenticity; Felix's for sentiment. Meanwhile, my dad comes to visit me in Houston and takes me to Spanish Village, his family's Felix's. (HIs parents died when I was young.) I discover the concept of different families having "their" Mexican restaurants. (Which is why I'd never or only rarely had been to places like Leo's and Molina's -- those were not "our places."
Las Cazuelas closed and was torn down to make way for a Walgreens. I learn the age-old Houston custom of mourning for torn-down things.
1989-1997: Exile years. I subsist on bad Mexican food in Nashville and abroad. In 1993, I weep tears of joy — literally, as was the case with that Leo’s spread — on eating mediocre fajitas at Tel Aviv's Hard Rock Cafe. I make the mistake of going to a Mexican restaurant in Krakow, Poland. I didn't weep there, but if I did, it would not have been for joy. Somewhere in there, "our" Felix's closed, meaning the Westheimer location became the go-to. It wasn't quite the same.
1997-present: On return to Houston, I find the city much more Mexican than it had been when I'd left. Lower Richmond Tapatia rapidly becomes the go-to -- Felix's remains the nostalgia choice, different location and all. Still, at Felix’s, I begin to notice I am the youngest diner on the premises, often by several decades.
Houston palate shifts toward taqueria-style fare. Tapatia remodels itself out of any resemblance to itself and I leave the neighborhood anyway. (What's more, I lost Tapatia in a divorce.) Felix's finally closes. I realize the food there was pretty bad, but I still miss it. Doneraki on Fulton declines and closes too. For me, each of my kids has their own Mexican restaurant I associate them with; for my son, it's Chapultepec; for my daughter, it's the Teotihuacan out in Fondren Southwest. I learn to seek out taco trucks.
More recently, by the necessity borne of moving to the sticks, I have learned to make more-than-creditable taqueria tacos at home, thanks to HEB’s raw tortillas, pre-seasoned meats, incredible salsas, and Mexican cheese selections.
(Note: undercooked tortilla and lazy purchase of pre-chopped onions. This is still a work of progress. When I arrive somewhere near a plateau above mere competency, I will post a separate entry.)
This is pretty incomplete, and it was written born out of yearning for the days when we could all sit down and safely enjoy the good times inside a Mexican restaurant. May they come back soon.
And again, you are welcome for the breakfast tacos.
Long gone Mexican joint in River Oaks center down from Birra's was the original El Patio. Without "Club No Minors" , fancier than the Westheimer location and very very dark. My family's Mexican restaurant once we relocated from Bunker Hill in 1981. Back in Bunker Hill days our Mexican restaurant was "La Fiesta". Both La Fiesta and El Patio offered spaghetti and burgers for gringo kids, like Felix.
All the restaurants mentioned are identical to my chronological Mexican culinary experiences in Houston except Donoreki’s. The loss I mourned most was Las Cazuela’s Taqueria between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 AM; their Carne Asada was my go-to late-night weekend staple, that is, when my face didn’t fall in my plate. I can practically taste it now.