Review: Taqueria La Tejanita

I was tipped off about Taqueria La Tejanita from a comment on another review I did on this blog (thank you Mary for mentioning it.) While Googling for a location, I also came across two reviews from some other Dallas taco bloggers I have met and popped Styrofoam containers with: Taco Sense and the Dallas Observer’s blog City of Ate. Please checkout their thoughts on Taqueria La Tejanita.

The first thing you notice when arriving is a giant bright blue building protrusion accompanied by a large yellow lightning bolt. If it wasn’t for the Conoco gas station pumps, the food mart would look like a sad Best Buy copycat.

The gas station convenience store is called “Flash Mart” and contains two opposing food options: The Taqueria and a Church’s Chicken. I would love to know the percentage of sales between the two food choices. Sadly I bet the Church’s Chicken performs better. I definitely knew the choice I would make and approached the counter greeted by a friendly woman who took my order for 2 steak, 1 chorizo, 1 pastor (pork) and 1 cactus taco all on corn tortillas with onion and cilantro.

While waiting for my order to arrive, I wondered around the convenience store to find a drink to take back to the office. No not that kind of drink, though there is a large wall of beer choices available. There was a separate refrigerator unit by the front door that housed all of the typical Mexican soda options including Mexican glass bottled Coke and Sprit. I opted for one that is becoming my favorite – TopoChico, basically Mexican Perrier.

Arriving back at my office with my taco bounty, I decided to try the cactus taco first. This was my first ever cactus taco so I am by no means an expert on the topic. I took a couple bites one plain and the other two alternating the green and red hot sauces. For those who haven’t tried a cactus taco, it is an interesting taste. It’s kind of like eating a soggy green pepper or more appropriately like slicing up a jarred roasted red pepper. The flavor isn’t bad but it really didn’t do much for my gringo taste buds. I don’t have much to compare it to, but I only ate half of it since I really wanted to dig into the steak tacos.

The two steak tacos were great. They had a good flavoring with just a perfect hint of cumin and other spices where a hot sauce wasn’t really needed; though, I did alternate between the red and green sauces. The hot sauces were excellent and looked to be made on location.  The green sauce was fantastic and easily the best I’ve had a gas station taqueria.

Now back to the taco… the double corn tortillas were flavorful and strong enough to hold a pretty generous helping of ingredients. Unfortunately, the onion and cilantro was a bit skimpy. The steak meat also had a few fatty pieces, but mostly was very lean and cut into small cubes cooked to perfection. I really loved the flavor and was happy I opted for a second steak taco.

Next up I tried the chorizo taco. Yum. Perfect. Perfect chorizo. I really loved this taco as it had plenty of flavor and wasn’t oily like some chorizo tacos I’ve had in the past. The meat was more of a sausage crumble than sliced sausage pieces. The flavor was intense making the hot sauces completely unnecessary, but I really enjoyed the sauces so I kept dipping all of my tacos, even the chorizo, into them.

Finally I made my way to what’s become my favorite taco choice – al pastor. Again lots of flavor with plenty of achiote paste that made the sauces optional. I did find only one fatty piece and there were a couple cooked onions mixed in, but again good bite size pieces with plenty of flavor.  I really enjoyed the al pastor and would recommend it. It came pretty close to beating my favorite at Abierto, but was more inline with Fuel City which is not a bad position to be.

Taqueria La Tejanita is one of the better gas station taco stops I have made in my food blogging adventure and it was great coming here after being in Washington State last week where a good ‘street taco’ is hard to find.  I am sure I’ll make plenty of return trips to La Tejanita and thanks again to Mary for her reader comment and everyone else please feel free to send me any suggested gas station taco recommendations anytime.

Gas Station: Conoco

Address: 6769B Abrams Road,  Dallas, TX 75231

Rating (5 out of 5 oil drops):