Puffy tacos are back! A Fort Worth restaurant revives an old Tex-Mex favorite
Gone nearly 10 years, the South Texas-style puffy taco has returned as a new menu item at The Original Mexican Eats Cafe.
For 60 years, Modesta Caro and her family were known for the thick, pillowy tacos and chips at two Fort Worth locations of Caro’s Restaurant, still open in the Valley in Rio Grande City.
The Original’s version is named “Berta’s” puffy tacos, for 21-year kitchen manager Berta Miranda., who made them growing up in Villahermosa.
“One bite is like going back in time,” Original owner Robert Self said in a text message. He’s not exaggerating.
These are not the bowl-like “puffed” tacos served by other local restaurants. These are thick tacos are unique to restaurants such as Henry’s in San Antonio and now The Original, in its 95th year (give or take a few) at 4713 Camp Bowie Blvd.
Miranda said she made them growing up in Villahermosa, México.
The tacos start with a ball of fried corn masa, fried and then bent slightly to hold beef or chicken.
“It’s a little bit hard to make, but I like making them,” Miranda said.
Mary Margaret Whitten Moseley, a descendant of the Caro family, reacted strongly on Facebook.
“The Whitten/Caro family brought puffy tacos to Fort Worth from Rio Grande City more then 60 years ago ... You are blatantly serving the green sauce we were famous for now as well.
“Caro’s will be back, and we will be serving our puffy chips and tacos and our delicious nachos as well! ... Not so “Original” there are you??”
In the nine years since Caro’s closed along with brief successor Dos Juans’, puffy tacos have become almost a local legend, the stuff covered by Texas Monthly magazine.
Depending whom you believe, puffy tacos were originated either by the Caro family in Rio Grande City or by Ray’s Drive Inn in San Antonio.
(The Caro family meant to open a restaurant in Chicago, but the car broke down here. So Caro’s opened on Blue Bonnet Circle in the space that recently was Fred’s Texas Cafe. Another location operated in the 1960s at Curzon Avenue and Bryant Irvin Road near Zeke’s.)
The Original’s puffy tacos are a reasonably faithful rendition, larger than Caro’s and served with either beef or chicken with a chopped jalapeno-cilantro salsa verde similar to Caro’s, Fort Worth’s original “green sauce.”
Warning: Eat them when they’re fresh, or they’ll break in two. If that happens, deploy an extra tortilla.)
The Original is already known for its fried-in-shell crispy tacos, a couple of notches better than most Tex-Mex restaurant tacos.
The menu also offers contemporary dishes such as cheese-jalapeño tamales, broccoli enchiladas and pan-seared steaks or chicken.
The Original also added new “Mexican pizzas” in beef or chicken.
The restaurant is nationally known for chili-covered, retro Tex-Mex and its history including the “Roosevelt Special” platter, named for presidential son Elliott Roosevelt during his 1930s time in Benbrook and Fort Worth.
Nobody knows exactly when The Original opened. Self estimates The Original opened in 1926. But based on our archives and census records, founders Lola San Miguel Piñeda from Múzquiz, Mexico, and her husband, former Spanish soldier Gerónimo Piñeda of Barcelona, moved here via Laredo and Waco and opened in 1930.
(They were still listed as living in Waco in the 1930 census. The Piñedas’ 1930s Star-Telegram ads for The Original described it as opening in 1930, which would make this its 91st year.)
In a 1932 clipping, Piñeda described the combination “No. 1” plate: “tacos, Mexican rice, chile con queso, Spanish salad, toasted tortillas, Mexican candy [a praline] and a bottle of ice cold Pearl beer” — 50 cents.
If you haven’t gone to The Original lately, it’s become an iconic old-school Tex-Mex restaurant known for beef enchiladas in Texas chili con carne and particularly for crispy tacos made in the shell, the way Lola Piñeda made them in the 1930s.
The menu also offers contemporary dishes such as cheese-jalapeño tamales, broccoli enchiladas and pan-seared steaks or chicken.
It’s open daily except Mondays at 4713 Camp Bowie Blvd.; 817-738-6226, originalmexicaneatscafe.com.
There’ll be more news soon from The Original, but Self isn’t ready to tell.
This story was originally published August 16, 2020 at 4:41 PM.
