The 38 Best Texas Restaurants, Mapped - Eater
"WHAT: The last standard-bearer of a Texas culinary tradition along the Rio Grande. WHY: There was a time when shops specializing in barbacoa de cabeza en pozo a la leña (whole beef head cooked slowly in an underground, mesquite-fueled barbecue pit) dotted South Texas. Today, there remains only 63-year-old Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que in the Spanish-is-as-good-as-English border town of Brownsville. Owner Armando Vera runs what is likely the last restaurant cooking barbacoa de cabeza with wood in the Lone Star State, opening only weekends to dole out shimmering cuts of cheek, tongue, lips, and other head cuts served with warm corn or flour tortillas. It’s not unusual for Vera’s to be sold out of meat before it closes at 2 p.m., but the first to go is what Vera calls “Mexican caviar.” That would be cow eyes. — José R. Ralat" - Bill Addison
