Brendan T.
Yelp
I can't believe I've more or less been sleeping on this longtime certified ATX classic for years now, usually eschewing it for newer, more "updated" sources of breakfast taco goodness, but after my most recent trip to Austin I became hooked on this spot, and will now likely find it conversely hard to sample breakfast tacos anywhere else! Established in 1996 this stalwart is a holdover from the days when Austin was still actually weird and there wasn't a tech-bro in site. Located inauspiciously in a south Lamar shopping center shared only with a Walgreens as opposed to the coffee and craft beer hipster meccas that often accompany newer breakfast taco spots, the decor is ramshackle bric-a-brac galore with a Tex-Mex twist, the crescendo of which is the massive, slightly creepy folk-art style statue of Maria herself rising over the roof of the compound like a towering taco goddess. A walled off outdoor table-filled courtyard leads into the equally over the top kitsch-filled dining room where the you oder from the staff behind the counter and take your ticket and wait for your grub. Said staff is about as efficient and effortless as you would expect in a decades old institution such as this, operating at the level of the proverbial well oiled machine. During the brief wait you should of course visit the salsa bar and make sure to load up on extra tiny cups of the deliciously creamy and spicy green sauce, and also scan the photos on the wall depicting the many wild and wonderful celebrity fans of the place. When you receive your breakfast tacos you will realize you are quite likely tasting the platonic version of them, sizable but not unwieldy, with the perfect balance of scrambled egg to cheese to protein ratio, served in true Austin fashion on pillowy light flour tortilla (and yes you MUST select flour tortilla on breakfast tacos in ATX, its long been beyond debate for me at this point). Even better than the regular ones however was the special during my most recent visit, a slightly larger fajita style beef taco tricked out with a generous hunk of avocado and a Poached as opposed to scrambled egg, generation a delicious is extremely sloppy mash-up of breakfast and lunch style tacos, and one I would gladly eat at any time of the day. You'll enjoy these delicious tacos in the old school atmosphere surrounded by a happily diverse group of assorted Austinites, which unfortunately is definitely not the case at a lot of the newer spots around town. Making the place even cooler than usual on a recent Saturday morning was the lady selling really cool trinkets made my indigenous peoples in Southern Mexico and Guatemala in the courtyard, which only endeared the place to me that much more. I'll be back asap you should get there too, to get a glimpse of the Austin that inspired the masses to flock here in the first place, but is now fading beyond recognition more and more rapidly by the minute.