Food
Low Steaks
How a cut of meat from the wrong side of the steer rose to culinary stardom, plus a guide to Texas’ most authentic fajitas.
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Garza probably also deserves the credit for the two innovations that have become synonymous with fajitas: the sizzling platter and the mountain of condiments. She says she got the idea for sizzling platters after being served queso flameado (melted Mexican cheese) on a cast-iron plate in Acapulco, but her signal contribution to fajita ritual was presentation. Her original botana (snack) plate came on a fourteen-inch platter covered in bean-and-American-cheese nachos. The fajita steak was placed on top of the nachos and surrounded by five scoops of guacamole and mounds of diced tomatoes, onions, and jalapeños; flour tortillas were included so diners could make tacos. Garza introduced the botana at Tila’s, her McAllen restaurant, in 1977 and such was its success that it continues to dominate Valley menus today.
But as important as Otilia Garza is in the history of the fajita, and as much as she did to create the dish in its present form, it took a boost from another quarter to help the fad take off. While Garza was doing her bit to spread the gospel of fajitas from the Valley north, Austin’s Sonny Falcon was spreading it from Central Texas outward. The same year that Garza took over the Round-Up, Falcon launched his career as the Johnny Appleseed of fajitas by serving skirt steak at the Diez y Seis de Septiember celebration in Kyle, outside Austin. Falcon, who came to Austin in 1959 from his native Mercedes, began experimenting while working in an east side meat market. He had heard that folks back home were eating beef skirt, which was a new dish to him. “The first fajita I ever ate,” he recalls, “I made myself in Austin in the sixties.”
Cooking on a gas grill and eschewing marinade or seasoning, Falcon served fajitas in Kyle with flour tortillas (because they hold heat better), salsa, and a dash of salt. The idea didn’t catch on in the small town, but it did spread elsewhere. Soon he and his fifteen-person crew were traveling the state—the West Texas State Fair in Abilene, the Pecan Street fair and Aqua Fest in Austin, the Kerrville Arts and Crafts Fair, the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show in Mercedes, and other venues—introducing people to fajitas wherever they went. Says Falcon: “The way we did things, we became a show in ourselves,” referring to his cooks’ showmanship and high jinks.
While continuing to manage the meat market on the east side, he launched Taco Tyme, his first restaurant, in 1970. Subsequently, he had a string of others under the name of Fajita King (the title bestowed on him by an Austin reporter). But until he quit in the mid-eighties, partly because the field became too crowded, his forte remained outdoor festivals. On these occasions he routinely cooked six hundred pounds of meat daily. His last Fajita King closed in the summer of 1992, and Falcon, now 55, has decided to call the restaurant business quits.
Falcon’s reputation spread quicker from Austin than Garza’s did from the border, and fajitas were well established throughout Texas by 1985. That was the year Texas A&M did a seminal study on fajitas. In it, researchers traced the origin of the fajita to the Valley, and later that year they made presentations to the National CattleWomen’s Association and magazine food editors. Coming at a time when Tex-Mex fever was peaking in New York and other places, the report crystallized the trend. Ironically, though, the fajita that had become popular was not a true fajita but rather the marinated, cut-in-strips, made-with-anything-but-skirt-steak fad food.
The great paradox of the nineties is that fajitas are everywhere and they are nowhere. You can order them from almost any menu in any city in Texas, but chances are almost 100 percent that you won’t get real skirt steak. To get the real thing, you have to journey to the Rio Grande Valley, because that is where people are serious about fajitas. Rene Hinojosa, a senior vice-president of H&H Foods, the largest meat supplier in the region, estimates that half the skirt steak eaten in America is consumed in the Valley. (In a concession to mass taste, most Valley restaurants have also started offering chicken or beef strips grilled with bell pepper and onions.)
Where fajitas are concerned, Valley restaurants have no peers, a fact I established beyond a doubt while eating my way from Brownsville to Laredo. In Brownsville I had my fieriest meal—fajita encebollada, skirt steak buried in grilled onions and serranos—at Los Camperos (1440 International Boulevard, 210-546-8172). My only complaint was that the beef was chewy; indeed, the spacious restaurant is better known for its chicken. In Laredo I had my most agreeable light meal—a mouth-watering arrachera taco with a dab of guacamole at the cozy Tacolare (1206 San Bernardo, 727-5115). I also enjoyed a rich Fajita Sombero—beef grilled with onion, bell pepper, tomato, and bacon, topped with melted cheese, and served under a bed of tortillas—at Laredo’s new Fajita Sombrero (2919 San Bernardo, 725-3831).
But the spiritual home of the fajita remains the area around McAllen, Edinburg, Pharr, and San Juan. Unfortunately, both of Otilia Garza’s restaurants are now closed (she is scouting new locations in Austin and San Antonio), but if I had to choose the best of the rest, I would go with Don Pancho’s in San Juan (107 N. Raul Longoria Road, 781-3601). In a long, low, tastefully decorated room across the street from the Virgen de San Juan del Valle Shrine, Don Pancho’s starts its fajita dinner off with chips and a bowl of ripsnorting salsa combining árbol, jalapeño, and serrano peppers. That’s followed by soothing vegetable soup, heavy on the cabbage. The butterflied fajita, which comes with rice and beans, couldn’t be more moist, tender, and savory. It is charred crunchy around the edges and has just a hint of smokiness (imparted by cooking over pumice rocks on a grill). Don Pancho’s serves fajitas in several other forms as well, but I was too full to try any more, let alone the house specialty—french-fried squash.
But if you want to do your own survey, besides Don Pancho’s there are other fine choices. One of the most appealing is La Parrilla in Edinburg (1328 N. Closner, 383-9066), a bright and lovely L-shaped restaurant with polished wood beams and an indoor fountain. Here proprietor Janice de Leon, daughter-in-law of Otilia Garza, serves fajitas patterned after those from the Round-Up, the main difference being that La Parrilla uses inside skirt instead of outside. Another good possibility is La Casa del Taco in McAllen (1100 Houston, 631-8193 or 631-8194), which offer an arrachera it claims is more tender than its fajita, though I discerned no difference. And just down the street is the maddeningly inconsistent Johnny’s Mexican Food (1010 Houston, 686-9061 or 686-3081), whose menu lists no fewer than seven different fajita combinations.
That variety alone suggests how much fajitas have diversified, even on their home turf, but at least there are places in Texas where you can still get the real thing. In other parts of the state and country, when you order fajitas you never know what you’ll be served. But in the Valley the word still has integrity. There you can count on getting an honest skirt steak—a little tough but eminently tasty. Given the scarcity of the unvarnished truth these days, that counts for a lot.
John Morthland is a freelance writer who lives in Austin.
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