Everything is better with a taco, especially the young but formidable Oak Cliff Film Festival, which calls the Texas Theatre home. Within tortilla-flinging distance (and all over the neighborhood) of the historic movie house are scads of notable taquerias and restaurants. Once again, we offer our recommendations.

Los Torres Taqueria, 1322 W. Clarendon Dr., 214-946-3770
This mom-and-pop shop is something special. It’s the only Dallas restaurant specializing in Sinaloan-style meat preparations, and where you go when you want excellent tacos. The Torres family has never failed when it comes to serving northern Mexican dishes like cinnamon-spiked birria de chivo, luscious cabeza (a mix of beef cheek and tongue) and barbacoa roja estilo Sinaloa, which has pork and beef in every exquisite bite. True to the state of origin, order your tacos in handmade flour tortillas. But if you insist, at least request the handmade corn tortillas.

La Tacoqueta, 2324 W. Clarendon Dr., Ste. 100, 214-943-9991
On a strip of Clarendon dominated by auto shops and faded concrete, cheekily named La Tacoqueta is a sepia, wood and tile haven offering hit-the-spot tacos of carne asada, chicken and al pastor.Alas, there is no spit. The breakfast tacos come with handmade tortillas but others don’t. The service is always on point and the salsa is always fiery.

Fito’s Tacos de Trompo #2, 3113 W. Davis St.
This joint is hard to miss. Just look for the painting of Monterrey’s geographic landmark, the Serro de la Silla mountain, and the restaurant’s name is big red letters. Order the signature menu item, tacos de trompo—the northern Mexican cousin of tacos al pastor seasoned with paprika, not a chile, achiote and citrus adobo, and roasted on the vertical spit called, you guessed it, a trompo. But bring cash. Fito’s doesn’t accept plastic.

Taquería Tiquicheo, 110 S. Marsalis Ave., Ste. A, 214-941-4300
This small, cash-only joint serves fierce pollo deshebrada, chicken stewed and shredded. Tiquicheo’s version is prepared with tomatoes and chilies and nestled in house-made tortillas. Temper the heat with a Mexican Coke.

Gonzalez Restaurant, 367 W. Jefferson Blvd., 214-946-5333
At the base of Jefferson Tower, diners will find the crispy tacos the only way crispy tacos should be done: fried to order. The delicate, light, not-greasy treats are a wonder of Dallas.

El Tizoncito Taqueria, 3404 W. Illinois Ave., Ste. 100, 214-330-0839
This small Dallas chain’s original location sits at the corner of Westmoreland and Illinois, serving classic Mexico City tacos al pastor from a trompo, mischievously sloppy choriqueso that marries cheese and chorizo on a bed of three flour tortillas as well as a full menu of Mexican fare.

Mi Tierrita Taqueria y Pupuseria, 2838 W. Davis St., 214-333-2300
You’ll probably find yourself at Tradewinds Social Club after a long night of screenings. And when you do, soak up the cheap, friendly booze with mammoth tacos campechanas and the bantam piratas, both specialties of Monterrey, Mexico—and both with cheese in flour tortillas. Order a couple knockout tacos de trompo or go for the hamburguesa estilo Monterrey, the trompoburger.

Cafeteria y Loncheria El Padrino, 408 W. Jefferson Blvd., 214-943-3993
The squat brown building has served locals for more than two decades has a tiny L-shaped dining room and solid offerings, a short walk from the Texas. It’s also a festival sponsor.

Cool & Hot, 930A E. 8th Street, 214-944-5330
This converted gas station and car wash makes their corn tortillas in house and serves the best breakfast tacos south of the Trinity. The mouth-puckering barbacoa on a diminutive flour tortilla alone is the ideal first stop on your daily film festival itinerary. The chorizo and egg taco packs a delightful soft slap of heat.

Mi Fondita Restaurant, 839 W. Jefferson Blvd., 214-941-1141
Around the corner from the Bishop Arts Theater is where I’ve had my favorite chorizo to date. It’s a a throat-coating spicy and nutty antojito far from the desiccated pebbles wrapped in cracked (yet greasy) yellow corn tortillas so often accepted as the standard. The barbacoa here is velvety and punctuated with fat. But they do not come in advertised handmade tortillas. The only way to get those is to order a platter. If you’re lucky, the owners will set up a trompo on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

Tacoqueta’s inviting facade.

Clarendon Drive east of Hampton Road is a hodgepodge of auto shops, ramshackle churches in converted frame houses, food business, such as paleterias, Aunt Stella’s Snow Cones and taquerias. Among the latter, the newest is Tacoqueta, taking a clever name meant to lure you into the small strip shared with a hair salon. Almost as alluring is the 20 tacos for $19.99. Almost, because with only three tacos (plus weekend barbacoa) to choose from there isn’t much variety for order of that size. What there is an abundance of, though, is excellent service. The ladies behind the counter and working the griddle will answer your questions without hesitation—yes, they have fresh tortillas but only for the menudo—and charm you with a smile while they await your order.

Departing from my usual tacos-only selection, I went with the No. 1 special. The former comes with light, yellow Mexican rice and manteca-bolstered silky refried beans punctuated with minute pintos.

Tacoqueta’s zippy salsas.

The chile-barbed barbacoa was the best of the lot. Before I got to that preparation, though, I went for the carne asada and non-trompo pastor. Each taco flirted with rubbery consistency as it cooled and were anything more than decent. That’s not saying they were bad.

Tacoqueta’s No. 1 Special.

In a pinch, Tacoqueta’s tacos will do just fine as holdovers while you wait for your order of sugar-slapping air-conditioning treats from Oak Cliff staple Aunt Stella’s Snow Cones. Just order from the walk-up window, and go. But remember if you’re not in line by 9 p.m., you’re not getting your Pink Lady.

Taqueria Las Marias’ counter.

Across from Jimmy’s Food Store, Urbano Café and Spiceman’s FM 1410 in East Dallas but probably using nothing that graces the shelves of those iconic Dallas food businesses in a La Ranchera Mexican Super Market is Taqueria La Marias. The taco counter, beyond the cash register to the left of the grocery’s front door, trades in the standard filling options as well as a few guisados resting in steam trays behind a sneeze guard. Non-trompo pastor and fajita are also on offer, although those take a while longer to serve as they’re cooked to order. Skip them. Go for the guisados. They’re on the left side.

The best of which is the guisado rojo de res, pieces of tender, stratiform pieces of beef no bigger than Knorr bouillon cubes in a mellow coral red sauce. It was gone too soon. The pollo y calabaza, chicken and squash in a lacey yellow sauce, also disappeared quickly, if only to get rid of the dry poultry and mushy vegetable. A shot of salsa verde helped but there was nothing that could rehydrate that bird.

A taco plate at Taqueria Las Marias.

Better was the carnitas, mild tan-colored threads ending in knobs of pork with crispy scrapes. The filling, like all others, was resting in the bumpy, flavor-neutral corn tortillas pulled from the market’s shelves. If the tortillas can’t be incredible, they might as well get out of the way. Fatty, wet barbacoa nestled in the fourth taco that got a kick from peppy salsa roja. Neither wowed me to a halt, but at least they weren’t regret-inducing parcels.

Looking back, I wished I had also ordered the chicharrónes en salsa verde. When the taquera lifted the lid of the pan bearing it while showing us what was available, I gazed at squiggly cuts of pork skin bathed in a textured, tempting green bath. If ever I find myself along that stretch of Bryan Street near Fitzhugh (where the store’s entrance is located) with only an appetite for a few, quick noshes of my favorite food, I’ll be sure to stop in to Las Marias long enough to sit at one of the long tables covered in rooster-and-sunflower-print oil cloth. They’re next to the electronic games of chance that gobble up poor schmucks’ payday haul. At least I know exactly what I’ll be getting.

Make time for Taco Stop.

There are taquerias I visit for years before writing about them. It’s not that the taquerias are played out or that I want to keep them to myself. Sometimes, when juggling a day job, a family and get-in-the-way adult stuff, I just want to eat at a place I know is good and don’t get around to completing a review. Taco Stop, a two-year-old walk-up joint in the Dallas Design District, has been one of those taquerias. But it’s more than good. Taco Stop is fantastic.

It’s been that way almost since the beginning. Weeks after its 2012 opening, a friend and I dropped into Taco Stop for breakfast and had our ordered bungled. It didn’t matter. An order of Taco Stop’s breakfast tacos are a great way to start the morning, especially if you’re going “all in.” This deluxe breakfast taco is equipped with bell peppers, onions and bacon or chorizo, giving you bites of sweet and salty. A follow-up visit did not disappointment.

A trio of Taco Stop breakfast tacos.

Lunch suffered a little initially, though.

Taco Stop’s lunch options were lackluster at first, but now they’re the best in Design District.

On occasion the barbacoa had at first been a matted ball of muscle and grease and the prime rib dry and tough. The chicken was typical, that is to say overcooked. But those days are long gone. Taco Stop, my last visits have confirmed, is where you should eat in the Design District. Carnitas offer a healthy, subtle char. The barbacoa’s mild flavor is given a firm kick with pico de gallo. The chicken with peppers and onions is among the better I’ve had in Dallas. Better yet when chorizo is added in the chicken alambre. The prime rib is now a smile-inducer, plain and simple. Vegetarians have reason to hit the breaks and pull into Taco Stop, too, thanks to the never-fail seasonal veggie taco.

Line up for lunch or breakfast. Sit a while at one of the green picnic tables or at the counters that run on each side of the ordering window. Eat your order in your car, on your car. Let salsa trickle from the hood onto the tarnished bumper. On a hot day, maybe it will sizzle. Wherever you eat Taco Stop’s tacos, if you add a dose of salsa chile de arbol to them, your taste buds will definitely sizzle with glee and the sweat won’t be from the temperatures straining toward the century mark. They’ll be hot because of the quality and measure, something too often lacking from your average taco window. Make time for Taco Stop.

Morales Restaurant specializes in Huastecan food.

Increasingly I see all antojitos and vitamin T comidas (tacos, tamales, tortas, huaraches, etc.) as being in this website’s wheelhouse. This is especially true when a restaurant makes something from scratch. Perhaps a taco spot serves mass-produced tortillas for its tacos but reserves handmade masa for tlayduas. The tacos could be outstanding while the tlayudas send one reeling into another dimension. Tacos are on the menus of most Mexican eating establishments but when it comes to a particular restaurant, perhaps they do something killer or so regionally specific an order of that signature item along with tacos, in my case, is the appropriate order. It should be the order.

Morales Restaurant in Oak Cliff’s Dells District is such a place. The rare spot in the Dallas area specializing in the food of La Huasteca, a region of Mexico encompassing parts of San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, Hildago, among other Mexican states and named for the indigenous group the Huastec, Morales came recommended by Obed Manuel, occasional contributor to the Taco Trail. His father hails from La Huasteca and swears by Morales Restaurant. The small eatery, about six tables in a sparse, narrow front dining room with two more rooms in the rear, is in the same commercial strip as Hardeman’s BBQ and my barber shop. It also shares a wall with another Mexican joint, Fito’s #3, an outpost of the local chain specializing in the food of Monterrey, Mexico (far from La Huasteca).

Morales’ specialty is zacahuil, a banana leaf-wrapped tamal prepared for celebrations—weddings, baptisms, quinceñeras—because they feed large parties. How is a tamal supposed to serve 10, 20, 50 people? When the tamal in question is a behemoth that can reach up to 15 feet or longer. It’s a gold mine of a food. The serving I enjoyed was spooned from the larger tamal and came packed with shredded pork cooked in a stew of chile colorado chunky with pearls of fragrant masa. The aroma of banana leaf lingered warmly, as did the spice, which was constant but not crippling. For this alone Morales is remarkable.

But it’s more than a bastion for such a regional dish and kin like bocoles and migadas.

A plate of zacahuil.

Tacos huastecos.

Morales’ menu bears Mexican restaurant standard after standard, including gorditas, enchiladas, and, of course, tacos, which range from admirable to “a platter isn’t enough” quality. Tacos de carnitas and de barbacoa came with handmade corn tortillas. The former looked to be traditionally prepared but was dry, while the barbacoa, here beef, was solid, mellow and worth repeat orders. Tacos huastecos were larger parcels of handmade flour tortillas filled with cecina, onions that had met a flattop griddle long enough to be considered sautéed but only just so to retain a pleasant bite, and a sufficient amount of melted white cheese to conceal some of the beef. The stuff oozed out of the taco still hot. To the side a cup of warm, cooked salsa roja too thin for the taco to retain.

Also available, but not from the menu handed out by our waitress, rather from a piece of copy paper bearing an image and a price point, are tacos de canasta. These little bites are thought to be descended from tacos de mineros—the first tacos—and are a common breakfast taco in Mexico City. A friend and I weren’t there on National Taco Day for the morning meal. When we sat down in the booth, time was flirting with the snacking hour. We skipped them.

Tacos Rojos with all the fixings.

But the clear champion during our late lunch at Morales was the platter of tacos rojos. (Zacahuil was enjoyed during a second visit.) The several small tacos of red tortillas (the color derived from the chiles used in the masa, but not made in-house) wrapped around perfectly seasoned mashed potatoes came disguised with a mound of shredded lettuces, queso fresco and a couple of slices of tomato then bordered by paper-thin rounds of potatoes mixed with chorizo. Warm, light, yet jammed with all the fixings. The peppery chorizo and quarter-sized potatoes played nicely with the tortillas and mashed potatoes within. The tortillas did not crack when pinched. They weren’t even oily. As a matter of fact, the tortillas were the best they could’ve been short of freshly prepared. Had my lunch companion and I not eaten all the aforementioned bites, we might have requested another order of  those ruby parcels, perhaps with another of the optional fillings. That opportunity will come. Like I said, Morales is next to my barber shop.

Just in case you didn’t know what this truck sold.

Fort Worth has a wealth of loncheras. They’re stationed at the far end of grocery store parking lots, they’re parked alongside convenience stores—wherever they call roll up and set a table with a few chairs. That’s where I found Taqueria Eva’s, a taco truck on the city’s Northside.

An older gentleman sat reading a newspaper in the truck’s cab as a friend and I walked up to the lonchera. As we stepped up to the ordering window, a boy young enough to be the man’s son it open, took our order and immediately set to making our tacos, working the flattop and heating the tortillas like he—a kid—was a seasoned taquero.

Nothing the boy made for us was worth bemoaning or getting upset over. Taqueria Eva’s’ tacos were perfectly acceptable noshes. Still, the barbacoa, shredded and a pale, sandy color, was a tad dry. The lengua was fine with easy grassy notes. My favorite, though, was the carne asada, a no-fuss serving of grilled beef that hit the spot but did not wow.

A taco box.

Step right up.

Our time at Taqueria Eva’s was by no means a waste. Unlike local mobile gourmet options such as Holy Frijole and Chile Pepper Grill, Taqueria Eva’s and many of Cowtown’s taco trucks are unassuming rigs. So, if you’re not looking for them, you’ll likely not notice them. In Taqueria Eva’s’ case, the only distinguishing feature is the multicolored word TACO framed in lights. It’s not much. But it’s enough, and if you’re on the Northside, you could do much worse.

Get me talking about tacos and see me light up like a child who receives the exact gift he wished for Christmas morning. From their history and folklore to their variability, there is much joy in tacos. In no particular order, these are the tacos that brought me that joy in 2014.

A plate of tacos at Los Torres.

Taco de Barbacoa Roja Estilo Sinaloa at Los Torres Taqueria
Unlike the barbacoa commonly available in Texas, this specialty of Sinaloa (where the Torres family has roots) is a mix of beef and pork, dark red from chiles colorados and fragrant spices. It’s always included in my order at Los Torres, where homey braises and handmade tortillas band together to give Dallas it’s best taqueria. When you visit the little spot in Oak Cliff—and you will—resist the urge to order tortillas de maiz hechas a mano. Go for the thin, nearly translucent handmade flour tortillas characteristic of Sinaloa.

Taco de Barbacoa de Cabeza at Gerardo’s Drive-In
The table-hushing barbacoa at Gerardo’s on Houston’s east side is among the best I’ve had in Texas yet. It’s silky and full, though delicate, and pulled directly from the cows’ head. My visit to Gerardo’s included a kitchen tour from Owner José Luis Lopez—Gerardo is his son—who obviously has pride in his work. He propped the cow heads for photos taken by the crew I was running around Houston with that morning, amigos in food J.C. Reid and Michael Fulmer, cofounders of the Houston Barbecue Festival, and photographer Robert Strickland.

Taco al Pastor at Taco Flats
Austin isn’t a taco al pastor town. It’s strength resides in breakfast tacos and Tex-Mex. So this killer version of the undisputed king of tacos on a housemade tortilla from Taco Flats, a new Burnet Road bar with taco-focused pub grub came as a surprise. Sit at the far end of the bar for a view of the trompo.

Taco al pastor a la Tuma at Urban Taco.

Taco al Pastor a la Tuma at Urban Taco
Take the already excellent taco al pastor at this Uptown spot, place it atop cheese on a flattop griddle, fry that cheese to the point that it adheres to the tortilla, but don’t forget to tuck inside sneaky, spiky jalapeño, and finally relish this post-nightclub street taco—or three. Three is a respectable order.

The Jose and Fish Tacos (and the Escamoles) at El Come Taco
After time working at restaurants like Café San Miguel and Revolver Taco Lounge, Luis Villalva, with the help of his family and friends, opened El Come Taco in 2013. The menu was sparse at first, but Villalva soon expanded it to include two of Dallas’ best vegetarian tacos and the occasional exotic-for-most-Texans offerings. Sure, the taco al pastor at El Come is great, but I only order it if the trompo is fired up and spinning. But I always get the smooth black bean, queso fresco and avocado taco named after Luis’ father, José, and the squat fish taco. If available, the tacos de escamoles, filled with ant larvae cooked quickly in garlic and butter, is rich and gone in a flash as fast as the flick of a taquero’s wrist slicing from a trompo.

Tacos Rojos at Morales Restaurant
One of at least two Huastec restaurants in the Dallas area, Morales is hidden in plain sight in a Westmoreland Road shopping center between an old-fashioned barbershop and a Fito’s location. Here the specialty is the gargantuan banana leaf-wrapped tamal of the Huastec region, known as the zacahuil, along with a few other antojitos indicative of the area. Among them is a platter of tacos rojos, tiny parcels of tortillas red from the inclusion of chiles in the masa with your choice of filling that are buried under a pile of lettuce, queso fresco, tomatoes, and sliced, tender potatoes supported by piles of chorizo. Homey, messy and more than satisfying, these are a required order along side plates of zacahuil.

Tacos de trompo and a gringa at Dos Primos Tacos.

Tacos de Trompo at Dos Primos Tacos
These small bites ruined Monterrey-style trompo tacos for me. As a matter of fact, the greasy discs topped with paprika-forward-marinated pork sliced from Dos Primos‘ vertical spit, given a sprinkle of cilantro and chopped raw onion and then laced with throat-kicking chile de árbol salsa, pretty much typify the style.

Black Bean Breakfast Taco at Mi Madre’s Restaurant
A sloppy combination of black beans, egg and orange cheese, the black bean at Mi Madre’s is a hearty salty option that tops the classic migas breakfast taco. The beans themselves aren’t mushy at all. Rather, they are al dente and often slip through the net of cheese struggling to retain the contents in the tortilla.

Puffy Taco at Ray’s Drive Inn
My preferred first stop in San Antonio is the puffy taco institution of Ray’s, opened by Ray Lopez in the mid-1950s the dark, ramshackle joint is where younger brother Henry learned the puffy taco ways before opening his own, equally institutional restaurant. While there are several filling options, go traditional with ground beef and when the platter arrives at your table scarf the cumulus light treats as quickly as possible. Their lifespan is blink-short.

Sanchez’s barbacoa de borrego.

Barbacoa de Borrego Estilo Hidalgo Taco at Sanchez Panaderia y Taqueria
Mistakenly called Barbacoa Estilo Hidalgo, Sanchez Panaderia y Taqueria, a cinderblock building in the Lake June area of South Dallas, specializes in lamb barbacoa prepared in the style of Hidalgo state. Whether the lamb is pit-cooked in the traditional manner or the steam-pot modern way depends on who you talk to. Nevertheless, the herbaceous, tender meat has barely any gaminess. It’s a treat. Available Saturdays and Sundays, the only days Sanchez is opened, the dish is ordered by the pound and comes to the table in an ornate chafing dish. Handmade tortillas, garnishes and salsa accompany the meat. Adventurous eaters can also order pancita, essentially a Mexican haggis. Whatever you request, arrive early—Sanchez gets crowded as toward lunchtime—bring cash, start with a bowl of consommé and, if sensitive to sound, perhaps some earplugs. There will likely be a band performing in the tiny structure. Don’t let the prospect of not being able to hear your dining companions deter you from checking out Sanchez, though. It’s worth it.

Revolver Taco Lounge’s prawn head taco.

Prawn Head Taco at Revolver Taco Lounge
Not one to let a good thing go to waste, Gino Rojas, owner of Revolver Taco Lounge in Fort Worth took the prawn head used for presentation purposes on a crudo plate a friend and I devoured, saying only, “I’ll be right back. There is something I want to try.” In what seemed only a moment, Gino returned with a long platter bearing two tacos of the same chile-soaked prawn heads resting on a bramble of micro-greens atop tortillas so fresh touching them burned our fingers. At Revolver time is an essential ingredient. So is seafood. Michoacán, the name of the Mexican state, from where the Rojas clan hales, translates to “Place of Fishermen” in English. And this whim of a crustacean taco was another reminder of not only the gift this mod taco spot in Cowtown really is, but also why I time and again consider Revolver Taco Lounge the best taqueria I’ve been to yet in Texas.

What were your favorite tacos of 2014? Share them in the comments section and have a happy new year.

This is a taco with a handmade tortilla.

“This is Taco Country!” Those four words—painted on the burnt orange façade of San Antonio’s legendary breakfast taco haunt, Taco Haven—are carried in every Texan’s heart and stomach. They are as fundamental to the Lone Star State’s identity as Friday Night Lights, “Pancho & Lefty,” and Dr Pepper. This is true across our tortilla-based wonderland from Big Bend to the Piney Woods and South Texas to the Metroplex.

I’m not only referring to the fried envelopes whose broken shards litter much of our cultural landscape. No, I mean all the tacos: jaralillos de res, carne asada tacos smothered under a salty tarp of queso fundido at Tacos El Toro Bronco in El Paso; the ground beef-nestling airships that are Ray’s Drive Inn’s puffy tacos; the slivers of paprika-lacquered pork served across Oak Cliff; Brownsville’s many Sunday barbacoa huts; the big-city gals that love dressing up; the just-this-side-of-familiar menu at new regional restaurants; and, yes, breakfast tacos.

As part of the promotion for its 120 Tacos to Eat Before You Die issue, Texas Monthly is hosted an online reader poll to determine which Texas city has the best tacos. (Full disclosure: I’m a contributor to the editorial package, but the poll we’re addressing is all fan voting.) Ultimately, Austin won the top spot with 42 percent of the votes. The Rio Grande Valley scored a 25 percent, and Dallas, took third place with 15 percent.*

That the capital city is in first place doesn’t come as a surprise. Austin has an incredible PR machine fueled by its perceived coolness compared to other Texas cities. Austin has barbecue. Austin has SXSW. It has breakfast tacos. And, with the assistance of New York food writers who have visited Austin during a big festival or lived in the city for a spell, it’s fooled many into believing breakfast tacos are Austin-style. Let’s take as an example an article run last week by Eater Austin claiming Austin as the home of breakfast tacos. The piece by Matthew Sedacca came off as a rush job and evidence of an editorial disconnect. That same day, Eater LA published Meghan McCarron’s excellent profile of Los Angeles breakfast state mecca HomeState. In her piece, McCarron writes “Austin, Texas, is not the home of the breakfast taco, but it is the place where they became an iconic dish. … It took self-conscious, self-mythologizing Austin to turn them into a thing.” While Sedacca at least acknowledged that Texas breakfast tacos have origins across the state, he mentioned only one other city, Corpus Christi. That the city cited wasn’t San Antonio—where breakfast tacos and tacos in general are so ingrained in residents’ DNA that they’re taken for granted until Austin asserts its PR supremacy—ignited a firestorm and a tongue-in-cheek petition to have Sedacca exiled from the Lone Star State. I chuckled at the absurdity of it all. Allow me to explain why.

Breakfast tacos, or tacos meant to be consumed in the morning, have roots in the first tacos: tacos de mineros. Named after the miners who ate the rolled snacks and the rolled paper dynamite stick the workers used to blast through rock, tacos de mineros evolved into tacos de canasta (prepared tacos steamed in baskets). From there we get to tacos de guisados. In northern Mexico and the border region, breakfast tacos are sometimes called tacos mañaneros and have the same components as breakfast tacos in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, and Austin. It’s from the Texas-Mexico borderland that we get our modern concept of breakfast tacos, and it’s from a San Antonio food tour where we get the first newspaper mention of breakfast taco, according to Gustavo Arellano. Austin merely repackaged the food to maximize its cultural cachet and sold it to the hungry masses to consume the next Austin cool thing.

They couldn’t have chosen a shoddier foundation.

Tacos are composed of three elements: the salsa, the filling, and most importantly, the tortilla. Without a great tortilla, there is no great taco. El Milagro, an East Austin tortilleria, produces the flour tortilla most commonly used for Austin breakfast tacos. The finished product is a gummy, quick-to-cool, supermarket-grade disc used by restaurants both iconic (Torchy’s Tacos and Tacodeli) and small (Tyson’s Tacos and Pueblo Viejo). Their use fulfills the city’s obsession with all things “local.” Unfortunately, Austin’s El Milagro isn’t local. The factory is part of a national operation established in 1950 in Chicago with outposts in Illinois and Georgia. To say El Milagro is Austin local is to say Chili’s is Dallas local.

Not only is its prevalent tortilla a poor one, Austin lacks the taco diversity of Dallas or Houston. The latter two metro areas boast a Mexican immigrant population from across Mexico evident in the range of regional cuisines available. Austin is struggling to move beyond Tex-Mex and tacos of the pork, beef, or chicken variety. It’s generic at best. Even for all its influence and its incredible strides in dining, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley remain in much the same condition. Still, down there, handmade corn tortillas are a source of pride. It’s almost unfathomable to provide a tortilla made elsewhere.

If Austin doesn’t have the state’s best tacos, what city does? Dallas. (There is a case to be made that Houston trumps Austin too, but more on that later.) The answer surely draws snickers and rolled eyes from those in the Austin camp. Dallas is big hair, big money, big steaks, and big attitude, right? Not when it comes to tacos. Here, a handmade corn or flour tortilla is crucial. The dining public wants to know what they’re eating is fresh, and restaurateurs believe when it comes to tortillas they either go local or don’t bother.

This standard is set by restaurants such as Revolver Taco Lounge serving seconds-old tortillas and businesses sourcing nixtamalized masa or tortillas from Araiza Tortilla Factory in West Dallas, including Taco Stop, El Tizoncito, Urban Taco, and Tacos Mariachi. At the latter restaurant, Dallas’ only Tijuana-style taqueria, octopus and huitlacoche come on corn tortillas that leave behind the aroma of a cornfield on your fingers.

Even the Anglo-owned Resident Taqueria handles their default flour tortillas in-house. That cauliflower taco sprinkled with crunchy pepitas—the taco that converts haters—it has a loose, bantam base like a beloved down comforter. Corn tortillas made from nixtamalized masa are available by request and then only if the kitchen hasn’t depleted supply of masa.

When Tacodeli announced the first location outside of Austin would be in Dallas, I immediately reached out to them, recommending La Norteña Tortillas, a small concern specializing in handmade northern Mexican flour tortillas three miles from the restaurant’s location. It’s the tortilla they use now. Nearly translucent in spots, with a sweet, rich chew, it is the perfect wrap for the unassuming Otto taco, with refried black beans, bacon, and avocado combining to deliver not only sustenance but also comfort that eases you into the day.

Say what you will about Velvet Taco, but at least that restaurant—with locations in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Chicago—makes its tortillas in-house. The specialty taco spot even offers a corn tortilla made with a hibiscus flour adjunct, taking inspiration from Mexico’s mixed tortillas tradition, where nopales or huitlacoche are added to the masa.

And what of the case for Houston? The Bayou City, like it’s sister-rival to the north, has a large Monterreyan bolstered by a diverse Mexican immigrant population and an array of Mexican regional foods ready for the scarfing. However, Houston’s taco tradition is founded on taco trucks, flea markets, and Tex-Mex palaces. Still, handmade tortillas are treasured there. Laredo Taqueria #4 is just one example. There, as you lineup to order your tacos, a woman can be seen preparing masa for flour tortilla. She is focused on that one task, and you are focused on ordering only flour tortillas.

There is no such significant movement toward such a seriousness regarding tortillas in Austin.

Change might be on the horizon, though. Later this year, Luis Perez will open an Austin outpost of his superb La Norteña Tortilleria. Based in Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood, La Norteña supplies many of the northern Mexican-style restaurants and taquerias with in the area. They are sweet, sturdy and translucent in spots, all the better to see the divinity in the tortillas. The factory’s shop is open to the kitchen where three woman make 1,000 tortillas per hour. A chalkboard menu lists the few foods available to-go.

Add to La Norteña’s impending expansion, the high profile of Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ food trailer and mobile hermanita Violet Taco, with their thick, squishy flour tortillas, a style common in San Antonio. More is required. Once the Capital City improves its tortilla options and non-Texans get their eyes and taste buds treated to the joys of the Lone Star State’s true tortillas, a new hope might be born.

* An earlier version of this post appeared on Thrillist on December 17, 2015.