Tag: chilaquiles

After many years, I am back on the hunt for amazing chilaquiles. If you are interested in chilaquiles, the Fois Gras Hot Dog blog has been tracking the dish in my absence.

Taqueria Guadalajara (formerly Taqueria Arandinas)

6534 Burnet Road (near Yard Bar, Bufalina Due, and Jewboy Subs)

Arandinas was suggested on Reddit as a great spot for chilaquiles, but by the time I actually got around to visiting, it was now Taqueria Guadalajara. I don’t know if it’s the same owners as the other Arandinas locations around town, so I may have to stop by one of those as well.

Overall, these were classic chilaquiles and I was very satisfied. If I compare them to my all time favorites at Los Altos, they are missing the sour cream and absolutely perfect cheese that Los Altos uses. The cheese at Guadalajara was not melted until I mixed it into my chilaquiles. However, Guadalajara gets extra points for having onions and green chiles in the salsa. The onions have enough tooth in them to provide additional texture, so that you feel like you are eating a composed dish and not just salsa and chips. Unlike some chilaquiles, this one feels like more than the sum of its parts.

Guadalajara allows you to choose from several options including roja or verde and different proteins. Just for fun, here’s a picture of the Migas Supremas.

Cheesecake Factory

10000 Research Blvd Suite 4602 (The Arboretum)

One of my friends was given $200 worth of gift cards to the Cheesecake Factory so she took us for her birthday. The Cheesecake Factory is the Texas of restaurants. Everything is much larger and ostentatious than it needs to be. The ceilings are huge, the booths are huge, and the drinks are huge. I apologize in advance that I don’t remember very much about these chilaquiles as a result.

They were better than you would think but as far as chilaquiles go… they were interesting. Most of the dish was an egg and carnitas scramble. This scramble sat in a soup of tomatillo salsa along with seven chips, so it didn’t quite meet the definition of chilaquiles. There was also no cheese, but I do love a big blog of sour cream. The combination would have been flavorful, if it had a bit more salt. Unfortunately the watery salsa gave it an unpleasant texture that could have been remedied with more chips.

Taco Joint

2809 San Jacinto Blvd (North Campus)

(Sorry, I didn’t get a photo! It was after going to the gym, so my brain was mush.)

Taco Joint is my favorite place in town to get tacos. Every single one of their salsas would be in the running for my top ten salsa list. Their pecan iced coffee is so good I always manage to shotgun it before I’m done eating instead of nursing it all day long to prevent over-caffeination. Their prices are unrealistically low. I love, love, love Taco Joint.

Their chilaquiles, however, are terrible. Sorry. They don’t use tortilla chips but instead use what appear to be fried wontons. Maybe they are made from their flour tortillas. I don’t recommend them, but maybe that’s a good thing. It means the struggle over what to order is slightly easier.

Lazarus Brewing

4803 Airport Blvd

Fois Gras Hot Dog ranked Lazarus as one of their top chilaquiles in the city, whereas I am ranking it much lower. It’s a matter of taste; I prefer a big sloppy plate of melty cheese and beans. Lazarus chilaquiles are in the “fancy chilaquiles” category. They have avocado and pickled red onion and black beans, all foods that I love independently. Unfortunately, the portion size is small, the cheese is unmelted, and the chilaquiles themselves are quite dry. Notice that you can’t even see salsa in this photo, as beautiful as the bowl is.

Current Rankings

1. Los Altos
2. Taqueria Guadalajara
3. Eldorado Cafe
4. El Tacorrido
5. Veracruz All Natural
6. Lazarus Brewing
7. Taco Joint
8. Cheesecake Factory

This is a post in my series ranking all of the chilaquiles in Austin. It is not a serious endeavor because they’re all good chilaquiles, Brent.

What are chilaquiles? They are a Mexican “use up all the leftovers” dish usually served for breakfast in Tex-Mex restaurants. Tortilla chips are cooked in salsa and topped with cheese and eggs. 

Los Altos

These are the chilaquiles that started it all for me. They weren’t the first I ever fell in love with, but they were so good they set me on the quest to see if there could possibly be any better in Austin. The salsa roja is just spicy enough and it douses the chips in just the right quantity. The refried beans are not a requirement of chilaquiles, but they are my favorite accompaniment. At Los Altos, they give you plenty of rich refried pintos. The whole plate is topped off with a large dollop of sour cream that provides the tartness needed to cut through the rich beans. What really earns these chilaquiles top rank, however, is the cheese. Los Altos uses a creamy Oaxacan that melts completely onto the chips. It’s chilaquiles perfection.

Eldorado Cafe

Eldorado Cafe veers slightly from traditional Tex-Mex in order to be a little more hip. Usually that solicits a side-eye, but here it really works. Like Los Altos, they have creamy melty cheese and sour cream. Their salsas here are amazing so whichever you choose for your chilaquiles will be delicious. You can pick your sides according to the menu, but I seem to remember them just giving me beans and potatoes without asking. That’s fine; I love beans! Usually I can do without breakfast potatoes, but these were “three potato hash,” with tiny bites of sweet potato and rajas mixed in. Every component on the plate shows attention to detail and flavor.

Veracruz All Natural

I had the chilaquiles at Veracruz’s brick-and-mortar location off of Research. Publications like Texas Monthly have called Veracruz  tacos “best of Austin,” so I was disappointed with the chilaquiles. They make their own corn tortillas and fry them for the chilaquiles, which actully works against them here. Chips made from tortilla tend to be than the chips that usually add the crunch to chilaquiles in restaurants. There were are also several inconsistencies and service errors that prevented us from fully enjoying our chilaquiles. We ordered two plates and one was drenched in salsa while the ther had barely enough to even distinguish the dish from a pile of chips. The eggs were cooked differently in each dish too, with one dish having eggs that were well overcooked. Maybe it was an off day; we were sharing a table with strangers because the restaurant was packed and our companions complained about their dishes too. As for sides, it came topped with steak and sides of beans and maduros. I LOVE maduros–sweet plantains–so my eyes turned heart-shaped when I saw them on the menu. The steak however… I don’t really eat meat, so I ordered the chilaquiles vegetarian but still had to pay the same price. When I finally got my plate after a long wait, sure enough, there it was.

El Tacorrido

Of all of the chilaquiles I’ve tried in Austin, these were the most fast food-like but I really enjoyed them Full disclosure: I was absolutely ravenous so my judgement was impaired by the sheer pleasure of eating. The chips were crunchy, and the beans were basic in a good way. With beans, you don’t need to get fancy. The potatoes were basic in what I would consider a bad way. They were potatoes, that’s the best that could be said for them. One unique element was the eggs. These were the only chilaquiles I’ve had in Austin where the egg was scrambled. This is the more traditional Mexican way, but given a choice, I always ask for my eggs fried or over easy. Maybe the traditional Mexican way is better though; the scrambled eggs interlace with the chips, giving a good proportion of each item per bite. The only cheese was cotija, though, which is my least favorite cheese. Overall, a solid offering.

Current ranking:

1. Los Altos
2. Eldorado Cafe
3. El Tacorrido
4. Veracruz All Natural