These are tacos dorados (as the term is used here):
Tthey are also what some may call flautas, in a tubular shape. The terminology varies.
But, yes, around here I don’t typically see people getting fried tacos. Most places, in my experience, do not offer them. You have to know where to go to get them. That said, I’ve never tried asking if they could make my taco fried. I’d bet many places would be able to do so.
I’ve encountered both the pre-made style tacos shells homemade taco shells at Mexican restaurants. It’s the latter that I consider more Americanized. Their cheese dip seems to be more like Velveeta, and they use bagged chips.
The premade shells, however, are always better if you cook them, as the boxes say to do. And, like I said, adding the meat (and cheese if you have any) to them before baking them makes the bottom soft, like Taco Bell tacos. It’s usually much easier to keep them from falling apart that way.
Hell, I started getting the hard shell tacos at Taco Bell because they were often quite soft–softer than the one’s my mom made, even. If you really want them soft, just don’t eat them right away.
You can also put & melt a slice of American cheese or whatnot in the shell to help keep them from breaking apart.
Now that I would say sounds very Americanized!
I agree that flautas are similar, but they appear as a separate item.
What is the typical menu size in Chicago Mexican places? It’s typically huge here, with numerous a la carte items, combo plates, specialty plates, and so on. Not to mention the wide variety in meats, beans, and even tortilla. So it’s no surprise that deep fried shells would be just another option.
Depends where you’re at. There’s a lot of variation as many restaurants will have their specialities/regional items and not a generalized menu (like there will be places who concentrate on birria, or tortas ahogadas, or posole, or carne en su jugo, or carnitas, or seafood, or cemitas, etc. They’ll have some other items on the menu, but they won’t go too crazy.) But for a more general places? A menu maybe of this size:
Two big thumbs up. One that really grinds my gears is people who assume that flour tortillas are some sort of gringofied, Wonderbread version of corn – which they assume is the only “authentic” tortilla. Only they’ve been growing wheat (and making tortillas with it) in northern Mexico for centuries.
Fried tacos that I’m quite familiar with:
They are crispy without being fully crunchy and certainly don’t fall apart. They also do a really good job of keeping the filling in as you eat them, unless whoever prepared them put too much filling.
For what it’s worth, El Charro, a small chain (3 restaurants) in Tucson has been around since 1922. They have been offering “Charro style” beef tacos, half a hamburger with a corn tortilla folded around it, pan fried and garnished with peas, radishes, and cotija.
That’s brilliant. A burger cut in half is a perfect taco size and shape. I may steal that.
Oh absolutely. I was reading a wonderful article about it the other day here:
Taco dinner at friends house or at home.
Host (or wife): “How many shells do you want?”
Me: “Four, and do you have a bowl?”
Host: “Yes???” handing me a bowl.
Me: Crushes the shells into the bowl, adds meat, onions, peppers, salsa, sour cream, guac, etc…
Enjoys with a spoon of fork; no mess, no spill, no shortchanging ingredients in individual shells.
I dig that too. Basically a taco salad. And those are great.
I’ll also do that with tortilla chips. Delicious and no mess.
Man, that brings be back to about 1987. Haven’t had a taco salad in – well, probably since that era. They were lovely! I know I still see those taco shell bowls around, so somebody must still be making them.
Most Mexican restaurants I go to (fast food or sit-down) will have a variation of some kind.
How about Frito pie? Another gift of Texas, in it’s simplest form, a small bag of Fritos slit down the middle with canned chili ladled on top. The article talks about some combination of cheese, sour cream, and onion but almost all of the ones I’ve had were bare, and despite the last sentence, “Of course, really any chili you prefer can be slathered on a bed of Fritos; just make sure it doesn’t have beans in it, or a band of angry Texans may come for you with pitchforks,” with beans.
Around here, it’s not typical, at least the local places I go to. I might see nopales (cactus) salad, shrimp or octopus, chicken. I’m looking through a few menus of the places in my neighborhood, and nobody seems to have the plain old taco salad, but this could simply be because it’s a first-generation Hispanic neighborhood, and not Tex-Mex or Cali-Mex. The closest for that effect might be tostadas, which are plentiful.
If you’re ever in the DC area, look for one of these:
Taco salad is uncommon in Mexico. Nobody there thinks it is messy to eat a taco. If you get a sub, or a breakfast sandwich with a biscuit, bacon, egg and cheese you could dump it in a bowl and eat it. But it would be harder for some people to eat or carry than if you didn’t.
This is not a knock on delicious taco salads, nachos or anything similar. It’s just a statement of fact.
Pssst, check out Post #39! The best location is out at Denio’s, or was. I bet it’s still going though!
Soaks up the grease, and it’s a surprisingly effective method!