Benny’s Tacos

iAye, que rico! I started the day, a SUNDAY mind you, as A MENUDO VIRGIN and ended the day wondering what happened there on South Congress, not far from that wild Expose strip club. We ordered our breakfast tacos and waited in the cool shade, warming our hands over hot coals on a small grill while Jose cooked up our «made to order» ingredients and fresh tortillas on a griddle… tasting very much like something your Mexican mama would make at home if you were Mexican and if your mama’s name was «Jose».
He gave us some of his special menudo while we were waiting. When my friend told me that menudo was not a boy band, but instead stomach lining, I started to think that the boy band misunderstanding was more appetizing. Let me be clear about my innuendo here, I had a moment of thinking I would far prefer eat a boy band than eat the stomach lining from a cow. But, what do I know about any of this anyway? A friend in Seattle suggested that I try eating Ricky Martin’s stomach lining, but I think he was actually making some lewd oral joke that I completely did not understand… thanks for that powerful and appetizing imagery, DFENS.
When I looked at the actual stomach lining, I felt a little sick because it had this strange honeycomb design on it and my mind started to think about the honeycombs digesting food in the cow, and then being in my mouth, and then my stomach digesting the cow’s stomach. It is a similar feeling that I have gotten in the past when I have eaten tongue… For the record, the actual stomach lining (tripe) is white and soft and has a tender, chewy texture.
My friends, one of whom IS Mexican and whose sweet mother DID make her menudo, assured me that neither of them had eaten menudo this good in 20 years. If you are a menudo connoisseur, TAKE NOTE, Jose buys the best tripe which is from the second stomach chamber and is known as «honeycomb tripe» because of this honeycomb texture. It is the most tender and subtly flavored.
Jose buys his meat from the Mexican butcher at La Moreliana #1… he gets «menudo blanco», or white menudo, saying it has less fat and then he takes it home and slims it down even more so you are not left with a greasy, oily soup, but instead a tasty, hearty meal made with hominy and enough green chilies to carry some snap. He said the guys from the butcher shop even drop by when he sells his special menudo on the weekends. Six dollah for a 32 ounce container.
He also sells brisket sandwiches on Sunday. After sampling the melty breakapart meat — juicy, smoky, tender and tasty — for $ 3.50 per sandwich, we wished he had not already started making our breakfast tacos. You can buy breakfast tacos anytime, but you can get the menudo only on the weekend and HIS brisket only on Sundays… so, BIG TIP… visit him on SUNDAY.
Jose’s menudo recipe was a gift from his wife’s grandmother. I drank the remaining liquid, not wanting to waste a drop of the spicy broth and secret seasonings. While it is now considered a Mexican specialty dish, it has not always been so well-​received. Menudo is a nod to a time when the campesinos wasted nothing and created the most delicious meals from the offal — entrails and internal organs — that the hacienda owners rejected. It is reported to be a surefire cure for a hangover.
I would rate the breakfast tacos 4 stars, but the menudo and the brisket are specialty items prepared in special ways and definitely rate 5 stars, particularly for a taco truck locale in which Jose has taken every extra effort to have his soup and brisket sandwich be far superior to offerings at many other taco trucks.
If you have not yet tried the Mexican «Breakfast of Champions», sprint on over to get some of the best menudo in Austin… as far as I know.