
The Appetizer


Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que
2404 Southmost Blvd. 956-546-4159
Barbecue pilgrims trek to Vera’s because it’s the last of its kind—the only restaurant in Texas where barbacoa is prepared in the traditional manner. They come to get a glimpse of Vera working the counter, where he does things the old-school way. And he’ll do so until the very end. “I’ll probably die here,” Vera says, chuckling. Other establishments that practiced the pit-cooking method have either gone out of business or shifted to cooking in large steamers or ovens in compliance with reformed health regulations. Nevertheless, barbacoa remains a way of life here, a vestige of South Texas’ cattle-ranching heyday, when Mexican ranch hands would cook discarded calf heads after a week’s hard labor. The prepared meat would then be taken home for family meals. Today, barbacoa is often eaten on Sundays. (Vera’s opens Friday through Sunday and only for breakfast and lunch.) Businesses like Vera’s see a rush ahead of and immediately after the day’s church services. The restaurant offers barbacoa in several cuts: lengua (cow tongue), cachete (beef cheek), paladar (palate), ojo (cow’s eye, which Vera calls “Mexican caviar”), surtida (general bits), and mixta (the beef-head meat after the other parts have been taken out). Go for the mixta.
Easy to Go Tacos #1
2344 Southmost Blvd. 956-542-4592
One of the oldest taquerias on Southmost is Easy to Go Tacos #1, located across the street from Vera’s. When Teodas Martinez and her son-in-law Cipriano Mejia opened Easy to Go in the 1970s, Southmost was little more than a road squeezed by shotgun houses and working-class bungalows. They saw a niche in the market that needed filling—there wasn’t a neighborhood taco spot yet. “Easy to Go Tacos was the first taco place on Southmost,” says co-owner Daniel Garces III. Garces’ mother, Maria, was a cook at Easy to Go and purchased the concept from the original owners in 1992. “In essence, it started the boom,” he adds. In the nearly 30 years since the Garces family took over the business, Easy to Go has expanded to six locations in Brownsville, Los Fresnos, and Harlingen. “Now, there is a lot of competition,” says Daniel’s father, Daniel Garces Jr. And yet, the restaurant endures. “Customers keep coming back because they claim they can’t find our unique flavor in other locations, no matter how hard they try,” the younger Garces says. That special flavor is evidenced in dishes like the flautas that come with a side of cueritos (pickled pig skin)—the snappy, sour brightness cuts through fierce salsa.The Garnishes
Almost all beef tacos come topped with a flurry of crumbled or grated white cheese and a wedge of soft avocado. “If you try to sell tacos without avocado and cheese, people are not going to buy them,” says Armando Vera of Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que. These garnishes are elemental to the borderlands. They are as characteristic of Brownsville as they are of Brownsville’s sister city, Matamoros, Mexico. Southmost is the center of the Venn diagram of what is considered typical of two countries.