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Tradicion Puts The “X” in Mex!
By Anthony Lowenberg and Michael Anderson
Over here at the Law Reviewers’ home office – which is actually not really an office, but an old DFW airport monorail AirTrans car that was taken out of service in 1989 and is now on cinderblocks in a lot behind a warehouse off of Industrial Boulevard, no, the other warehouse – we’re always thinking. “What new and unique restaurant has opened recently?” “What category of food have we not reviewed in a while?” “Does this milk smell spoiled to you?” “Who cares?” “Where is the nearest emergency room?!?”
The only other thing we’ve wondered about lately is why aren’t there more places serving authentic Mexican cuisine around town? Dallas is saturated with good-but-greasy traditional Tex-Mex joints (pun intended). But what if your last remaining open artery is screaming for enchiladas that aren’t going to send you to Medical City (“The Happiest Place on Earth.”)? If you don’t want the three hour adventure that is Ciudad or the teenage hangout that is Taco Diner, we give you Tradicion. According to some guy at some place, it’s the brainchild of the owner of Avila’s on Maple Avenue, which is one of Dallas’ greatest gems that you should never go to when we go so as to create a wait for a table. In fact, forget what we just wrote.
Hey, we’re regular folk; just like you, we put our pants on two legs at a time, too. But sometimes we like things a little more exciting. A little more exceptional. A little more extraterrestrial… okay, maybe not so much. Tradicion delivers. On our recent lunch visit, Tradicion’s lunch menu was filled with Tex-Mex staples such as enchiladas and tacos. Next to the staples were more unusual (but getting usual-er) dishes like ceviche and other traditional Mexican dishes like sopes – basically, mini-Mexican pizzas made from corn meal dough (and if you call them gorditas, we’ll throw a Chihuahua at you!). We went a little overboard on the appetizers and ordered three types of ceviche, as well as guacamole. The guacamole was excellent, if not distinguished. The ceviche was very good – not quite on par with the sophisticated ceviche dishes at Stephan Pyles – but they’re good enough to satisfy a craving and fit into a budget (OK, so we forgot to write down prices and there’s no menu online yet – more on the cost below). We also tried one of the aforementioned sopes filled with pork, lettuce and crema (cream), which, although small, made for a tasty and nicely textured little snack.
For entrees, the soft taco plates were excellent. The chicken tacos were filled with shredded, marinated chicken and came with greaseless pinto beans and rice. The brisket in the brisket tacos was tender and had a gentle smokey flavor that left us wishing more than two came in an order. Fortunately, we save our wishes for more important things like hoping Britney and K-Fed will patch things up. The taco plates were also served with sides of fresh onions, cilantro and jalape?os. The pork guiso (or pork stewed in tomatillo sauce), on the other hand, was a little too chewy and the sauce didn’t infuse the meat with its flavors the way other guisos we’ve tried at places around town have. We had the flan for dessert, which was solid with a nice vanilla flavor and creamy texture. The bill for three people, with four appetizers, three entrees, a couple of sodas and a dessert came to $20 per person, including tip. We could have easily gotten away with $10 per person if we weren’t such gluttons.
We’re not going to lie to you – after all, we’re lawyers (natch): we hope Tradicion succeeds. The building Mr. Avila chose is apparently cursed by the ghost of failed restaurants past who, instead of jangling chains and showing you visions of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, rattle you with visions of past restaurant failures like Standard and Temptations (both Law Reviewers features, uh-oh!). The building most recently housed Fusion, which apparently fused the best elements of bad service and bland, overpriced sushi; not to be confused with Law Reviewer-favorite Fuse, which combines Tex-Asian cuisine in an urban setting with dog biscuits in place of the welcome mints. The staff at Tradicion was eager to please, and we would have liked to have seen more than three tables occupied during the lunch hour on a Friday. The bar in the corner, which now serves ceviche instead of sushi, had us hoping that someday it would host people waiting for a table on some Saturday night (we haven’t been for dinner yet, but we’re worried it looks like the lunch scene). We don’t like to make threats, but if you don’t go to Tradicion and tell your friends and relatives about it, we’ll use this space to publish that you are responsible for the tainted wheat gluten infesting our nation’s pet food. Yes, you. As Nancy Grace would say, prove to me you’re not guilty!
So, on our highly contagious, rapidly declining five-gavel scale, where one gavel is a series of painful injections with a large-gauge needle and five gavels is a handful of Flintstone’s chewable vitamins, we give Tradicion four gavels, or a swig of Nyquil and a beer (to take the edge off). Vamanos a Tradicion y viva la revolution! (por favor?)
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