I recently visited Austin, Texas, for the first time and was thrilled with the amount of tacos available — birria tacos, breakfast tacos, barbacoa tacos, carnitas tacos, tacos al pastor, discada tacos cooked in a tractor plow disc, and many more. A Yelp search for “tacos near me” yielded more results than I could eat in three days. I had my fill of regular chicken, beef, and veggie street tacos, but I’m a sucker for bizarre reinterpretations, flavor mashups, unexpected ingredients, and visually striking presentations. I got suggestions from reviewers, bloggers, and local foodies for some wildly creative tacos in Austin, and I sampled as many as I could while I was there, but I just didn’t get to them all. So for some of them, I had to take their word for it.
So while you’ll want to stop at every taco truck in Austin — and you really should eat as many as possible while you’re there — I suggest saving some room for the tacos you can only find in Austin. These 14 unique tacos will open up a whole new world of possibilities for what you can serve in a tortilla.
Duck Carnitas Taco at Nixta Taqueria
Nixta Taqueria’s award-winning Chef Edgar Rico fills his authentic corn tortillas with some unusual ingredients, such as citrus-cured tuna, smoked carrots, and beet “tartare.” But the unique, meaty treat that lures taco-lovers into his Austin restaurant is a new spin on carnitas: duck carnitas tacos.
Carnitas are usually made with pork braised low and slow in lard or broth. Chef Rico’s unique carnitas feature duck meat, which is cooked for 12 hours in a mixture of duck fat, Mexican Coke, oranges, evaporated milk, chiles, and aromatics. It’s no wonder Chef Rico has earned awards from James Beard, Michelin, Food & Wine, and Time Magazine…