Don't Mess With Tex-Mex

Adair's head chef, Roberto Ozeata, is a Guatemalan who used to work at Carrabba's Italian Grill. Some of the changes he has brought to Los Tios, like the mesquite grill now used to cook the fajitas, are improvements. His roasted poblano sauce, which is served with the grilled fish and as a base for a roasted poblano salad dressing, is another nice addition. But some of Ozeata's innovations -- the grilled chicken salad with pepperoncini peppers and raspberry roasted chipotle dressing -- seem out of place at Los Tios.

As co-author of the cookbook Nuevo Tex-Mex, which included such innovations as shark-BLT tacos and black beans made with prosciutto, I realize I'm throwing stones out the window of my own glass house, but I think it's possible to modernize Tex-Mex without abandoning the genre. Too much of Ozeata's food, including the chicken salad and chef's specials, seem like dishes from a completely different cuisine. And without a taste memory of old-fashioned Tex-Mex, I suspect Ozeata has no way to know what people expect from classics like chile con queso.

I ordered Los Tios's "lunchie fajita plate" and "lunchie margarita" one recent afternoon-a-roonie. According to Rosemary Garbett, Los Tios was the first Tex-Mex chain in Houston to serve frozen margaritas. They have never lost the knack. The frozen tequila cocktails here are tart and pale green with lots of lime juice. The slush is the perfect consistency--soft enough to flow through a straw, thick enough to stand above the rim of the glass. The lunchie marg is about half the size of the regular, so you can drink one and get back to the office without stumbling.

The small order of rectangular beef strips grilled over mesquite and served with guacamole and refried beans was excellent. The beef was full-flavored, firm and a little chewy, not steamed into mush like much of what passes for fajita meat in this city. You can't go wrong with the new, improved fajitas at Los Tios.

My biggest disappointment from the old-fashioned Tex-Mex part of the menu is the puffy taco. When you pick one up and bite into it, the crispy tortilla explodes in your hands and the taco shrapnel cascades onto your plate. If you have eaten these at places like Henry's Puffy Tacos in San Antonio, you realize what a gigantic opportunity Los Tios is missing.

Frying a freshly formed disc of masa, a tortilla that has been pressed but not yet baked, yields a wonderfully bubbly puffy taco shell that is both crispy and pliant. Before the invention of the pre-formed taco shell, these puffy tacos were common in Texas. They have been making a comeback in San Antonio and Austin. Nobody in Houston is serving anything like them, except for the bad examples at Los Tios.

What's good at Los Tios are the tart frozen margaritas, the parfait glass full of fresh fish and shrimp ceviche, and traditional Tex-Mex combination plates like the Acapulco Dinner (beef taco, guacamole, queso over a crispy shell, cheese enchilada, tamale, chili gravy, rice and beans).

I have had quite a few of these combination plates, but the details run together. Beneath the dense covering of chili gravy and cheese, I can barely remember where the tamales left off and the enchiladas began. I do recall that Los Tios's chili gravy is dotted with the tiniest pieces of meat imaginable, barely bigger than flecks of black pepper, and that the cheese is American, not cheddar. I also recall a brilliant snowcap of fragrant grated onions on the crest of the enchilada summit. The rest is a delightful blur of brown chili gravy and melted yellow cheese scooped up with warm tortillas and washed down with an icy green alcoholic slush.