Taquerias are excellent at hiding. They’re often tucked away in ignored neighborhoods; they’re easily missed from your car or just outside of your peripheral vision. Azteca Taco House in Aldine, in unincorporated Harris County, along Houston’s northern border, is just as concealed, but that hasn’t stopped it from drawing long lines for its variety of guisados.
I’ve visited five-year-old Azteca Taco House four times during the past year. The first time was a fluke, as the taqueria wasn’t on my trip’s itinerary. It was just a building that caught my eye while I was looking out the passenger window of my friend’s car. “Turn around,” I told him. “We need to go there.” I had a great feeling about the taqueria, which is set in a house on a gravel parking lot with iron bars masking its patio.
As we entered the space, with papel picado hanging from the porch ceiling, we found many customers waiting to approach nearly twenty metal vessels holding guisados protected by a sneeze guard. In the containers were threads of chicken wrapped in mole; costillas (ribs) soaked in salsa verde; ground beef picadillo studded with carrots, peas, and potatoes; sauce-enveloped puerco asado; fat tangles of chicharrones in salsas verde and roja; and glistening clumps of beef cheek barbacoa. The rustic decorations—pastoral paintings, fake flowers tucked into corners, and hanging punched metal stars—gave Azteca Taco House an aura of an elder’s dining room.
Women pressed corn and flour tortillas in a rear corner. The employee preparing the flour tortillas grabbed handfuls of dough from a mound that never seemed to shrink. She rolled the dough into a ball and pressed it into thin but sturdy tortillas, then gingerly laid it on the hot flattop until it puffed and flipped it to finish. “We go through six hundred flour tortillas and six hundred corn tortillas per day, but on weekends I lose count,” says co-owner Charlie Gallegos.
Flour tortillas hold up best against the generous servings of guisados. Ask for a swipe of refried beans and a ladle of yellow rice for further fortification. But do so quickly, as the staff has little patience if you hold up the line of hungry tradesmen and families. During one visit, a gentleman asked in Spanish if there were any breakfast. He meant dishes like huevos rancheros or chilaquiles. Then someone replied, “This is breakfast.” Indeed, guisados are popular breakfast taco options in Mexico, and Azteca Taco House isn’t messing around with them.
“These are the guisados of my mother, Maria Estele Elizalde,” Gallego said. “Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to change any recipes.” And for good reason—the food is damn near perfect. The one quibble I have is that on occasion, the corn tortillas strain under heavier fillings such as chile relleno, smoky chicken tinga, and chopped pork ribs.
During my conversation with Gallegos, the flow of customers moved at a constant, organized pace, as if following an invisible but important protocol. I asked him how the lines at Azteca Taco House are always so long even though the building blends in with its surroundings. I was surprised to learn that he’s never even paid to advertise. “They just come,” Gallegos said. Fans learn about his business entirely through word of mouth. “We’re still surprised by the number of customers,” he added. His brothers occasionally urge him to keep up with Azteca’s Facebook page, but he shrugs it off. The page hasn’t been updated since February of last year.
When Azteca Taco House opened, in 2019, Gallegos, his parents, and his siblings—originally from the central Mexican city of León, in Guanajuato—had lived in Houston since 2000. Their plan was to stay with extended family in Houston for just one year, but soon the family was operating several businesses in the area, including event photography, social halls, and a catering operation. A restaurant was the next natural step, Gallegos said.
“We looked around [at other area restaurants] and didn’t want to serve fajitas,” he said. “We wanted to serve something one hundred percent Mexican, with the flavors of home and childhood.” Azteca opened with three tables, and now the restaurant stretches from an expanded front room through a loteria card–tiled archway to another bigger room. Tables fill up quickly under the direction of the employee who takes your plated order from the cash register to a table. You carry your own drinks. It’s all a part of the system that gets you eating these delicious guisado tacos as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Azteca Taco House
3801 Hopper Road, Suite B, Houston
Phone: 832-486-9775
Hours: Mon–Fri 5–3, Sat–Sun 5–4
