Audio By Carbonatix
Turquoise rings for sale in the restaurant count: 20 Free Three Wise Men bilingual storybook given to me on my way out count: 1 Driving back from Austin on Interstate 35, I saw a billboard that said, “Nueva Casita. Best Tex-Mex in Dallas.” I was like, “Damn Nueva Casita—that’s a bold statement.” And Nueva Casita was like, “It’s what I do. To quote a friend of mine, Does Advertising Work? Just Did.” I had to check this place out. It’s behind the Half Price Books over there by Henk’s. And I love the wienerfest that is Henk’s, so we’re starting off pretty good here. Nueva Casita is a modest little place. Looks like a Mexican restaurant’s supposed to look inside, with its multicolored walls, tables that they obviously stole from a Chili’s and wall mirrors galore. The hostess was super-friendly, and the menu was extensive. I saw a special on the board called chicken enchilada “soup.” And since I’m a sucker for lunch specials that have quotation marks around them, I ordered it. (What do the quotation marks mean? Is the soup fake? Or are the enchiladas just really runny? Or is this just a really honest description of what their chicken enchilada dish will do to your poops?) I ordered a pork tamale à la carte, too.
We’re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to you. If the Dallas Observer matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there. The tamale came out about three seconds later, and if the waiter hadn’t said, “Here’s your tamale,” when he put the plate in front of me, I would have thought he was just serving me a plate o’ meat sauce. Luckily, I like me some meat sauce, and I also like digging for buried treasure on occasion, so forking around for my tamale in the meat lagoon was fun. Unfortunately when I did find the tamale, taste-wise, I couldn’t say what it was like. I dunno—I think somehow the meat sauce overpowered it. Another three seconds later, my “soup” showed up. Instantly I realized that the quotation marks meant, “This soup is watered-down queso sprinkled with some leftover chicken chunks.It’s gross. You hate it.” I attempted to extinguish the disaster in my mouth with the rest of my water (which never got refilled) and then waited for my check for a whole hour. It was the first time I’d ever taken a long lunch to go eat Mexican food. And it will also be the last time. Nueva Casita was charming, but for me the food was the unbestest Tex-Mex in Dallas.
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