Berryhill Baja Grill

Houston taqueria stakes a claim in Austin

By Dale Rice
American-Statesman Restaurant Critic
June 3, 2004

For more than 30 years, Walter Berryhill sold tamales on the streets of Houston. Eventually, five years after he retired in 1960, he sold the recipe.

It was nearly another 30 years before that recipe got put to use, with the founding in 1993 of Berryhill Tamales and Tacos, a taqueria on Revere Street in Houston.

Immensely popular, Berryhill Baja Grills have spread to several locations, including the latest in Austin on Capital of Texas Highway near the Lake Austin bridge.

Interestingly, though, it's not the tamales that will propel me back; they were too heavy on the masa for my taste.

The Baja tacos especially are worth a repeat visit. The grilled fish taco ($3.99) was filled with moist fish, Dijon sauce, pico de gallo and baby greens in flour tortillas, while the grilled beef taco ($3.99) featured tender, seasoned fajita meat with pico de gallo and guacamole.

The tempura fried chimichanga ($4.89) was made with a white corn tortilla filled with chopped shrimp and topped with red cabbage, cilantro and sauce.

A spicy, unusual item, the corn enchilada ($3.19) was stuffed with corn, cream cheese, Anaheim chile and red onion and was topped with tomatillo sauce and melted cheese.

The tres leches cake ($3.99), a large square of moist, coarse-crumb cake topped with a thin layer of cream-cheese frosting, was a good, not-too-sweet version of the popular dessert made with three kinds of dairy products.

While we might not want to import some other aspects of Houston (like the traffic and the humidity), Berryhill proves good things do flow northwest from the coast.