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Taco Tuesday: Mi Trailita on Manor Road

Matthew Odam
modam@statesman.com

One of many reasons I still love changing Austin: I can still easily discover a great taco truck that’s been hiding in plain sight for years. Mi Trailita is located on the part of Manor Road just north of 51st Street that serves more as a getting-to-somewhere road or shortcut than a destination for me. This trailer changes that.

The truck operated since 2011 by David Salina and his mother, Maria, a native of Guerrero, serves a slew of tacos for right around $2, which makes them some of the best values in town.

The Salinas use two types of soda in preparing their carnitas ($1.85), which are a jumble of fat and crunch. Get those on flour tortillas cooked in the trailer from pre-made dough. The tortillas are puffed and pliant with bubbles marks from the grill. The lunch tacos, like the sunburn glow of pastor ($1.85), come on tortillas slightly larger than the small and lithe flour tortillas used for breakfast tacos like a migas ($1.85) full of toasty eggs, tortilla chip crunch and a generous shower of cheese. The corn tortillas, which find a balance of sweetness and earth, are made by hand in the trailer.

I think my favorite tacos were the beef versions. The barbacoa blended fibrous cheek meat with the preparation’s trademark unctuousness ($2.18), and was as good as any I have had in town; and the nibs of salty and juicy fajita meat ($2.18) bristled with caramelized sweetness at the edges. In addition to the tacos, you can also order quesadillas, which Mi Trailita makes by cooking the cheese on the grill for a toasty crackling finish that is smoothed our by hunks of avocado.

I’m sure over the years I have naively driven by the trailer in Northeast Austin and just not recognized it. That won’t happen again.

Mi Trailita. 5301 Manor Road.  512-497-9877, Facebook.com/TaqueriaMiTrailita

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The menu at Mi Trailita. (Matthew Odam AMERICAN-STATESMAN)

Mi Trailita is located in the parking lot of the Ston -N- Express Food Mart and Gulf gas station. (Matthew Odam AMERICAN-STATESMAN)