The cheese enchilada is the plate nobody brags about. Two corn tortillas, cheese, chili gravy. Nowhere to hide. You either have it or you don’t.
Tupinamba has it, and has had it longer than almost anybody in Dallas.
The cheese enchiladas come out on a plate hot enough that the cheese is still moving. The gravy is dark and beefy with none of the flat canned taste that ruins this dish all over town, and the tortillas hold instead of dissolving. That’s the test, and most kitchens fail it.
Froylan Dominguez fled the Mexican Revolution and reached Dallas in 1910 with his family’s recipes. He cooked at El Fenix and learned Tex-Mex from the people inventing it. His wife Consuelo waited tables at El Chico. Between them they’d worked inside both restaurants that wrote the rules for this food here, and then they opened their own in Oak Cliff.
Two dates float around. Their own site says 1953, and Eddie Dominguez told the Dallas Morning News the same. Older company materials say 1947. Either way, it’s the oldest family-owned Mexican restaurant in the city.
The name came from a restaurant in Mexico City that stood across from a bullfighting venue, itself named for the Tupinambá, an Indigenous people of eastern Brazil. A Dallas Tex-Mex room named for a Brazilian tribe by way of a bullring.
They’ve moved six times and have been on North Central Expressway about a decade. People still walk in and mention the old rooms.
The family says the nacho and the sour cream enchilada both came to Dallas here. Both have competing claimants and neither can be settled. What’s not in dispute is that the sour cream chicken enchiladas are the version everyone else is chasing — white sauce with no sharpness, chicken that was cooked rather than boiled.
Then the Tupy Taco. The shell is fried to order so it puffs, shatters when you bite it, and you’ll wear some of it. The recipe for that and for the chili con carne is what Froylan handed to Eddie, and Eddie to his son Jeff, who opened Tupy’s in Frisco in 2010.
Beyond that: enchiladas verdes, chicken fajitas, cheese tacos, a queso people order without looking. Weekday lunch specials come with tea, and there’s a brunch menu.
One detail explains the longevity. When Eddie was a kid the menu had grilled cheese and roast beef sandwiches, because that’s what Dallas ordered in the fifties. As the city changed, those came off and fajitas went on. El Fenix did the same with spaghetti and chicken fried steak. These places last by paying attention.
Closed Mondays. Open 11 to 9 Tuesday through Thursday, until 9:30 Friday and Saturday, 11 to 8:30 Sunday. Cheese enchiladas first, Tupy Taco second.
Tupinamba Cafe, 9665 N. Central Expy., Suite 142, Dallas. (972) 991-8148.
