Back in the early ’90s, the best thing at Mia’s Tex-Mex wasn’t on the menu. You had to know to ask for it, you had to come on a Wednesday, and you had to get there before it ran out.
Today it has a name, Butch’s Original Brisket Tacos, and it’s the dish Mia’s is known for all over Dallas.
Butch and Ana Enriquez opened Mia’s in 1981. Ana was Mama Mia to her friends, and after a while that meant most of the dining room. The first restaurant was a small strip-center spot on Lemmon with only a dozen or so tables.
About ten years in, Butch started making brisket tacos. As the family tells it, they began as an off-menu special, only on Wednesdays and only until the brisket was gone. Word got around the old-fashioned way. People started lining up for them, and more than one table waited through lunch only to hear the tacos had sold out.
Eventually the Wednesday special turned into an almost-every-day dish. For years that meant every day but Monday. The restaurant was closed Sundays, and Mama Mia would not let Butch go in to work on a Sunday, brisket or no brisket.
Here’s what lands on the table. Tender brisket goes into a tortilla with Monterey Jack, grilled onions and strips of poblano. An order is two tacos with rice and beans, on flour or corn tortillas, your call. Then there’s the side cup of brisket gravy that regulars talk about as much as the tacos themselves. Dip every bite. If you end up pouring the rest over the plate, you won’t be the first.
Butch has since passed, and Ana died in 2019. Their daughter, Mia Enriquez, now runs the restaurant that carries her name. Mia’s has moved twice over the years and never left Lemmon Avenue. The latest move came in 2020, a short hop up the street into the old BuzzBrews building at 4334 Lemmon Ave., now painted a yellow you can’t miss from the road.
Read the full menu and you’ll notice how many dishes have a first name. The chimichangas come as the Miachanga with shredded chicken, the Jessichanga with ground beef and the Lucychanga with fajita strips. There are Zakk’s Tacos, Tony’s Fish Tacos and Joe’s Shrimp Tacos, plus combination plates named for Irma, Felipe, Lola and Miguelito. The whole thing reads like a guest list.
If someone at the table wants something besides tacos, point them to Mama’s Ribeye con Hongos, a marinated ribeye cooked down with poblanos, mushrooms and onions. The bean soup, pintos with bacon, onion and tomato, is listed on the menu as famous. Tuesday nights bring the homemade beef chile rellenos, a weekly tradition. And the side-dish list includes Butch’s Sauce, one more place his name turns up.
For dessert, there are sopapillas, or grab a praline for the drive home.
Mia’s Tex-Mex is at 4334 Lemmon Ave. in Dallas. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday and Monday. The number is 214-526-1020.
First visit, get the brisket tacos. After that, the rellenos on a Tuesday are a good reason to come back.
