{"id":390142,"date":"2026-07-29T04:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/390142\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T04:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:29:14","slug":"first-look-tacolada-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/390142\/","title":{"rendered":"First Look: Tacolada \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The eternal debate never ends over which Mexican American cuisine is superior: Tex-Mex or Californian. Tacolada<\/a>, located at 9828 Great Hills Trail in the Arboretum, states its case by bringing San Diego\u2019s unique take on Mexican food to Austin with burritos, carne asada fries, and rolled tacos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Originally from Holland, Tacolada owner Tony Farmand moved to America more than 20 years ago and fell in love with SD upon arrival. He rose to prominence as a partner at new-school Mediterranean chain the Kebab Shop<\/a>, then moved to Austin in 2019 to help the business expand outside of California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI got out of day-to-day operations at Kebab Shop a few years ago and thought I was gonna chill for a little bit, but my passion is food,\u201d he says. The business owner opened family-friendly Steiner Ranch locale Farmand\u2019s Kitchen & Bar<\/a> before launching Tacolada as an ode to the first American city he called home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing like San Diego,\u201d he muses. \u201cI mean, look, we have great tacos here [in Austin] \u2026 but the San Diego, SoCal-style Mexican, you can\u2019t compare it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, the restaurant\u2019s Baja shrimp burrito and classic California burrito, which comes with carne asada and french fries inside, are highlights. Both are made with housemade tortillas, and you can even combine the two protein sources for a surf-and-turf burrito special, another common San Diego treat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of Tacolada\u2019s main features is its salsa bar. The All-Day Verde is a mild yet flavor-packed punch, and the Honey Habanero sauce ranks as the spiciest (and it\u2019s definitely a doozy). In between those spice levels is the Tacolada Salsa, the house red that you definitely need to put on the carne asada fries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similar to Texas flautas, the rolled tacos feature deep-fried corn tortillas garnished with guacamole, pico de gallo, pickled onions, and crema. While the menu currently only offers a chicken option, Farmand swears Tacolada will soon sell the traditional San Diego beef rolled tacos that SoCal transplants have been clamoring for.<\/p>\n

Like the Kebab Shop\u2019s heavy Austin presence \u2013 there\u2019s a location minutes away from Tacolada in the Arboretum \u2013 Farmand is quickly seeing a future where he will have five to 10 locations of his new business in Central Texas. A second outpost is already in the works. For the restaurant magnate, competing with Tex-Mex isn\u2019t enough; eventually, he\u2019d like to see how Tacolada stands up against his buddies back home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to grow the brand in Austin first because I\u2019m here and I want to make sure we do it right,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cThen after that, this concept could do well anywhere in the nation. Even in San Diego. I think I could go back and compete with them there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The eternal debate never ends over which Mexican American cuisine is superior: Tex-Mex or Californian. Tacolada, located at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1551,137463,137464],"class_list":["post-390142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-feature","tag-tacolada","tag-tony-farmand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}