Listen
In today’s episode of Tacos of Texas, we’re talking halal tacos. Yeah, you heard that right. We sit down with chef Jon Escamilla of Vecinos Tacos, the East Austin truck that went full halal and one of his most loyal regulars, Imad Ahmed, the customer who walked up one day and asked the question that changed the menu. We get into what halal actually means, why a Mexican taco truck would make the switch, and how a food truck became a gathering place for Austin’s Muslim community.
The full transcript of this episode of Tacos of Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Imad Ahmed [00:00:00] One thing I always wanted, so growing up I used to watch Cheers, if you remember, there was a bar where everyone knows your name. This idea of having a place close to you, a business close to you where you can go and get breakfast or lunch or whatnot or a snack and you know they know you and they’re part of your community and they know your regular order or whatnot always really appealed to me and I never had it.
Mando Rayo [00:00:25] What’s up, Taco World? I’m taco journalist, Mando Rayo, and welcome to the Tacos of Texas podcast, El Seis, produced by Identity Productions in partnership with KUT and KUTX Studios. And we’re back exploring taco culture in Texas through the eyes of the people in the Lone Star State. So grab a pita bread and halal, carne asada style, and get ready for some muy tasty taco conversations. In today’s episode of tacos of texas we’re talking halal tacos yeah you heard that right we’re sitting down with chef john escamilla of vecinos tacos the east austin taco truck that went full halal and one of his most loyal regulars imad ahmed the guy who walked up one and ask the question that changed the menu. We get into though what halal actually means, why a Mexican taco truck would make the switch, and how a food truck became a gathering place for Austin’s Muslim community. Que onda mi gente, Mando Rayo here, coming at you from Casita Rayo Granada. This season we’re inviting you into my little casita, that’s right, into my own home, a place where semillas and tacos grow. Look, I’ve been writing about tacos for a long time. Breakfast tacos, puffy tacos, birria, suadero, lengua, you name it. But every once in a while somebody hits me with a taco story that makes me go Hmm, things that make you go, hmm. Halal tacos. In East Austin, a taco truck called Vecinos, neighbors that is, that wasn’t halal. And then one day it was. Here’s the thing, most folks listening right now probably fall into two camps. Either you know exactly what halal means because it’s how you’ve eaten your whole life, or you’ve seen the word on a sign somewhere and kept walking. And today’s episode is for both of y’all. We always say that we listen to our customers, but do we really, do we? You sure about that? Well, in this episode, it’s about a story of a customer who asked, a chef who said yes, and what happens when your friendly neighborhood taco truck actually changes the menu to be neighborly. We’ll also get into the intersection of Muslim food and Mexican food. So let’s get into it with John and Imad. John Escamilla is the co-owner and chef behind Vecinos Tacos, a fully halal taco truck in East Austin. John and his partner Manuel Rodriguez grind their own meats in-house and make their own corn and flour tortillas from scratch, and somewhere along the way became the spot Austin’s Muslim community didn’t know it needed. Imad Ahmed is a member of the Austin’s muslim community and one of Vecino’s most avoided regulars. He’s the one who walked up to John and asked the question that changed the menu. And depending on who you ask, kicked off the whole halal taco movement at Vecinos. Okay, so John Imad, welcome to the show. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, you’re in my house. So you’re at Casita, what do you think?
Mando Rayo [00:04:01] I see that. What do you think?
Mando Rayo [00:04:04] Yeah, awesome. Well, okay, so let’s get started with you, Jon. Tell us a little bit about where you’re from and then how you started Vecinos. So I’m from South Texas.
Imad Ahmed [00:04:14] Corpus, originally, traveled a little bit due to my father being in the military, which led me to Colleen, where I met Mannyo, my business partner, and we kind of always cooked randomly, like together, separately, and one day we met at his mom’s restaurant and decided to open up a Cino’s. Nice. Nice. What’s the style? What can we get there? So it’s kind of like a blend of Manny’s from Met Galley, so it’s like a blend of South Texas, like Guisalos and stuff like that, which is like the Deshebrada, and then you got something like this California influence of the fresh salsas and the avocado and having all those California flavors, and we definitely wanted it. Our biggest thing coming to Austin was that nobody made their own tortillas, especially flour tortillas. Like anything north of San Antonio, you don’t get it.
Mando Rayo [00:05:07] It’s hard to find, it’s hard.
Imad Ahmed [00:05:09] There’s a few spots, but it is hard to find. There’s few spots. But just a nice, good food that has a great tortilla. And you’re from Corpus. I know you know of a good Flava Tortilla. It drove me crazy. That was a conversation. It drove us crazy. We got to do it. And once the business picked up, we realized why people buy tortillas instead of making them. We were dedicated to it.
Mando Rayo [00:05:31] That’s our thing. But you’re also bringing the kind of like that South Texas vibe, not only the tortillas, but puffy tacos too. Yeah.
Jon Escamilla [00:05:38] Yeah. So Puffy Tacos was originally like, I didn’t realize how big of a thing it was in San Antonio. Yeah, it’s a thing. It’s a, it’ a thing, but we got it from, well, at least our inspiration was more of like the Mexico City fraud quesadilla. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. And then we kind of merged it with the Puffy Taco and kind of made a blend of those two things. Um, and that’s where like Manny’s parents came in, like they’re, you know, his mom and all that, they came in and like changed our flavors and kind of did some things. We had that while I touch.
Mando Rayo [00:06:07] Yeah, yeah.
Jon Escamilla [00:06:07] On everything, so we recruit them. They don’t look like two abuelas to me. No, no, no. But we had the moms come in and the grandmas, and they’re like, all right, come tweak everything before we open. So definitely a lot of recipes from them that we got from everything.
Mando Rayo [00:06:25] Now, you might tell me a little bit about yourself, your community, and what drew you to Vecinos.
Imad Ahmed [00:06:31] Yeah, absolutely. So, Imad Ahmed, I’ve lived in Austin for 26 years. I was born and raised in West Virginia, a little brown hillbilly there. And I moved to East Austin about three years ago. And one thing I always wanted, so growing up I used to watch Cheers, if you remember, there was a bar where everyone knows your name. So this idea of having a place close to you, a business close to where you can go and get… Breakfast or lunch or whatnot or a snack and you know They know you and they’re part of your community and they know your regular order or whatnot always really appealed to me and I never had it and so it turns out that The owner of Zeds, which is the ice cream store where Vecino’s is located. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I know the owner there Okay he was talking about his plans to potentially get some food trucks there right by Zeds and that just got me very excited right of having a place where. You know, if I’m hungry late morning or whatnot, I can walk over, grab a breakfast taco or whatnot. So I was very eager to see this business open. And when it finally happened, I was just very excited. And I was probably one of the first customers that you guys had. Oh my God, that’s awesome. And went there and, you know, tried the food and, it was amazing. The one thing that really excited me was the homemade tortillas. Because the few places where I’ve had that, I’ve loved it. Being Pakistani, I grew up eating parathas, which are homemade flatbread. And so homemade flour tortillas can often taste like that, right? And I remember asking if they had lard in them, which is a very common thing in many parts of Mexico from what I’ve seen. And he said they did have lard. Pork lard, yeah. Pork lards, exactly, so I could eat them. I tried everything else. Not the fake lard? Yeah, yeah, yeah! Ha ha ha. I had the corn tortillas and I loved it, but it was a little bit disappointed inside that I couldn’t try these amazing tortillas, a lot of tortillas that others were eating. And so that’s kind of how it started and then it kind of evolved from there over the course of weeks, months.
Mando Rayo [00:08:44] So you started knocking on his door, hey, the trailer opened. I got an idea for you. How did that happen?
Imad Ahmed, [00:08:52] So I think I mentioned it, it was probably tongue in cheek. I’m like, this guy, you know, these guys are not gonna change the recipe for me, but like, it doesn’t hurt to mention it. And sure enough, I think a few weeks later, I remember going up to the food truck and I think it was John that was telling me, hey, we’ve been messing around with a few recipes without lard. And I think we’re gonna have some flour tortillas without lards. Now it’s just ecstatic. I couldn’t believe that these guys were even doing it. Bye. I couldn’t believe that it had anything to do with my requester right now, but it was amazing. And sure enough, when they finally came out with it and I got to try it, it was amazing. It was just like the parathas I used to have, nothing like the store-bought flour tortillas that you have at a lot of other places. I already enjoyed the food, but that’s when I kind of became hooked.
Mando Rayo [00:09:41] So is the customer always right?
Imad Ahmed [00:09:45] No, he’s not just a customer, right? Yeah, family now. Yeah, that’s cool. He knows you. Yeah, it was, I think it was a couple of weeks that we were messing around and, you know, that was part of the, the Abuela disagreement where they’re like, what do you mean? You’re taking a lot out of it.
Jon Escamilla [00:09:58] I don’t know.
Imad Ahmed [00:09:59] Trust me!
Mando Rayo [00:10:00] Oh man, that sounds like a telenovela waiting to happen.
Jon Escamilla [00:10:03] What happened, bro?
Mando Rayo [00:10:04] That’s still an argument. Yeah, I was creating all this drama. Yeah, it’s still a discussion every now and then, but they’re happy. OK, so let’s break it down. If somebody doesn’t know what halal is, because you go to your truck and you can see it, right? You haven’t written fully halal. And so for somebody that doesn’t what that is, what is the definition of halal?
Imad Ahmed [00:10:28] Sure, I’m absolutely no religious expert, but it’s kind of the Muslim equivalent to what kosher meat might be. And so it’s a humane way of slaughtering animals, where essentially the animal is cut in a way where all the blood is drawn out as quickly as possible, and then God’s name is mentioned during the time of slaughter, and it’s done in the most, I guess, humane way possible. Yeah, sure. So it’s something that’s common in Muslim tradition to eat meat that’s prepared this way. There is disagreement where some Muslims will eat meat without it being slaughtered in a halal way or in another term for a zabiyya in a zabiya way. And some are very strict with that.
Mando Rayo [00:11:16] Okay, okay. And John, so tell us, how were you able to, I guess, change your menu in that way?
Jon Escamilla [00:11:24] It honestly wasn’t the heart of a change. Um, the hardest change was the prep side of things, right? But as far as like changing the the marinade stayed the same the flavor stayed the Same There was no real difficult change, you know, other than the taking a lot of the tortillas, yeah
Mando Rayo [00:11:42] Yeah, yeah, the lard. Because the pork is…
Jon Escamilla [00:11:45] Part of that, right? Yeah. So it’s no pork. So like, we have no pork, um, all right. So it was beef chorizo, beef bacon. Uh, everything is either beef or chicken. And we played around with some fish. We played around a couple of different things and, uh, Ahmad’s been a couple tester on them. Thank you.
Mando Rayo [00:12:04] Good taste tester. Time. Yeah, yeah, right. Then you end up being like me.
Jon Escamilla [00:12:12] The change wasn’t that bad like it really wasn’t, you know, it was just the work and then they went behind it and Once we got in that rhythm. Yeah, it’s pretty smooth sailing from there like beef cheek Hello beef cheek is the hardest thing to find so when we decided to slowly start committing. Okay, we changed the chicken. That’s easy Got some beef, you you know we can we can do that when we started having some scraps like okay We can make our own chorizo. We can our own sausage, which we started doing And then it’s like, well, we had a conversation with Imad and we did this event at the mosque.
Imad Ahmed [00:12:47] Mm-hmm.
Jon Escamilla [00:12:48] And you know, our conversation was like, dude, we can’t commit to Fully Hill All because we cannot find beef cheeks. Okay. And I don’t want to make barbacoa that just throw random things in there. I want beef cheeks Yeah, yeah. And he’s like, okay, we were at an event, doing an event. He’s like give me five minutes. Five minutes later, somebody else came. The rancher. Are you serious? Yeah, I was going to do everything to help. You got a barbacoola hook that we don’t know about? Yeah. Ha ha ha ha. He brings me this rancher and I’m like, we’re really busy at this event. And I’m, like, okay, but I got to get this conversation done. Yeah, yeah. And Manny’s looking at me. He’s like, bro, I need your help. Like, come on. But the rancher comes and is like, okay, you need it? Give me five minutes. Then the butcher shop came. And so within 15 minutes we had Mamad and two others. And then, yeah, they were just like, okay, we can get it to you. What’s your price? I was like, look, this is our price. This is what we’re trying to get.
Mando Rayo [00:13:44] So, wait a minute, you’re saying that a Mexican, a Muslim, and a rancher walk into a bar. Exactly. Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
Jon Escamilla [00:13:56] Crazy. It’s very much like the Latin community, right? Because it’s so close knit, so much family, like, and everybody knows that everybody, right, they’re all like, let me help you out. Let me help you. And that’s, you know, part of me felt at home with that conversation or that time, because that’s exactly how it’s like in our, you know, the tight knit. I’m a big family guy. Like that’s how it is. Like, so it was great, Yeah.
Mando Rayo [00:14:22] Imad, tell me about the Austin Muslim community, your connection to it, and like, what was the response?
Imad Ahmed [00:14:28] Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I want to step back a second here. When I was telling my wife about this podcast, she reminded me that she had a big hand in this, and that it’s not fair to me to take the credit of my lovely wife, Yasmine. Publicly, we are publicly acknowledging.
Mando Rayo [00:14:48] This idea really
Imad Ahmed [00:14:49] they came from. She had brought up, so after they’d switched the tortillas to not having lard, during Ramadan, which is a time when Muslims fast from dawn till sunset, and oftentimes they’ll have people over. It’s a time of celebration, and so we were having people over, and because a lot of Muslims only eat halal meat, not all of them, but a significant number of them. She was looking for more kind of halal options. She had reminded me that she had brought it up to John. And that’s when John had kind of looked and saw that the chicken they were serving was already halal. And so just by accident, and that’s where the conversation started up about, you know, what about the other meats or whatnot. And eventually there’s an individual at the mosque on 51st and Maynard. It’s ICGA is the mosque. There’s one of the largest mosques in town. I eventually ended up introducing Manny and John to one of the heads there. And so they ended up catering a big festival. I think what I told Manny John is there’s a real need from our community. The Muslim community in Austin is about 50,000 people and a significant number, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, only eat halal meat. And a lot of the halal restaurants in town are Middle Eastern or South Asian where you I see a lot of the. Countries where you see Muslim immigrants from. But just like anyone else in Austin, we want to eat barbecue. We want to eating tacos, and to have an authentic taco spot with halal meat is something a lot of Muslims are looking for. And so I let them know there’s a lot of demand here, and it’s really untapped. And not only would it provide a lot of value to this community who wants to have great authentic Texan food, and when they have people in town, want to share with them the food from this area. But it could be a great business opportunity where it’s just largely underserved.
Speaker 7 [00:16:48] Sure. Yeah.
Imad Ahmed [00:16:49] And so that’s kind of how some of it had started up and I was able to introduce them. I think after the introduction to Kareem, you started to get more introductions to other folks and Muslims in town when they had different celebrations for Eid, for instance, which is our equivalent of Christmas or other festivals or just catering events or whatnot. And the other thing I mentioned is there’s several large WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups out there. Where people are specifically talking about, where do I get good halal food? And so I told them, if you’re able to convert everything, including the barbacoa to halal, then I can start advertising you on this one Facebook group that has over 10,000 people. And sure enough, once the word got out there, people were so excited. And to this day, particularly on weekends, I see people from all over kind of coming in specifically to get halal tacos.
Mando Rayo [00:17:45] Nice nice. Oh, that’s amazing.
Jon Escamilla [00:17:47] Once we found the beef cheeks It was it was pretty it’s pretty good because they actually ended up being a better product that we were already getting really Okay, and that’s that was the thing like when we were buying along we were making the switch to like those beefs and stuff We were cutting them open and it’s like bro. This is actually like a lot better really Okay, just the when you open it up. It’s like a beautiful red. It’ like, you know, cuz we break down everything Beautiful color nice and shiny like it wasn’t all grayed out like yeah get sometimes or you can find So I was like, okay, cool, and you know, and then again, we worked a deal with them where it didn’t be a little cheaper too than what we were buying, so we’re making more.
Mando Rayo [00:18:22] Money, you know? Right. And then you found a farm or a rancher. The rancher, yeah, so.
Jon Escamilla [00:18:27] Uh, we deal with Abdul at Austin meat market. Um, he’s our, he is the butcher that we kind of just go through for, for the meats. Um, and you know, he, he has a couple of people that he works with fully the law store. So, uh, it’s like, there’s a, it’ s like a little grocery store too. So yeah, a bunch of cool stuff in there. Um, so yeah, that, that was, you know our direction that we went to him, who Amad introduced us to during that little meeting. Um, man, yeah, it has been working ever since, you know.
Mando Rayo [00:18:56] Yeah, nice. Nice. And the whole idea of like, well, we have a halal place now we can go somewhere very welcoming, right? Was there any resistance, I guess, maybe for you, John, on like people like, you know, I mean, we are in Texas. I mean we’re in Austin, which is like a safe zone. It’s a safe.
Jon Escamilla [00:19:15] We’re in Texas. Yeah, the no pastor and no carnitas is kind of a thing. And you know, it’s okay. It’s not an everyday thing. Probably a couple times a month, we’ll get those people come in. And it’s one of those things that like, you know we’re vicinos, we want to be good neighbors. Yeah. We want to to be able to feed everybody. Right? And that’s how the Mexican is. Go to grandma’s house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tortillas for everybody. You know? So we want be able do that. And it’s like, you know, me and Manny talked, it was like, well, if you don’t know. And it doesn’t bother you, then it doesn’ t bother you. But if it means something to you, it means the world to you. It’s your religion. So we’re like, okay, we’re going to do it for the people that it means something to because it means to us, as Lucinos. But then the people who don’t worry about it, they don’t worry about. They don’t pay attention. Most people miss the halal sign, but if it catches your eye because you pay attention to it, then that’s another thing. I paid attention. Yeah.
Mando Rayo [00:20:11] That’s why you’re here. That’s what I’m here. Thank you, thank you. That’s amazing and it’s also like really cool. You truly are living out the name of your place. As a Sino, right? Like neighbor. We always talk about, oh, we’re all neighbors, but we don’t really talk to each other. But you guys- They embody it. You guys do, right. Yeah.
Imad Ahmed [00:20:31] Yeah, that’s what it’s all about, right? Well, we decided, um, Manny’s mom, uh, she said, it’s a tacoimmunity. Tacoimmunity, but in the neighborhood, you know, we’re just trying to make sure everybody’s fed.
Mando Rayo [00:20:47] Yeah, nice. And have you been out to some of the Muslim events, community celebrations? How’s that? Well, they’re late, dude. They go till like three in the morning. They like to party.
Jon Escamilla [00:21:01] They’re late, that’s the one thing I was like three in the morning sometimes like it’s a long night. But that’s because they don’t they like during their Ramadan they get faster in the day so then at night it’s like everyone prays together and then they enjoy food and then they pray again and they enjoy some more food and so it’s it’s very interesting not being that religious like because I’m a Christian but like embracing that and like and them embracing us and then it’s Okay, we’re actually all really have a lot in common. Yeah. All right. And it’s an awesome feeling.
Mando Rayo [00:21:34] Yeah, so like tell me about some of those commonalities like around the food like between most food and Mexican food
Imad Ahmed [00:21:41] I think for both cultures, food is very central to the culture. You can’t have a Muslim community event without food. And to my knowledge, you can’t have a Mexican community event. That’s right, no, that’s true, that is true. And so I think there’s a ton of values that are similar, that value of food around gatherings, a family is extremely important also, right? You see Muslims across various different cultures, but one thing you see in common across all those cultures, is there’s a very… Very big importance of family. And I think it’s the same thing here as well. There’s a big emphasis on helping out your community, which is exactly all the things that John’s talking about. And one of the things that drove him and Manny to make it halal and help out those people in their community that wanted to try authentic Texas tacos, but couldn’t because of religious restrictions. And that same attitude is there with the Muslim community here. If you look at the different moss in town. Big focus of what they do, aside from providing services to their congregants, is community service work, whether it’s food pantries for people, regardless of religion or health care services and others. You see that at the ICJMOSC I mentioned, the one on North Lamar NAMCC, and another large one at ICBC. I think that’s very much in common as well. But I think there’s a lot of commonality between the two cultures.
Jon Escamilla [00:23:09] Yeah, yeah, what about food wise? Food wise, man, the spices are like there.
Jon Escamilla [00:23:14] They like them too!
Mando Rayo [00:23:16] Why do you cook with chili in the animals too? Who?
Jon Escamilla [00:23:18] Yeah.
Imad Ahmed [00:23:19] All those brown people love this bite.
Jon Escamilla [00:23:22] I love it!
Jon Escamilla [00:23:23] They love it, man. So it works, right? You can throw a little extra heat in there, because that’s how we like to eat it. You know, the hard spice as well, with like the clove and the cinnamon, it kind of like all works together, you know. So I think as far as like, there’s just like little twist on things. Right. We just put maybe a guajillo and this on, and they’ll put something.
Imad Ahmed [00:23:39] And they’ll put something else in. A lot of similarity. When you think of like biriyya, it’s very similar to a Pakistani dish called nahari.
Mando Rayo [00:23:46] Nahari, I have heard of that.
Imad Ahmed [00:23:47] Which is braised beef for a very long time in the soup. The gravy is a little bit different, but very similar.
Mando Rayo [00:23:53] Oh, okay, so that sounds like a hint. Like, just start making beauty out of it. We have to do it. Oh, you do? Oh, yeah, yeah. All right, all right. So it works.
Jon Escamilla [00:24:03] It’s so crazy because they will come and, like he says, they travel from Pflugerville or Georgetown or Maine or all that, and they’ll come down and they will be like, oh, dude, this is exactly like something similar I have at home, like you mentioned, with our little twist on it. Some of them, like we’ve never had Mexican food, and it’s like, you live in Texas? What? But I get it because there’s a lot of pork and Mexican food. But, you know, they’re very similar in the sense, and like you said, the flour tortillas, the breads, and that was a big thing because they’re not too big fan of corn tortillas. You know, but they love flour tortias.
Imad Ahmed [00:24:41] That’s very much the case.
Jon Escamilla [00:24:42] It is. It’s very much true. It works. It kind of works just a little different on our technique versus their technique or what they’re used to. But they’re very similar, honestly.
Mando Rayo [00:24:57] Well, that’s cool. If you had to say like one thing about halal of like people that are curious or they haven’t heard about it, uh, what, what would you tell them? Like what, you know, what will attract them to the halal way?
Imad Ahmed [00:25:11] Well, I would say, first of all, I think there’s this misconception that halal is a cuisine because oftentimes you’ll see these halal trucks that offer Middle Eastern food. It’s not a cuisine. It’s a type of food preparation per religious guidelines. But I think, you know, there’s a movement towards obviously organic foods and grass-fed meats or whatnot. And so a lot of these movements are trying to create, you know, healthier. Foods for us, whether it’s meats or grains, in ones where animals are treated better. And I would say that’s the case with halal. So if you go in and look at the details of like how halal meat is prepared, it’s the animals are treating better and it’s a healthier way to eat it as well. Normally, there’s not a huge difference in the taste or whatnot, but if you care about that, then it’s worthwhile to have your meat halal whether it’s for religious purposes or not. Right, right, right. Yeah.
Jon Escamilla [00:26:14] Yeah, I would agree a hundred percent that it’s more of like caring about the process of the animal, right? Because that’s going to affect your food. It’s going affect it at the end. Your end product is determined on how that animal was cared for, how it was killed, what it ate, you know? So if we’re buying halal meats and we specify what we want about this is a better product because this animal has been cared for through the whole process, consciously Bye. This is what’s going to attract you, right? Like if you want to, Oh, you want to eat better and be better for the animal? Like, are we go vegan or like you can just eat some whole all meats and then been taken care of. Cause that’s what it is. You know, so, and like I said, we saw, we sold better product.
Mando Rayo [00:26:57] Nice, nice. All right. Well, I’m ready. I heard you brought some samples.
Jon Escamilla [00:27:02] Oh, awesome!
Mando Rayo [00:27:05] Excited about this. So I’m ready for it.
Jon Escamilla [00:27:07] Yeah, there’s a couple of different samples. They cooked up some stuff at the truck. OK. So as they bring it in, so like your chorizo’s beef, right? And then so no pork, beef. Beef and chicken. Chicken. And then you have some any vegetarian option. Yeah, yeah, so we have some vegetarian. We changed that up.
Imad Ahmed [00:27:33] Again, being chefs allows us to change what we want to do and see what’s seasonal. I think that’s the puffy taco in there.
Mando Rayo [00:27:43] Oh, dang, you bought a puffy taco? Yeah, man. That’s awesome. No avocado. Yeah, I can’t eat avocado. Well, actually, technically, I think I’m going back to the avocado train, because it was messing up with my digestion. So I got allergic in a bit. But lately, I’ve been cooking with avocado oil.
Imad Ahmed [00:28:03] Okay, right and I ease your way back in my way
Mando Rayo [00:28:05] He’s my way into it.
Imad Ahmed [00:28:09] When you had mentioned the chorizo, one thing I remembered, even for those Muslims who eat meat that’s not halal or zabia, they still can’t eat pork. And so I’m one of those. And so, I’ve always heard from my non-Muslim friends how great chorizo is, but I’ve never had the chance to try it. And so with what John and Manny are doing, I’m able to have breakfast tacos with bacon on there, or with Teresa, which has been, you know, amazing and a treat and that’s One of the things that attracts a lot of Muslims that come over to a truck t oo, to try some of these traditional Mexican meats that previously were always like off limits because they’re always made with pork. With pork, got it, got in. So a lot beef tallow. Ah. Ah.
Mando Rayo [00:28:54] I’ll be nice
Imad Ahmed [00:28:56] Chicken right there, and then we brought some chorizo. I think there’s a chorizo taco.
Mando Rayo [00:29:00] Oh, I think that you need some, too. Yeah.
Imad Ahmed [00:29:03] I think they’re Barbara Coy as well, so.
Mando Rayo [00:29:05] Oh, dang! Okay, well, there you go. Thanks, brother. Yes, sir. All right.
Jon Escamilla [00:29:11] I don’t know, kind of just threw a bunch of tacos together.
Mando Rayo [00:29:14] Yeah. Hey, it wouldn’t be a taco podcast without tacos. You know? Yeah. Oh, dang. Luckily we’re in my house. Yeah. So you got plates and everything. I got everything.
Jon Escamilla [00:29:27] Ha ha ha!
Mando Rayo [00:29:29] Well, uh, let’s see. I’m interested in the, this is the barbecue. Oh, I think I’ve, I, you know, last time I was at your place, I had the barbecue, so I’m going to go with that. Nice. This one’s on corn.
Imad Ahmed [00:29:45] That one’s on corn, yeah, we kinda switched it up, you know.
Mando Rayo [00:29:47] Mm-hmm Mmm now It’s not as like, it’s very, it sweet. It’s, it, um, wow, it just melts in your mouth. Good. You don’t feel the, you know, the, the grease, you know, like the heavy grease sometimes when you do have barbacoa. Yeah. Sometimes it’d be pretty heavy. And look at those tortillas. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. They’re like thick, but also have kind of that translucent color.
Imad Ahmed [00:30:19] They’re amazing.
Mando Rayo [00:30:20] Yeah, that’s definitely a South Texas thing.
Imad Ahmed [00:30:23] All right, mm-hmm And then the chorizo I think it might be in that other bag Yeah, brought you a little breakfast and then
Mando Rayo [00:30:35] Mmm, man, that’s delicious. I mean, it’s just, you know, there is a different flavor to it. Just like obviously the the the sazon and the flavor profiles is really good but you don’t get like the sometimes you know if you’re in like a street taco you know the pork or what have you definitely feel the the greasy the grasa and there ain’t nothing wrong with greasy tacos but it definitely like this has like a cleaner kind of kind of flavor profile to it or texture even. You know, so nice. I know. I’m gonna save some for the crew. I just remember going to your shop, going to, um, your truck. And, uh, I had heard about it. And I was like, you know what? I’m just going to go. Mm-hmm. And I went and I saw y’all there. I just ordered and I invited a friend. He came later. And then I was just like blown away. Then that’s when we noticed the little halal sign. The sticker we have. The sticker you have. And then, I think you came. We chat a little bit and then we started talking about this whole thing and I’m like, this needs to be on the podcast and here we are. Here we are, we appreciate you having us, man. Yeah. Well, is there anything else you’d like to share about either of your communities and what you want people to know?
Imad Ahmed [00:32:00] Um, man, I just, just give it a chance, you know, at least try it. Like, like he said, it’s not a cuisine. It is just a type, you know, lifestyle of the animal. And it’s more consciously, you know, driven. So, so that’s, that’s kind of what I think. Just give it a chance. You know, it, it it’s not all the same thing. Sure. It does change.
Mando Rayo [00:32:19] Yeah, and it’s super tasty.
Imad Ahmed [00:32:22] Yeah, I’d say, um, you know, hello meat can be a good business choice. There’s just, you
Mando Rayo [00:32:28] Yeah, yeah
Imad Ahmed [00:32:32] I think the Muslim community really shows their appreciation too. If you look at the comments, there’s a lot of people that really say, you know, it’s amazing having such fantastic tacos like this that are halal. So yeah, it can, it could not just be something that you’re doing for ethical reasons or religious reasons, but just appeal to a wider number of Austinites or wider set of your neighbors.
Mando Rayo [00:32:55] Well, John, Emad, thanks so much for being on the show. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a pleasure. Appreciate you, man. Thank you.
Imad Ahmed [00:33:03] You
Mando Rayo [00:33:08] Well, mil gracias to John and Imad. Man, they’re vecinos. They’re truly, literally vecinos, but I could see a bromance there too, you know? I love how they both listen to each other, where John has his vecinos taco truck, and Imd was like, hey, try this, and what about this, and I think most of the time when we think about that and listening to customers, I don’t know how often we hear, like, yeah, let’s actually listen, you now? Listen and maybe explore. New ways of doing, you know, our foods. And breaking down what halal really means is the whole process and being humane with the animals. I love that and respecting not only the culture but the religion too aspect of it as well. So, I just thought it was a really great conversation about how those cultures kind of mix and then they intermingle and how they adapt with each other. And it was just a fun conversation. So with that, just I wanna say thank you again to John from Vecinos and Imad for sparking up that idea. Thank you so much for that. And now some shout outs to some places that you can get halal tacos right now, right? Vocho’s Tacos here in Austin, Taco Fuego out of Houston, and Taco King in Plano, Texas. This has been the Tacos of Texas podcast developed and produced by Identity Productions. If you enjoyed today’s episode and are craving more taco content, go to our website at www.identity.productions or follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube at Identity Productions and United Tacos of America. This is your host, Mando el Taco Journalist Rayo. ¡Vamos a los tacos! In the next próximo, tacos of Texas, black and indigenous Mexicans, a coming together on food, untold history, and rich identities at the Texas table.
Louisa Van Assche [00:35:20] The Tacos of Texas podcast is presented by Identity Productions in partnership with KUT and KUTx Studios. Our host and producer is Mando, El Taco journalist, Rayo. Our audio is mixed by Nicholas Worden. Our video production is taken care of by Dennis Burnett. Our wonderful interns are Quetzal and Diego Rayo, and our story and line producer is me, Luisa Min Van Asse. Music was created by Peligrosa in Austin, Texas. And King Benny Productions located in the Quinto Barrio of Houston.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
