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Restaurant Reviews

Neighborhood Find: El Patio Escondido in Van Alstyne is a Blast From the Past

If you remember Escondido on Butler Street, you are going to want to read this.
By Nancy Nichols |
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Raise your hand if you remember standing in line at Escondido on Butler Street near Maple Avenue. In the mid-70s, Herrera’s down the street on Maple and Escondido were the top places in Dallas for soulful Tex-Mex.

Escondido was a tiny family-run joint in an old house. The wooden floors were buckled and creaked. Each room was painted a different color. I preferred the dark purple room in the back. The bright yellow-gold room hurt my hungover eyes. The chips were thin and perfectly greasy. The salsa, poured from plastic syrup pitchers into melamine bowls, was spicier than other versions in town. They also offered a green salsa which cleared your sinuses faster than Afrin. My friends and I drank bowls of queso and reset our brains over a plate of chili-covered enchiladas.

Some of the Pacheco family: Juan, Aurora, William, and Priscilla. Photo by Nancy Nichols

A lot of us worried about the fate of Escondido when Parkland started buying up land along Butler. Escondido’s landlord lived in a modest apartment in the back of the restaurant. Rumor was the guy had lots of money but decided to live a simple life. One day, a friend of the landlord walked into Escondido and asked if anyone had seen him. They all went out back and banged on the door. Concerned, they busted down the door and found him dead.

The property passed to a relative. New buildings started going in the rundown restaurant. Then one day the owner walked in and gave the 40-year-old restaurant 60 days to vacate. The restaurant closed on May 17, 2013.

A few years back, I heard that some of the Escondido family was doing a restaurant up north. I totally forgot about it until I happened to pass it a few weeks ago. I am writing a story about all the nifty downtown areas that surround Dallas for the November issue of D, and I whipped off Highway 75 at Van Alstyne to check it out. I almost ran into the flower bed of a large red house when I saw the sign for El Patio Escondido. It was a Sunday, and the restaurant was closed.

Then something weird happened. Not two days later, I received a message through my Facebook page from William Pacheco at El Patio Escondido. He invited me out for lunch and to see how the food at the Van Alstyne location compared to my old favorite. The timing of the note freaked me out. I’m superstitious in a good way about oddities like that. The Van Alstyne joint has been open for over five years yet when I run across it they contact me within days—surely this is a sign of something.

Old fashioned sour cream chicken enchiladas. Photo by Nancy Nichols

Earlier this week, I made the drive north. It’s not far from my house near Spring Valley and Preston. I made it in about 35 minutes. It can take me longer than that to get to Bishop Arts. I walked in the door and swooned. The room, overly decorated in Mexican kitsch and colorful Christmas lights, smelled like Escondido on Butler. William was there. So was his brother, sister, aunt, and mother Aurora. She still cooks the food.

The chips are still thin. The same spicy salsa is poured from plastic syrup pitchers into melamine bowls. The green salsa that cleared my sinuses was there, too. I briefly found world peace in my regular #15: a tostada filled with queso, a tostada covered with guacamole, and a bean chalupa. Aurora does what very few Tex-Mex cooks can do—she managed to cover chicken enchiladas with a sour cream sauce that tastes like sour cream, not some liquefied version.

The taste memories were overwhelming. It was like having a friend come back from the dead and give you the hug you have been longing for. Lunch at El Patio Escondido was blissful and happy and real. Go touch it.

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