My melted-cheese-expectations were baseline at best when I stopped by Haystack Burgers and Barley, located in Turtle Creek Village, last week. This is a burger restaurant, after all. Assumptions aside, I still ordered chips and queso. You never know until you try, right?
I’m thankful I did. This queso blew me away. I brought it back to the office and it blew my colleagues away, too. How is it possible that this Tex-Mex staple, offered at a fast-casual burger joint, tastes better than so many other varieties in town?
“I have been eating our queso and salsa for as long as I can remember,” says Kevin Galvan, owner of Haystack Burgers and Barley. “It is a family recipe that has been used for generations.”
Galvan’s grandparents owned Galvan’s El Unico off Denton Dr. near Love Field from the ’70s through the late ’90s. His parents opened Ricardo’s Tex-Mex in the late ’80s, the restaurant shuttered in 2000. Galvan had his own Ricardo’s in Allen from 2004 until 2009. The family’s queso recipe has been passed along to each restaurant since the ’70s. He now serves it at both of his Haystack locations.
The dip is made using American cheese, milk, flour, cumin, bell peppers, and some additional spices. “The key is the milk and not water,” says Galvan.
The tortilla chips, which are made in-house, are thick and golden brown, specked with sizable salt crystals. They’re sturdy enough to withstand the heft of the dip. Good queso is commonplace in Dallas. Great queso, on the other hand, is slightly harder to come by. This is great queso. Go try it for yourself.
