Last updated: July 20, 2021

International Eats: Tacos La Hidalguense

The restaurant: With dozens of people moving to Charlotte every day, the cost of retail and residential space seems to be going up exponentially. While it is good to live in a city that is growing and diversifying, this often means that some of the most talented cooks and chefs in the city have to purvey their wares from the modest counter of a food stall, or even more commonly, the window of a food truck. One of the best in the city is set up in the shadow of I-85 at the Little Rock Road exit in a dusty little parking lot. While you wait for your tacos, gorditas, or sopes, you can take in the high decibel boom of airplane engines as they swoop in low to land at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, only a few hundred yards away. Tacos La Hidalguense is conveniently located next to a well-stocked Mexican tienda that has all the Mexican sodas, candies, and snacks you could want to accompany your platter of tacos. Every hour or so, one of the workers in the taco truck will make their way to the tienda to bring back nopales — massive shaved paddles of fresh cactus — to cut and stew with beans or to pickle and top tacos. I always mean to carry a little bottle of Mexican hot sauce when I go out to eat, but invariably forget. No need to worry here either; the Tienda has  that covered, too. 

The cuisine: Hidalgo, one of the 32 states that make up Mexico, is well-known throughout the country for its barbacoa — pork cooked in underground pits or large pots, bathed in pulque, the local spirit, and on occasion wrapped in maguey leaves to impart the earthy aroma of agave. A taco truck is obviously limited in its range of cooking, so you won’t find the pulque or maguey leaves here, but the tacos and other menu items don’t suffer from its absence. The barbacoa is as tender as pulled pork and just as delicious. Indeed, the flavor of the cooked meats and oil-splashed tortillas seem almost impossibly flavorful to be coming from a kitchen the size of a broom closet. A word on those tortillas: they are not handmade. Hidalguense uses El Milagro Tortillas out of Chicago, in my opinion, the best store-bought corn tortillas you can get on the East Coast. They may not taste like abuela made them, but the cooks at the griddle do a good job of coating them in oil and salt, softening them up to give a more homemade feel and not the chewy, rubber feel of cheap mass-produced tortillas. 

Our must-order: Watching the tortillas hit the griddle and the barbacoa simmering, ready to be topped with finely chopped onions and cilantro before being showered with lime juice, it can be easy to forget that the menu at Tacos La Hidalguense goes beyond the ubiquitous taco. Depending on demand and what time of the day you choose to eat at Tacos La Hidalguense, they have menudo, pozole, tortas cubanos, gorditas, sopes, esquites, and chicharrones. If it’s cold out, the pozole is a must order. A rich stew of pork, hominy, and neon red chili broth, pozole is a great tool for keeping winter at bay. When topped with shaved radish, cabbage, lime juice, and salsa picante it gathers up textural momentum, becoming an ever more complex and rewarding dish. But those tacos are still probably holding your attention as you stare at the menu. The best tacos are the aforementioned barbacoa, the campechano, and the lengua. Campechano brings together carne asada and chorizo to give your tastebuds a double helping of protein while the lengua, or cow’s tongue, is the most tender beef you can get outside of Kobe. Adding chicharrones to either of these tacos adds a nice contrast in textures and takes the tacos to a decadent next level. 

Why we go: On my most recent trip to Tacos La Hidalguense, it was approaching 90 degrees with horizon-spanning sunshine. If I had to guess, it was exceeding 100 inside the truck with the grills on high and the pots of simmering beans and meat sputtering and boiling.  As I struggled to find shade near a doublewide that sits next to the taco truck, I thought about the women inside that truck, working hours on end in high heat and cramped space, cranking out some of the best tacos in the city. They must love to share their cooking with the world to endure those long hours. Yet each day,  thousands of people fly in and out of Charlotte, passing this little truck as they come and go catching flights, most likely not even giving that shabby little food truck a second thought. The workers at the airport, however, seem to know what’s up. The baggage handlers, ticket counter clerks, janitors, and security guards come in droves because they know a taco can never be judged by where it is made, only by how it tastes.