Coming home to Tamales Doña Tere

Comfort food will always be judged on the merits of how fried, starchy or unapologetically unhealthy a dish might be. Come inducing foods really do stir up memories of times gone by when you were cared for by someone who cooked delicious things - mom, grandma, the creepy guy around the corner who wants to show you his awesome train set. For me, the definition of comfort food always came down to the flavors you associate most with home.

A long trip out of town is always the best way to zero in on the best and most comforting of flavors. Things you start to miss on day three of your trip. For years, my ritual meal coming back from the airport was at Ninfa’s. Perhaps no longer the best Tex-Mex in the city, but certainly unique to Houston …  and Beaumont, Baton Rouge, Atlanta and Austin, thanks to the half-wit owners of Serrano’s. At some point, Ninfa’s has taken a back seat to Tamales Doña Tere.

On any given day in Houston you can find great tamales at Pico’s, Otilia’s, Sylvia’s, Merida and Hugo’s, as well as some truly mediocre specimens at Berryhill. None of them quite capture the depth of flavor Dona Tere can deliver if you happen to order just the right tamale at the right time of the day.

Tamales at Doña Tere are always great, but if you happen to order from a batch that just came out of the steamer they are almost transcendent. Freshly steamed tamales have a creamy texture that melds with the filling to produce an almost gooey center. When fresh, the meat and cheese fillings take the back seat to the sauce, which works overtime as the corn meal releases steam. Wait too long and the effect goes away, producing a perfectly terrific tamale, but one notch below it’s full potential.

Doña Tere has about a dozen varieties, including a few sweet, tamales although none of them are better than the last batch out of the steamer. Tamales with green sauce tend to be a bit hotter than red and produce a brighter chile flavor that builds slowly and stays behind long after you’ve moved on. Doña Tere sells their green salsa on the side, but you only really need it when you hit a tamale that has been out of the steamer for a while.

The one time I hit on a freshly made Oaxaqueños tamale with chicken and red chili sauce it blew the rest of that days batch away. Larger than most, Oaxaqueños tamales have a deep red vein that gives them a striking appearance. The flavor was unlike anything I’ve ever had with deep, complex and slightly smoky chili notes that came in layers. I’ve ordered the Oaxaqueños on every visit since then, but they are always overshadowed by the more fresh varieties that day.

Eager for a comparison I ordered an Oaxaqueños tamale from Pico’s the very next night and it didn’t even come close. The chile sauce vein was less pronounced and the flavor was equally muted. Texture was closer to what you might expect to find in the inferior Salvadorian tamale varieties. The tamale was good, but tasted somewhat aristocratic and safe in comparison to the version made by Tamales Doña Tere.

The Beechnut location of Doña Tere provides something most restaurants cannot easily match - rapid inventory turnover. The dining room isn’t much to look at, with only a couple of bare tables and a long Formica counter lining the window. Take out is the preferred option for most customers and tamales go fast enough that Doña Tere has to resort to covering up the missing varieties on the menu board, until a fresh batch comes out of the steamer.

The only place that might come close to Doña Tere are the tamales at Alamo, but having never been there I can’t say which one is better. All I know is that three days into my trip out of town all I can think about is Tamales Doña Tere.

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