La Ventana, the downtown taqueria that's piggybacked off the popular Mexican restaurant Meso Maya, is growing, with plans to open two additional locations in the Dallas area.
The first will be located at the Farmers Market, where La Ventana, along with three other yet-to-be-announced restaurants, will do their best to replace long-gone Pecan Lodge as an anchor for the market. That location is expected to open sometime this summer.
The second location will be in Addison, on the corner of Belt Line and Midway. That restaurant is planned to be a big one, with seating for more than 90 covers between a sizable dining room and outdoor patio. It's opening soon in tandem with a new Snuffer's that will share the same address. Both Snuffer's and La Ventana are owned by Firebird Restaurant Group, which has me wondering how these delicious tacos are going to weather this expansion.
The original La Ventana owes a lot of its deliciousness to Meso Maya. The two restaurants share a kitchen, and most importantly a team of cooks who are responsible for some exemplary tortilla making. While there are a handful of taquerias that make fresh tortillas in Dallas, most of them use masa harina, which is basically freeze-dried masa. At Meso Maya, dried corn is ground into masa fresh every day in a process that lends a softer texture and better flavor to the finished tortillas.
It's also a process that adds significant time and expense to tortilla making, but a spokesperson for Firebird assures me that the new locations will carry on the tradition. The original location will grind the masa and then ship it out to the new locations each morning.
That's great news for taco fans who plan on visiting either location. The tacos at La Ventana may cost a little more than your standard taqueria, but they're consistently great.
