Tito's Taquitos Tito's Taquitos serves tacos, hand-rolled potato taquitos and perfectly sweet aguas frescas next to a Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway gas station. (Michael Russell/Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

Growing up in a family of Scots with a skeptical eye toward modern refrigeration, my home was usually lacking in pizza rolls, jalapeño poppers, taquitos and other hallmarks of the American frozen food aisle. And so my first-ever experience with stuffed, rolled and fried tortillas actually came with flautas, not taquitos.

I was in Mexico City, visiting my “Uncle Slim,” (a family friend, no relation), and my dad had decided to take me to the house where exiled Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated (wait, how did you spend your summer vacations?). While walking to a subway station, we stopped in a fluorescent-lit restaurant, where my dad explained that the flautas he had ordered took their name and skinny shape from the Spanish word for flute. They were crisp and delicious. I’ve been seeking them out ever since.

Though the terms are effectively interchangeable, flautas are sometimes (though not always) made with larger flour tortillas, taquitos (and tacos dorados) with smaller corn tortillas. Fillings differ regionally, though potato and chicken are common, as is the bed of cabbage and accompanying avocado sauce. But by any name, I’m confident that Tito’s Taquitos, a year-old cart that reopened this spring next to a Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway gas station, makes the tastiest version in Portland, and some of the best anywhere in America.

That’s a credit to former Los Angeles chef Anthony La Pietra and to his late stepfather Margarito, who loved taquitos, and for whom the cart is named. Before he died, Margarito would encourage La Pietra to open a restaurant devoted to his favorite dish. It took the pandemic to make it happen.

La Pietra, a culinary school grad with an early career cooking for Hollywood movies and TV shows, previously ran a pair of restaurants near his Southeast Los Angeles home, then moved to Portland about five years ago, landing a job as a catering chef for Adidas. After he was laid off in 2020, La Pietra began plotting his taquito business, eventually opening a too-small cart on Southwest Vermont Street. After a 7-month hiatus, Tito’s Taquitos reopened in a larger truck and new location this spring.

Visit today and you’ll likely find a few hungry people waiting for tacos and taquitos in the parking lot or huddled over plates on a slim, shady patio strung with lights, overlooking a verdant ravine.

The tacos offer much to recommend, starting with tortillas pressed to order using yellow masa from Portland’s own Three Sisters Nixtamal. Inside, you can add carefully braised meats — typically beef birria and citrus-marinated pork — as well as tasty nuggets of fried fish or grilled shrimp. The seafood tacos are my favorite, but the vegan ones are the most inventive, with mushrooms grilled like carne asada, chickpeas marinated ala al pastor or hibiscus flowers braised in the style of birria, an approach originally developed as a way to reuse leftovers from making jamaica, the deep purple hibiscus drink.

According to La Piertra, even some carnivores have come back for another round of chickpea tacos.

“There are ways that you can treat vegetables as meat and get the same flavor profile and mouthfeel,” La Pietra says. “You’ve just got to dedicate a little love and time.”

But it’s the taquitos that have brought me back to Southwest Portland again and again since Tito’s reopened. Hand-rolled each morning using Three Sisters own tortillas, these taquitos are fried to order and come out hot, with crispy edges and a soft, fluffy center. Though cheese and meat (not to mention black cod!) are not uncommon fillings in the flauta extended universe, La Pietra’s are stuffed exclusively with mashed potato, meaning the foundation of the dish is also vegan.

Tito's Taquitos serves hand-rolled potato taquitos with various toppings next to a Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway gas station. (Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

This is traditional food, not unlike the taquitos La Pietra ate with his grandmother, though there are a few twists. Instead of a choice of stuffing, Tito’s taquitos can come topped with your choice of taco filling — beef is a popular choice — and a scattering of micro cilantro. Still, if it’s your first time, I recommend ordering them plain, all the better to appreciate the interplay of masa, potato and avocado-tomatillo sauce.

Whether you order in person or call ahead, staff — including La Pietra’s longtime friend and associate Carlos Mendoza — remain patient and kind, happy to walk a newcomer through the menu or tack on an extra taco to an order. That attention to detail extends to the sweeter side of the menu, which included a berry-topped tres leches cake for dessert and some of the most refreshing aguas frescas you’ll find in Portland. I will return specifically for a cup of cool pineapple juice, just fluffy enough to let you know it’s made fresh.

Going forward, La Pietra hopes to add a second location in Breakside Brewing’s long-delayed Beaverton cart pod, though staffing up for that expansion has La Pietra nervous. In the meantime, he plans to add a little more color to the cart — which already boasts a lively ska soundtrack — courtesy of new artwork and a mural from friends in Portland and Los Angeles. He’s also applying for a beer and wine license so they can pour Mexican-style lagers from the likes of Portland’s Level or Salem’s Xicha Brewing. And he is looking to beef up production enough that they can make it to 6 p.m. before selling out.

11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 503-406-5935; 3975 S.W. Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy., @titostaquitospdx.com

Read more: Portland’s best new food carts of 2022

— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com; @tdmrussell

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