The Original Ninfa's & Tex-Mex Royalty

In 1973 a widowed tortilla maker named Ninfa Laurenzo lit a grill inside her family's struggling East End factory, slapped a piece of charred skirt steak into a fresh flour tortilla, and — without quite meaning to — invented the dish the whole world would come to call fajitas. That first ten-table taqueria on Navigation Boulevard became the fountainhead of modern Houston Tex-Mex, and the city has been elaborating on the idea ever since. This drive begins where it all started and then fans out to the restaurants that carried the crown: the grand old-guard rooms, the enchilada specialists, and the modern chefs who went back to Oaxaca and Mexico City for inspiration. Come hungry, drive between courses, and taste your way through half a century of one of America's great regional cuisines. Every stop is a real, currently-operating restaurant — pick a couple to actually sit down at, and let the others be landmarks you pass.