A restaurant serving quality cuisine from the confines of a former convenience store? Trendy! Local foodies started raving months ago about Paco & John, the new Southside eatery owned by Bernard Tronche and Francisco Islas. Since Tronche also is behind the Fort’s venerable Saint-Emilion on West 7th Street, you’d be forgiven for expecting something fancy.
Paco & John is not, but don’t let the humble exterior fool you. And don’t be put off by the crowd by the door — the dining room is way too small (fewer than a dozen tables) for the positive buzz on the street, and take-out business is brisk. If you end up waiting a few minutes for a seat, you’ll have time to ogle the plates coming out of what looks to be the smallest kitchen in Fort Worth. Look above the storage closet-slash-break room, and you’ll see a picture of Paco and John, the progeny of Islas and Tronche. (P&J’s is BYOB. Note that there’s a real convenience store across the street that seems to do a brisk take-out beer business.)
The co-owners have created a beautiful mix of French and Mexican cuisine, featuring food that’s both simple and elegant.
The poblano queso soup sounds more Mex than French, until it’s sitting in front of you and you realize it’s a delicious rustic queso and chili soup made elegant with swirls of cream sauce. And the base is probably a mirepoix. There was a bit of finely diced celery among the peppers, cilantro, and two cheeses.
The restaurant has a list of tacos to please just about any palate. For fish tacos in Texas, the bland tilapia is often what you get. But at Paco & John your corn tortillas come stuffed to the, um, gills with red snapper, a delightfully non-fishy-tasting fish. A less savory taco was the pork carnitas. The meat was a little fatty.
You can upgrade your taco by adding pico de gallo, red or green sauce, and cheese for 25 cents each. Some red sauce might have livened up the pork taco, but the fish taco was perfect without.
For $2 more, you can upgrade to rice and beans and have a filling lunch. Depending on your choice of pairings, the plate comes in at a little over $5 — and (shhh!) it’s a better deal than the enchiladas.
The unusual salmon enchiladas glowed orange and tasted of cumin and other spices, perhaps curry. They were cooked perfectly, rendering the salmon “done” but still moist. And yet I couldn’t help being reminded of the King of the Hill episode in which Hank Hill’s Mexican-American employee complains that salmon is not an authentic ingredient in
Mexican food.
The spinach in my spinach-and-cheese enchiladas was barely cooked, which is probably healthy and French but somewhat off-putting. No enchilada should have a slightly crunchy center. However, the Monterey jack cheese inside of and surrounding the fresh corn tortilla was wonderfully melty. The beef fajita enchiladas were a solid entry in the Tex-Mex category: tasty but not as exceptional as the tacos.
The accompanying refried beans were out-of-this-world tasty, which got me to thinking that they must have been cooked the old-fashioned way: in lard. But after she was asked, the server got a slightly horrified look on her face. “No,” she said, grimacing. “We don’t do that here.” Paco & John uses vegetable oil, which is a real testament to the cooks’ skills.
The guacamole ordered as a side was volcanically hot. A warning should be posted somewhere, indicating that P&J’s smooth green stuff is both addictively good and considerably spicy.
The brownie that everyone’s raving about is first-rate – moist and slightly chewy – but it’s just a chocolate brownie. No hint of Mexican cinnamon or French coffee. The flan, however, was sweet, custardy perfection in a thick caramel sauce. Even in a former convenience store, good manners may prevent you from yanking the “shared dessert” out of the center of the table and saying “Mine, mine!”
Paco & John recently began offering dinner service, with a menu that has more options than the one at lunch. Still, call ahead to make sure they’re open.
Paco & John Mexican Diner
1116 8th Av, FW. 817-810-0032. 7:30am-10:30am, 11am-2:30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-2pm Sat.
Call for dinner hours. All major credit cards accepted.
