Manny’s Uptown Tex-Mex Restaurant on Lemmon Avenue has been serving the same tamales since before most of its current regulars could drive.
I first went because a coworker mentioned it almost as an aside — the way people mention places they assume everyone already knows. She said the name, said Lemmon Avenue, and moved on. That was three years ago, and I’ve probably been back fifteen times since.
The restaurant sits in a low brick strip of storefronts between a dry cleaner and a nail salon, which tells you nothing useful about what’s inside. What’s inside is Manny Randolph, or at least the dining room his family built around him. He’s in his sixties now, still comes in most days, still walks the floor, still stops at tables to ask how things are. His daughter runs the front of the house with a kind of easy authority that comes from having grown up in the place. His son-in-law is somewhere in the kitchen. This is that kind of restaurant.
The tamales are what you come for first. Manny’s mother brought the recipe from San Antonio, and the kitchen has been making them the same way for three decades — masa that’s rich but not heavy, filling that’s properly seasoned pork, wrapped and steamed until the texture is exactly right. They come three to a plate, red sauce ladled over, with rice and beans on the side. The whole thing is maybe eleven dollars. I’ve had fancier tamales that weren’t better.
But I’d argue the chile con queso is what keeps people coming back on a weekly basis. It’s not the processed orange dip you’ll find at half the Tex-Mex spots in this city. Manny’s version has actual heft to it — you can taste the chiles, and there’s a subtle smokiness that I’ve never quite been able to place. A basket of chips and a bowl of that queso, and I’m genuinely fine waiting for the rest.
The enchiladas are solid. The fajitas are the kind where the sizzle is real rather than theatrical. There’s a green chile chicken plate that my coworker orders every single time and refuses to deviate from, which is probably the truest endorsement I can offer.
On a Tuesday or Wednesday night, you can walk in and get a table without much of a wait. Weekends, especially Friday, run longer — give yourself twenty minutes at the bar, which is small and friendly and pours a reliable margarita on the rocks. Nothing fancy. Lime, tequila, salt if you want it.
The dining room is comfortable in the way that a room gets when it’s been full of the same kinds of conversations for a long time. Families with kids. Older couples who’ve clearly had the same table for years. Date nights that don’t feel self-conscious about ordering the combo plate.
Manny stopped by my table the last time I was in and asked if everything was good. I told him the tamales were as good as the first time I’d had them. He laughed a little and said, “That’s the point.”
He wasn’t being modest or charming. He meant it literally. Manny’s is on Lemmon Avenue near the intersection with Reagan Street. Dinner for two with drinks runs somewhere between thirty and forty-five dollars, depending on how many rounds of queso you allow yourself. The answer, for the record, should be two.
