My first machete

It had been nagging at me that I had never tried a machete, the sprawling, scythe-shaped quesadilla that became a mini-craze in Texas over the past five years. So recently I hit the new far-western-Heights location of family-owned Tacos Doña Lena to remedy this gap in my Mexican food cosmology.

I was jazzed. First because I love the quesadilla genre, so the idea of a super-sized version was catnip. Second because I had never gotten around to trying Doña Lena at its much-loved Spring Branch original. (Another gap in my Mexican food cosmology.) Third because Doña Lena's famous array of salsas beckoned.

I can't say it went that well on the machete front.

But boy, did I love Doña Lena's juicy, colorful gestalt. The bumptious decor grabbed me in the parking lot—in the form of a vintage lemon-yellow VW—and never let up. Vivid planters, primary-hued metal chairs, a riotous ceilingful of papel picado and neon slogans all raised my spirits. This is the kind of room that dares you to be in a bad mood, a most welcome quality in troubled times.

My machete, on the other hand, was a greasy, vehemently salty disappointment. I ordered the original version, for $11, the large size being the whole point of the dish. I mean, who's going for the half-pint, $6 machetito when there is a full-fledged machete to be had?

Instead of the showy two-foot-long corn tortilla wrapper I had been expecting, my machete was just two big corn tortillas, overlapped. I mean, come ON! Isn't that cheating??

I had ordered the beef fajita version as a baseline. The so-so chopped meat had galvanized with the cheese into a chewy sheath while the machete griddle-grilled in rather too much oil. (See "after" photo, in the gallery below.)

I liked the chopped onion and cilantro mixed right in, but salt trumped everything else, probably because of the fajita seasoning amplified by the cheese.

Doña Lena's celebrated salsas kinda mitigated the saltiness (or at least rendered it beside the point, in a diamond-cut-diamond way). The moment when all six of them get plunked down on your table in their squeeze bottles is a notably festive one. ("All for me!") My faves were the tomatillo and the earthy "House Red," and I paid my respects to the hot-as-hell red Molcajete salsa, too. There's something for everybody in this lineup.

I didn't finish my machete. It just didn't hold my interest. But I did try the "chanclaso" of blue-corn masa, a huarache variant piled with the pork al pastor I picked and a boatload of tomato, lettuce, refried beans, avocado, queso fresco and crema. Nice fresh effect, but the blue-corn masa boat seemed ponderous, even tough, in an era when we have been spoiled by defter craftsmanship.

Of nerdy interest: the way the old-fashioned "huarache" here morphs into the modern chancla, the flip-flops or slides current folkways depict as hurled by irritated Mexican moms. It's as colorful a food designation as the machete.

The best thing I ate from Doña Lena was the torta I took home with me. I chose the famously hot "spicy asando de Puerco" as my meat filling, although the cashier did her best to argue me out of it.

No, this simmered, saucy pork was not too hot for this gringa. Not in the cushy context of toasted telera bun, melted mozzarella, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, beans, avocado and creamy green tac0 sauce. It made me eager to try Doña Lena's specialty tortas when I return.

Which I will. There are appealing breakfast items to explore, including a chilaquiles torta with a fried egg and sauced tortilla chips, the kind of carb-on-carb action that's hard to resist.

In short, I am planning to have a relationship with this cheerful place. It's just not going to include the machete.

Are you a machete connoisseur? If so, please drop your local faves in the comments. I'm still looking.