The Brown Delivers Tamales to Your Front Door
Written: Feb 06 '08 (Updated Feb 06 '08)
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A little bit west of I35W and a little bit south of I30 in Fort Worth, on Magnolia Ave., is a small, storefront restaurant that specialized in tamales. Hot Damn Tamales relocated from Austin in 1997 to Fort Worth where I had the pleasure of eating their tamales on several occasions—in the restaurant and at a conference.
Since first living in Denver (too many years ago) we’ve embraced the tradition of eating tamales and pork posole for Christmas Eve, but making them has always been left to someone else. In Denver, as well as in Austin, finding a tamale specialist has always been easy. That’s not the case in central Illinois. Wanting to introduce some friends to our Christmas season tradition, I decided to order online. I’ve never ordered perishable food online, but Hot Damn Tamales claims they are capable of shipping anywhere. When I travel to Texas one of my last stops is a grocery in Austin or Houston that has awesome frozen tamales (made local) and even with the airline security and all I’m able to bring them home, so why not order from a restaurant that ships them. Frozen tamales take a while to thaw, the air temperatures were fairly cool, and theoretically Hot Damn Tamales knew how.
Their Tamale Menu:
This might not seem like a mom and pop tamale shop, but they are some of the best I’ve tasted. You can have fun and go gourmet, vegetarian, meat or fruit. These are holiday tamales and they have a shipping schedule for Christmas and New Years, but they will ship two-day air anywhere in the United States. They use 100% vegetable shortening instead of lard.
Vegetarian Tamales:
• Black Beans & Oaxaca Cheese: black beans, cilantro, cayenne and mozzarella-style cheese from Oaxaca. The masa is seasoned and it’s all hand-rolled in corn husks.
• Wild Mushroom and Texas Goat Cheese: The mushrooms are spiced with Chipotle. They use six different wild mushrooms with the goat cheese and chipotle filling.
• Spring Tamales: Sweet red bell peppers, shredded carrots, and serranos blend nicely to create a simple tamale.
• Poblano Corn Tamales: fresh corn mixed with poblano peppers and cilantro—also known as a ‘drunk tamale’.
• Spinach Feta and Roasted Pine Nuts Tamale: This is their newest vegetarian tamale.
Meat Tamales: Somewhat more traditional, or anticipated. A neighbor in Denver once told me that good tamales have lots of meat and that it’s shredded, not ground—there’s no ground meat here.
• Beef Tenderloin, Beer & Jalapeño Tamales
• Poblano Chicken Tamales
• Ancho Pork Tamales
Sweet Dessert Tamales: There are a lot of pecan trees in Texas as observed in the following three.
• Chocolate Cherry & Roasted Pecan Tamales
• Cranberry Jalapeno & Roasted Pecan Tamales
• Tropical Fruit Tamales (pineapple, kiwi, cherries, toasted coconut and roasted pecans)
These are packaged as 6 or 12 per bundle except the Ancho Pork Tamales, which comes in a bundle of five.
The Story
I placed the order by doing everything right. Once you add your tamales to the cart you can adjust your quantity by selecting increase, decrease, or remove. You can reserve tamales for a future date (Christmas 2008?). You can select your shipping options. It’s possible to continue shopping, go to checkout or empty your cart. Nothing is final until you submit your order. I bought 10 dozen, a mix of almost everything except for dessert tamales. You select the destination, which included a lot of countries. (Hmmm, I don’t know how successful it would be to send this to Israel, but it’s one of the options.) Shipping options are UPS 2nd Day Air or UPS Next Day Air.
Shipping is expensive, but when it arrives you know why you pay a premium. The order is $10, the shipping is $24. This works out to almost $3 per tamale. If I ordered these in Austin I’d get a dozen for $10 or $12. They arrived carefully packed in Styrofoam coolers with 1 ½ inch thick walls, surrounded by blue ice a cardboard box. They arrived solidly frozen.
The story, you ask? I placed the order, and received the email confirmation. I never heard anything else. I called and the phone mailbox was full. I never heard anything else. I called and the phone mailbox was full. Two days before the party, totally frustrated, I asked the owner of a local Mexican restaurant if he knew where I could get some and he offered to make several dozen tamales (if I gave him some posole). A short time after New Years the owner of Hot Damn Tamales called and profusely apologized. There had been a death in the family and they wanted to know if I still wanted my tamales, but of course I could cancel. You know, tragedy happens in our lives, their business is small and their tamales are good. I said ship them anyway and that’s why we have a large chest freezer. It would have been nice if they had called, or had left a message on their answering machine, but tragedy affects everyone different and I didn't ask who in the family passed away.
Ordering
Place your order and pay with a credit card online and ship to your card billing address or ship to your office or order by Google Checkout. You can send to multiple addresses and send gift baskets. The site is simple to use, the ordering process is secure, and the tamales are quite yummy. They arrived two days after I talked to the owner. I love traditional tamales but certainly have no problems with the gourmet selection and in 2008 they will have my repeat business.
These are not the tamales you find in some restaurants, fully smothered in a sauce. These are simple, wrapped in corn husk with a number of different fillings—all made with fresh ingredients. Theoretically these will last four months frozen in the freezer. I’ve had them one month, so it looks like we need to have a party. These were expensive, but no where near as expensive as the last two dozen I brought home from Central Market in Houston. Guess what we're having this Friday night for dinner?
Online: www.hotdamntamales.com
On Phone: 1-877-826-2539
Email: orders@hotdamntamales.com
In person: 713 W. Magnolia Avenue,Fort Worth, TX
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: Houston
Reviews written: 1642
Trusted by: 219 members
About Me: A spoiled rotten lab lives here - Celebrating two years of pure joy.
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