Austin Truck Cuantos Tacos Gets Into the Hamburguesas Game

One of Austin’s best taco spots, food truck, Cuantos Tacos, opened a new truck dedicated to hamburguesas — Mexican-style burgers — over the weekend. Cuantas Hamburguesas is found at the same Arbor Food Park as its older sibling at 1108 East 12th Street in Central East Austin as of August 26.

Cuantas’s menu offers four hamburguesas, all with smash burger-style Angus beef patties.

• The Hawaiiana, with two patties, bacon, ham, pineapples, Mexican cheese, lettuce, pickled jalapenos, mayonnaise; and ketchup;
• The Americana, a take on the Big Mac from McDonald’s, with two patties, American cheese, onions, pickles, ketchip and Dijon mustard;
• The Sincronizada; with a single patty, ham, a beef hot dog sliced in half lengthwise, Mexican cheese, pickles, pickled jalapenos, and a spiced-up mayonnaise;
• And then there’s the Campechana, with one patty, and then a longaniza smash patty, a corn tortilla costra-style (a crust of fried cheese griddled onto the tortilla), spiced-up mayonnaise, onions, cilantro, pickles, and lime juices.

There are also hand-cut fries that are fried in beef tallow. The mayonnaise will be made in-house using avocado oil and eggs from Vital Farms.

Even before owner and chef Luis “Beto” Robledo opened Cuantos Tacos in 2019, he had been toying with four food truck ideas before he settled on tacos for his first one. The hamburguesa menu was one of those potentials.

Cuantas Hamburguesas is a mixture of Robledo’s experiences eating the dish throughout Mexico. “Mexico makes some mean street burgers,” Robledo writes to Eater. “Normally, they are grilled over charcoal mesquite where they’ll also toast the bun over the flames too and the sesame seeds get nice and toasty and just have a different note all together that is unforgettable.” He always grabs burgers and other foods from street stalls whenever he goes to back to Mexico.

Cuantas Hamburguesas hours are from 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and then from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday. For now, the truck is only open for in-person ordering.