Cook’s Country’s Bryan Roof Learns the Secrets to the Tacos Rasurados at Tacos Apson

After I grab my order of carne asada, rasurado, and tripa tacos, I make my way to the salsa bar, taking in its assortment of red and green salsas, aguamole (a puree of avocados, lime juice, and water), chopped cabbage, wedged baby limes, and a mix of diced onions and cilantro. 

Sitting at one of the picnic tables in the shade of the corrugated tin roof, I eat while taking in the view of Sentinel Peak against the cornflower-blue sky. 

Owners Yazmin Aldecoa-Durazo and Francisco Javier Durazo opened Tacos Apson in April 2001, less than a year after they were married. Francisco had always wanted to put something of his own out into the world, to be his own boss, and opening a taco shop was a dream the couple shared. They envisioned a “home-style” taco shop with dishes based on family recipes, with a few innovations of their own. 

Neither Yazmin nor Francisco was directly involved in restaurants prior to opening. “We thought the restaurant business was going to be really good, and it is very good. But it’s a very big thing,” says Yazmin. “A lot of people don’t know that. They think that opening a restaurant is just going inside your kitchen and cooking. No. It’s a passion for us—food, recipes, creating stuff­—but it’s also a lot of work.”

Nearly 20 years later, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Yazmin and Francisco opened a second location north of Tucson. It’s tucked into a nondescript strip mall with surroundings bearing little resemblance to the mountain views and charm of the original, but the food is still made with the same loving care and mesquite smoke flavor. 

The taqueria is named in tribute to Francisco’s father, also Francisco Durazo, who started a Mexican rock-and-roll band with his brother in 1957 called Los Apson. Even up to Yazmin and Francisco’s wedding day, Yazmin, who had heard of the band, never knew they were related to her future husband. The name “Apson” is an acronym for Agua Prieta, Sonora, the town and state in Mexico where the band, Yazmin, and Francisco all hail from. 

Most taqueria menus in Tucson have some similarities. You’ll almost always find carne asada (steak tacos), burros (Tucson’s version of burritos, often filled only with meat and without garnish), and the ubiquitous Sonoran hot dogs (bacon-wrapped hot dogs served in bolillo rolls and topped with beans, onions, tomatoes, salsa verde, crema, and yellow mustard). Those items are as much a part of Tucson culture as the towering saguaro cacti that fill the surrounding desert. 

But what sets Tacos Apson apart is their tacos rasurados: flour tortillas filled with the rich, über-flavorful meat shaved from the bones of grilled beef ribs (“rasurado” means “shaved” in Spanish). 

It’s a technique that Francisco says he first encountered in Mexico but really only put into practice at the restaurant when his son started wearing braces and could no longer eat ribs off the bone. The family enjoyed the tacos so much that they put them on the menu, and today the tacos are one of Tacos Apson’s biggest sellers. 

Francisco’s mornings begin by heaving a 40-pound bag of mesquite lump charcoal into the grill. He lights the fire, busies himself around the kitchen, and keeps a watchful eye on the coals. When the coals are covered in a layer of thin, gray ash, he spreads them evenly over the grill, kicking up sparks in the process. He covers nearly the entire grill grate with vegetables for the salsa tatemada (charred salsa)—plum tomatoes, halved white onions, whole jalapeños. 

Their skins slowly blacken as he meticulously rotates each vegetable with the tongs that never seem to leave his left hand. The tomatoes, plump and oozing, are the last to come off; he’ll combine them with the other grilled vegetables for a salsa to serve with the tacos. Customers also munch on cebollitas (bulbous spring onions) and more jalapeños, squirted with lime juice and dipped in salt, on the side, like French fries with a burger.

While the vegetables cool and the coals are still hot, Francisco lifts the hefty seven-bone racks of beef ribs onto the sturdy iron bars of the grill. 

They land with a thud, bone side down, and he maneuvers them like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He reaches into the metal receptacle to the left of the grill that’s filled with coarse Mexican sea salt and grabs a fistful. He casually showers the ribs with the chunky granules. Most of it bounces against the meat and settles; some falls into the fire, where it crackles and pops. 

Soon after, the aromas of singed beef fat mingle with mesquite smoke and fill the kitchen. The fatty ribs occasionally flare up in quick, tall bursts, but Francisco quickly and calmly douses the flames with a squirt of water before they get out of hand. 

After grilling and salting both sides, he slices the racks between the bones to break them down into their individual ribs. Working with about three at a time, Francisco stacks the ribs on their sides, each spooning the next, and returns them to the grill, cut sides down. Again, he showers them with salt. The meat on these cut sides is the payoff, and he’s looking for it to brown and crisp nicely. 

Francisco lands the mahogany ribs onto a carving board just as the orders start rolling in. He grabs his 10-inch chef’s knife and stands the ribs upright on the board with the tongs. As he begins shaving the ribs, the knife moves in a blur, slapping in rhythm onto the cutting board as he works all sides of the ribs, removing the tender meat with surgical precision. 

The meat piles up on the board in long strands, and placing his hand on top of the knife to steady it, he gives it a final coarse chop. With the side of the knife, he scoops the meat into a warm flour tortilla, and in the blink of an eye the tacos are on their way to the dining room. 

Francisco, a man of few—but very calculated—words, turns to me and says, “Charcoal, meat, and salt. That’s all you need.”