In Inchicore, a new restaurant showcases authentic Mexican street food

Tacos Lupillo already seems to have outgrown its small location, which on this Thursday at lunch time is warm and cozy and full of the smell of frying onions.

It’s in a single room in the same building as Cleary’s pub, across Sarsfield Road from the National School in Inchicore.

There are two tables inside, plus a counter with some high stools – and one table out front. They’re all full.

Owner Jose Guadalupe Zamudio – “I’m chef, manager, waiter, I do everything, I’m the kitchen porter as well” – is too busy to talk right now.

But he says on the phone later that he looked for a bigger place, a place closer to the centre of town even.

“It’s too expensive,” he says. “This place is not too far from the centre of town, and the price isn’t too high.”

So he opened here on 12 December, with a menu he says showcases authentic Mexican street food.

“Different”

On this Thursday, Barisa Obradovic and Mamo Obradovic have come in for their third visit.

They’ve had the tortas – a bit like Mexican paninis – and the burritos.

The menu offers various fillings that can go in these dishes, or in tacos (made with 10cm corn tortillas), or a gringa (made with a big flour tortilla).

There’s the “al pastor” (pork with pineapple), the chorizo (sausage), and the “barbacoa” (marinated beef).

Plus there are a couple options Zamudio says aren’t strictly authentic, but he reckons might be more familiar to some customers: “chilli carne” and “chicken lemon peri peri”.

At his table in Tacos Lupillo on Thursday, sitting across from Mamo, Barisa says he used to go to Boojum, “but the taste is different here, it’s more homemade”.

“Boojum is good but it’s more industrial – boom, boom, boom,” he says, making motions with his hands like he’s putting together a burrito in a robotic way.

“Here it’s different. Like the sauces – you get way more than you could ever eat,” he says, motioning to dishes on their table of what the menu calls “red hot sauce” and “coriander green hot sauce”.

“And”, adds Mamo, “you’re supporting local.”

Behind the service counter on this Thursday, Zamudio apologises and says the week’s been busier than he expected and he’s run out of corn tortillas for tacos the day before.

He recommends the gringa, a big soft flour tortilla, stuffed with fried onions, the reddish al pastor pork, and melted cheese. Then folded over into a semi-circle, and cut in half.

With a bowl of red hot sauce to drizzle on top of each bite with a spoon, it’s spicy, goo-ey, delicious, and filling.

Future plans

Zamudio says when he was growing up in Mexico his family had two shops selling tacos.

“When I was a kid, eight years old, I started serving customers there,” he says. “Then I went on to work the grill.”

He says for his tacos he’s borrowed from styles typical of the states of the cities of Guadalajara and Oaxaca. And he makes his own chorizo, he says.

“What I’m serving is very authentic street food,” he says. “I’m thinking when I have enough people working I’m going to start doing specials too.”

He’d like to do cochinita pibil – a marinated, slow-roasted, shredded pork dish from southern Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

And to serve ceviche – seafood “cooked” by marinating it in lime juice – on round, flat crispy corn tostadas. As well as arrachera, marinated flank steak, grilled.

“I want to serve food that nobody is serving now in Dublin,” he says.