Lolita’s Tacos
2307 E. Main StreetJ and I have been trying to eat out less during the week. I’m working a somewhat more traditional shift now, so we’re having to pay for childcare for the first time since we had L over five years ago. We always worked opposite shifts (her 3 Am to noon and me 3 PM to midnight), so there was always someone home to watch the offspring(s).
We’ve been doing pretty good on cutting out the fast food runs and the “I’m tired and don’t feel like cooking” that comes with the lack of sleep and lack of help getting every one fed and ready for bed at night, so we decided to treat ourselves to lunch last Sunday.
We really didn’t have a plan on where to go. We were tossing out the usual suspects for us. Arcadia, Bell’s, Hopcat, Burdick’s. All sounded delicious as they always do, but I pulled out something else. Mexican. A place we both have been hearing good things about for a while.
Lolita’s Tacos is on that weird corner of East Main and Humphrey’s in Kalamazoo Township. The last time we ate in that building, it was a place called Big City Food Diner. I don’t get out to that side of town very often…and apparently neither does Google because their last Street picture is from 2012 as well….so I don’t know if there had been a restaurant in between or not.
Lolita’s opened last August after doing a little work to the building. They used a lot of yellow paint to brighten the place up and hung colorful flags from the ceiling. They replaced the tables and chairs with newer, brighter ones and really, just cleaned the look of the place up from what I can remember. It wasn’t dirty, per se, last time I was in the building, but you could tell it had been a restaurant for a while. Lolita’s just gave the building a little refresher and a good coat of paint.
The set up of the building is a little odd because when you walk in the door, you’re right at the kitchen pick-up windows for the wait staff. The dining room is off to the right past a cash register set up on a glass display case selling Mexican candy.
The menus were already on the tables and the waitress told us to sit wherever we’d like. We chose a booth by the windows so B could look out. They had high chairs in the hallway by the restrooms, but we didn’t see them until after we had ate and one was never offered, so B sat next to me like a big boy which made him happy and helped us get through the meal.
While we were looking over the menu, the waitress brought a couple of waters for the kids and a couple of Cokes for J and I. She also came back with a basket of chips and some salsa. The chips didn’t have that home made flare to them. They also did taste or look like the kind of chips you’d get out of a bag from the supermarket. They were the kind of chips that are a little bit stiffer and don’t have as much salt on them.
The salsa was pretty similar. It didn’t quite taste home made but it was better than what you get in a jar. It didn’t have that super fresh tomato taste that you get with salsa that was whipped up the day before, but it was a good, mild salsa that wasn’t too hot, but still had a pretty decent flavor to it. The tomatoes were crush pretty well and about the only big chunks was the occasional onion.
I like Mexican places that have a big a la carte menu. Rice and beans aren’t my favorite and I feel like when you order a plate at a Mexican restaurant, the plate is about 90% rice and beans. Places that let me order a la carte are the places I will keep going back to over and over.
I ordered four steak tacos on yellow corn tortillas with cilantro. You can get tacos on white corn, yellow corn, or flour. They come with cilantro and onion, but you can Americanize them with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream for $.25. A good steak taco with cilantro on a corn tortilla is one of the best things in the world to me. It’s so simple yet if the steak is seasoned well and the tortilla has a little bit of a crunch to it and the cilantro tastes fresh picked, it’s one of the most perfect food. These tacos hit all of those thresholds. The meat was tender and heavily seasoned…and they put a lot of it on each taco. The tortillas were crunchy but still pliable. The cilantro could have just came from a garden outside. I always compare tacos to my favorite place in Grand Rapids. These are close. These come in a very close second to my all-time favorite taco place. If Lolita’s wasn’t on the other side of town, I’d eat tacos from here every night.
J did the a la cart thing as well. She ordered a gordita and a tostada. She was going to do both with ground beef, but they were still making the ground beef for the day and it would have been a little bit of a wait. She switched to chicken instead.
The gordita is a fried corn patty stuffed with chicken, sour cream, and cheese. Again, this thing was overflowing with ingredients, so J was breaking it in to pieces so she could get the shell as well as some chicken and cheese in each bite. She said the chicken was a good substitute and definitely something she would order again.
The tostado was pretty similar to the godita, but instead of a puffed, fried corn shell, it is a flat crunchy tortilla that’s topped with the chicken, beans, lettuce, cheese, and sour cream. Tostadas have always fascinated me because they’re basically a taco that isn’t folded over. Again, there was so much food on top of the tortilla that J had no choice but to break it up with a fork and eat it that way.
L likes going to Mexican restaurants (mainly Moe’s Southwest Grill and Qdoba…so not really Mexican, but kinda Mexican) because she likes quesadilla’s. You can get a quesadilla with meat at Lolita’s, but L just wants cheese. She got a large flour tortilla with cheddar cheese pressed between it. She loves quesadilla, but hates eating at meal times, so it was a fight even though it was a delicious lunch.
B is the opposite of his sister and likes to eat. He’ll eat dang near anything and one thing we’ve found out recently that he really likes is rice and beans. We got him his own side of refried beans and rice. He can’t quite feed himself yet but he likes to try so I would dip his spoon in the beans so the rice would stick to it and try to feed him that way. He eventually just took the spoon away from me and tried to do it himself making a heck of a mess. He ate about half of the plate though which we thought was pretty damn good for a toddler.
Our bill was a little over $25 and I paid cash as I had extra on me from my mom, but they do take the major credit cards. There’s a cashier by the entrance, but the waitress took our check and cashed it out for us.
Lolita’s Tacos is delicious. There are other Mexican places in town, but this is the kind of small, family run taqueria that I love so much. It’s really, honest Mexican food which isn’t quite all made from scratch, but you get your money’s worth, you leave stuffed, and most importantly, you leave happy having just enjoyed a delicious meal.
SW Michigan Dining 