Diners call El Charro's tacos muy delicioso

The restaurant, open a year, serves very authentic Mexican dishes.

By Shary Lyssy Marshall, Times Correspondent
Published March 6, 2008

Edith Lemus serves Barb and Doug Allen at the El Charro Tacos+ in Lutz on Thursday. In the background is her husband, Jorge. Her menu is authentic Mexican cuisine using many of her mother's recipes, which she learned as a child.
	[Mike Pease | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Mike Pease | Times] A plate of stuffed peppers, refried beans and rice is typical fare at El Charro Tacos+, a Mexican restaurant. [Mike Pease | Times] Mexican decorations adorn the walls at the El Charro Tacos+, which opened about a year ago.

LAND O'LAKES - Edith Lemus' restaurant is like an extension of her childhood home in Guerrero, Mexico.

Lemus and her husband, Jorge, opened El Charro Tacos+, a Mexican restaurant, about a year ago.

She's usually the one taking the orders.

"Spicy or regular?"

"Crispy or soft tacos?"

And she often checks on customers before they leave.

"Did you like the tacos?"

Her menu is authentic Mexican cuisine using many of the recipes her mother, Maria Lorenza Medel de Martinez, taught her growing up in the village of Ometepec.

Two tacos are $3.99 and you can get them with steak, grilled chicken, ground beef, pork, fajitas, fish, cow tongue or tripe. There are burritos for $4.99, with steak fajitas, steak, grilled chicken, ground beef, pork, fish, or veggies, and enchilada plates for $6.99, which include rice and beans. The menu also includes stuffed peppers, quesadillas, nachos and tostadas.

Dessert options include flan and tres leches cake, which is a buttery vanilla cake moistened with sweet milk and covered with whipped cream. Both cost $2.29.

"We are a little kitchen with a big taste," Lemus said. "We can do it the way you want it. If I have the ingredients, I can cook something that is not on the menu."

The youngest of nine children, Lemus and her twin, Maria, loved to pretend they were cooking. Once when they were 6, their older brothers returned from hunting and handed several cleaned small doves to their little sisters teasing, "You want to cook? Cook these up."

The girls, who had listened to many hours of cooking lessons while their mother taught their older sisters, already knew their way around the kitchen. They mixed the game with tomatoes and spices and surprised their brothers with a good lunch.

As she and her sister got older, their mother taught them the same recipes and lessons she had taught their sisters.

"You have to learn to cook so when you grown up, you won't kill your husbands," she told them.

Lemus and all of her siblings attended college. She spent years working other business jobs, including in the travel industry. El Charro Tacos+ is her first restaurant, but she has always loved cooking.

"What I cook here, is what I make at home," she said.

The Lemuses have been married for 27 years. He didn't know she could cook when he asked her to marry him.

"His jaw was on the floor when I cooked for him," she said, laughing. Jorge Lemus, who also runs another business, frequently helps his wife.

"We have people who come 20 to 30 miles to eat our food," Lemus said. "That's like applause for an artist. People tell us the flavor is delicious."

If you go

El Charro Tacos+

Harbor Village Plaza

1930 Land O'Lakes Blvd., No. 19

Lutz, FL 33549

(813) 949-2129

Open 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday

[Last modified March 5, 2008, 21:56:42]