ME GUSTA ... A LOT! Taqueria La Poblanita
is the latest Mexican eatery to set up shop on London Road in Eau Claire.

While I speak Spanish and have been to Mexico a few times, I’m no expert in its cuisine (except for flan, which I can make from scratch). My cousin Dave is the Mexican gastronome. Folks in the Chippewa Valley know him as Señor Barnes (BAR-trill the r-NES), the Spanish teacher from North High School, now retired.

So when I volunteered to write about the Taqueria La Poblanita, the new Mexican restaurant in what I call “Little Mexico” on London Road – there are now four Mexican eateries in the neighborhood – Dave was the first person I called. And wouldn’t you know it, he’d already been there. He described the food as “delicious and very authentic,” and gave it a hearty thumbs up.

Taqueria La Poblanita is nestled in the strip mall right next to Mother Nature’s Food and just down from Tokyo, my fav Japanese restaurant. It features about 50 delicious Mexican dishes, many of them vegetarian and nearly all made from scratch with fresh ingredients. “La Poblanita” in the restaurant’s name refers to little woman from Puebla, the Mexican hometown of the restaurant’s owner Antelmo Nieves Flores, who is goes by “Temo” for short. Puebla is well known for its fresh, homemade cuisine, especially its moles, or sauces of varying taste-bud intensity, depending on the amount of chili peppers, spices, and chocolate added.

Temo came to the United States from Puebla seven years ago. He initially went to New Jersey but didn’t like it. “Too big and crowded,” he said. A friend was working in Eau Claire, and described it as a “quiet and very good” city. So Temo moved here and got a job as a busboy and dishwasher in the cantina in the back of the Supermercado Sandoval Mexican grocery store. With no time or money to go to school, he learned English by watching television. He worked a lot.

Soon Temo worked his way up to cook, and there the dream to someday have his own restaurant was born. When the grocery store changed hands (it’s now La Misma Luna), he decided the time was right to start realizing his dream.

“Dreams are not easy,” Temo said. “You have to work hard. If realizing dreams was easy, everyone would do this. My family and I work hard every single day to realize this dream.”

The restaurant is a family affair. Several of the recipes and secret ingredients for the delicious dishes come from his mother, who still resides in Puebla. His two brothers also help.

I happened to arrive on a 90-plus degree day when the neighborhood was in the midst of a power outage. Within seconds of being seated and ordering, I had a 16-ounce glass of horchata. Horchata is basically sweet chilled milk, made from ground almonds or rice. La Poblanita’s is made from rice; it was first-rate.

“You have to work hard. If realizing dreams was easy, everyone would do this. My family and I work hard every single day to realize this dream.” – Antelmo “Temo” Nieves Flores, owner of Taqueria La Poblanita

Next came a small basket of homemade baked crispy corn chips with three different colored sauces: red (tomato), pale green (tomatillo), and lime green like the Grinch (green chili peppers). I gingerly tried the Grinch one first, and although it was a hot sauce, my tongue survived. The others tasted fresh and mild, like spicy garden tomatoes. Temo shared that he prepares distinct sauces for his American and Mexican customers as the latter prefer spicier and zingier fare.

The 20-minute or so outage gave me time to peruse the menu. The 50 items include tacos, burritos, carnitas, tortas, chimichangas, enchiladas, quesadillas, and fajitas, all made with your choice of beef, salted beef, chorizo (Mexican sausage), tongue, pork, spicy pork, marinated pork, chicken, lamb, shrimp, cheese, or veggies. These along with seven appetizers, 10 dinners, five weekend specials, a kid’s menu, several Mexican soft drinks, waters, and beers, three desserts, and a taco salad, make up the extensive menu. Margaritas are coming soon.

When the power came back on, my chicken burrito sandwich arrived, and one of the two big-screen TVs came on tuned to a Mexican soccer game with ranchera music in the background. The burrito was ginormous. It was fresh, with almost an entire avocado, and lightly breaded chopped white chicken meat.

The pièce de résistance, though, was the flan. Yes, I am a dessert girl. I’ve made flan, so I consider myself a flan connoisseur. Again, the portion size was huge. It had a light dusting of a cinnamon/chocolate powder rather than the typical melted brown sugar sauce. Scrumptious!

Taqueria La Poblanita • 2436 London Road •715-831-2131•dine in or carry out • Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 9am to 9pm, Friday-Saturday, 9am to 10pm.