Post updated at 5:04 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18:
Lulu’s Latin Food made its debut opening Friday.
The restaurant, located at 1410 Kasold Drive, Suite A17, fills a gap in Lawrence cuisine as it provides some authentic dishes not readily available in town, as well as traditional favorites, says co-owner Eli Zaragoza.
Zaragoza designed the menu, which features many items his cousin and mother created from family recipes. He co-owns Lulu’s with Lourdes Perez Rojo, who also co-owns Cielito Lindo.
“The best way to describe it is a Mexican menu with Latin specialties,” Zaragoza said. “The majority of it is similar to the other Mexican restaurants but we have certain dishes that are traditional … the specialties are like homemade traditional meals.”
Familiar items like chimichangas, taco salad, hard tacos, chile rellenos, and enchiladas coexist with dishes like Brussels chips, which are fried Brussels sprouts, and pollo con tajada, a Honduran plate featuring chicken served on a bed of grilled plantain slices.
One of the restaurant’s points of pride is its ceviche, Zaragoza said.
“That’s very traditional. It takes a lot of time — it’s like a day process, and it’s cooked with the lime juices,” Zaragoza said. “We’re slightly different where we want to be more authentic but also not too authentic.”
Lulu’s Latin Food offers some less common choices of sides as well as rice and beans: street corn, fries, Cobb salad, and avocado slices.
In addition to the ceviche, Zaragoza says he’s particularly proud of the street tacos, and the sweet and spicy shrimp. Zaragoza says the Mexican pizza might look different than the one you’d get at Taco Bell, but the ingredients are fresher.
“The Mexican pizza has actual traditional ingredients,” Zaragoza said. “It looks weird because it’s actual Mexican ingredients, not Taco Bell.”
Zaragoza’s goal was to provide patrons with something new, but familiar.
“You can build your own burrito, you can get Mexican pizza, you can get nontraditional plates that you’re used to or you can get traditional plates,” Zaragoza said. “I’d like to think we made this place a little mixture of everything.”
Lulu’s Latin Food is open seven days a week, usually from noon until 10 p.m. Get a look at the menu at luluslatinfood.com/menu.
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Chansi Long (she/her) reported for The Lawrence Times from July 2022 through August 2023. Read more of her work for the Times here.
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