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As you may have noticed, there’s been a bit of a flurry of activity on the Mexican and Tex-Mex food front of late. In London, Thomasina Miers’ Wahaca restaurant chain is ever-expanding, offering authentic Mexican street food, and here in Edinburgh we have Los Cardos and Illegal Jack’s making sure we ‘burghers have the best burritos’. Long before any of these places came on the scene, Lupe Pinto’s pitched up in Tollcross, offering, amongst other things, every type of chilli pepper they could get their hands on.
It quickly became known as the place to buy all the ingredients you needed for a real Mexican dinner, and no commercial ‘fajita kits’ in sight. Owner Doug Bell has an impressive knowledge of chillies and the shop carries around twenty types of whole dried varieties in stock at any one time, as well as various other canned and pickled versions. They also have a huge selection of ‘La Preferida’ products such as re-fried and pinto beans, and plenty of hot sauces and tequilas to challenge los bravos!
But, it’s not just Mexican foodstuffs that Lupe Pinto’s stock – wandering around the packed shop is a bit like taking a round-the-world food trip in five minutes, and in terms of variety, this has to be the best of imports in the city. They also have a huge selection of Caribbean foods and spices. Jamaican jerk chicken is gaining word-of-mouth here in the UK; this dry-rub style of marinade is ideal for the BBQ but can also be made in the oven. Many family spice mix recipes are pretty closely-guarded secrets. Thankfully, Lupe Pinto’s stocks several types of seasoning, and you’ll even find recipes using the shop’s ingredients in their book. Published last year, ‘Half Canned Cooks’ includes an easy-sounding recipe for jerk chicken with gungo peas and rice. The book also offers up some interesting Spanish and Oriental dishes, again using many of their specialist stocked items.
And lastly, for my indulgent (and nostalgic Canadian) side; the North American section. Here you’ll find root beer, Jell-O, tooth-rottingly sweet Skippy peanut butter, the inimitable Welch’s grape jelly and lots of candy.
Hey, a girl can’t be gourmet all the time!
It's worth mentioning that Doug is a huge tequila nerd and will happily talk you through the many, many varieties in stock. He's got some good rums too. I love Lupe Pintos.
Too true! As always is a case of tight words budget for Bite (380 to be precise!) so Lupe Pintos was definitely a case of running out of space to mention all the amazing things they sell in that tightly-packed shop! I also meant to ask him if they still stocked tamarind balls- we got hooked on these sweets back in the 1990s, but I seem to remember there was some ban on them due to the giant 'choke-risk' seed contained within. Must check it out next time!
Cheers for the comment P!