QUECHEE — Next to the constant rush of traffic on Route 4, in the parking lot of an empty former country store, scenes like this are unfolding.
Kris Dawe, an HVAC contractor from Auburn, N.H., just east of Manchester, pulled up in a pickup truck at lunchtime Thursday. He was in Norwich to look at a job that morning, and when he was done Googled “Mexican food near me.”
Six minutes away, just west of the Quechee exit, across from the KOA campground, was El Tenatito, a food cart opened this spring by Andrea Arellano Vega and Eduardo Hernandez Flores, a married couple who live in Bradford, Vt.
“I love Mexican food,” Dawe, 31, said as he waited for his order of carne asada tacos and marveled at the cool, sunny spring day.
“Just, the flavor’s good,” he said. “I feel like American food doesn’t have a lot of flavor. It’s kind of bland.”
He seemed happy to be alive and to have discovered El Tenatito in a part of New England he didn’t really know.
While Vega runs El Tenatito, with help from her cousin Tania Arellano Vega, it’s her husband’s dream to operate a restaurant. They hope the cart, which sits on land owned by a friend, is a stepping stone to a permanent location.
For now, though, the cart is a window into the culinary traditions of Puebla, in east central Mexico. Vega, 22, and Flores, 30, are from neighboring villages, said Flores, who works in construction and responded to questions via text.
“I like that everything is made fresh, like how it’s made in Mexico,” and that “it has the same flavors as the food I grew up with,” Flores said.
El Tenatito, which is the diminutive of tenate, the traditional woven basket used to keep tortillas warm, sells a range of tacos, quesadillas, burritos and thin flautas in a variety of flavors: Tinga — shredded chicken in a smoky tomato-based sauce; birria — braised beef; carne asada — marinated grilled beef; and carnitas — slow-cooked shredded pork.
The menu item most traditional to Puebla, though, is the al pastor, pork marinated using a family recipe, Vega said.
“Every place has their own type of marinade,” she said.
The operation is small, and not every menu item will always be available.
A visitor on Thursday asked for birria tacos, but they weren’t quite ready, so a side-step to carne asada was required. There was no tres leches cake, but the choco-flan, a layer of thick chocolate cake beneath a layer of flan was a noble substitute, flavorful and not overly sweet.
A birria taco emerged later and didn’t disappoint. Three tacos and a piece of cake cost around $30.
JENNIFER HAUCK Valley News
Dawe, the Mexican food devotee from southern New Hampshire, ate his tacos on-site. There are a couple of low benches and a flat stone wall for sitting, but most patrons took their food to-go. Dawe ate in his truck.
“So good,” he told Vega. “These are better than the places I went to in Mexico,” on a recent trip there, he said.
El Tenatito is the latest entrant in a growing roster of Mexican dining options in the Upper Valley. For years, Gusanoz in Lebanon was the only option.
Before starting the cart in Quechee, Vega worked at Arandas Mexican Cuisine, in Fairlee, an outpost of a small Vermont chain of five restaurants housed in gas stations and convenience stores.
Other recent additions include Carlita’s, which started as a cart and is now a restaurant and bar in South Royalton; Black Magic Mexican, a vegan restaurant in the Lebanon location once held down by Lalo’s Taqueria, which closed last year; Tacos y Tequila in Hanover; Jalisco Bar and Grill in Newport and Casa Jalisco and Rancho Viejo in Claremont.
The burgeoning taco scene — three words never before assembled in an Upper Valley publication — also includes Trail Break Taps and Tacos near Quechee Gorge and Ranch Camp, in Woodstock.
It seems likely to keep growing, if patrons like Dawe have anything to say about it. He said he’d eat Mexican food daily if he could get it, and prefers to take his custom to places just starting out.
“I’d rather give it to somebody who’s trying to build something,” he said.
That’s exactly what Vega and Flores are up to.
“I would also like to know what the people want, and what do they think so far,” Flores said. “I would love more feedback. I want to keep growing, so that more people can have the chance to taste our food.”
El Tenatito Taqueria is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sundays, noon to 7. It doesn’t have a website and accepts cash and cards.
