Lupe Tortilla

mai pham Scout

Joined 6 years ago

Above average, family friendly tex-mex. Lupe Tortilla

I’ve been to the Lupe Tortilla on 59/Kirby but I’d never been to this location in Sugar Land until yesterday. I was greeted by what looked like a large house with a sprawling patio installed with a large sandy play area where kids were gleefully getting themselves dirty. At barely 6pm on a Friday, Lupe’s was already teeming with hungry families. In addition to parents and kids on the patio, the entrance was crowded with a small line in front of the hostess. I gave her my name and headed towards the bar, where the sandy beach theme continued with a faux grass hut-like bar, complete with multicolored Christmas lights and Hawaiian-shirt clad bartender. I ordered a $.6.25 frozen strawberry margarita and took in the sights.

A family was seated at the bar where they had ordered meals (in lieu of sit-down dining). And their orders were spectacularly delivered on sizzling hot plates with sizzling hot cheese garnished with pretty char-grilled red and green peppers. The food looked great but for the fact that all the dishes were literally smothered in melted cheese. A case of overzealous cheese-dosing by the kitchen, I thought about my poor arteries and made a mental note to stay away from the sizzling plates.

Instead we ordered their famous steak fajitas, and a couple of enchiladas a la carte. The chicken enchilada was pretty flavorless, a complete bust. The fajita steak enchilada was better, but they charged a $2.95 supplement to the $2.50 enchilada, and totally not worth it for $5.45. The fajitas were definitely the highlight, arriving on a sizzling plate adorned with that special Lupe’s touch: chargrilled red pepper, green pepper, and green onions. But the wait from the time we ordered the food to the time the food arrived was overly-long (they used to have signs talking about the wait), which prompted me to tell me husband several times “the fajitas better be DARN good if we’re going to wait this long!”

In the end, the fajitas were above average but not the slam-dunk spectacular I expected, the prices were high-end for tex-mex (a single portion steak fajita was $16.95). If I had kids it would be a big plus, but with so many choices for tex-mex, I’m not sure the prices or the wait are fully justified.