Tacos las Manitas kicks off the 2025 Monday Night Foodball lineup
For two decades the injured, ailing, and elderly patients that Tamara Valdovinos helped to regain their mobility and function had no clue that their physical therapist’s small but powerful hands possessed a second, latent superpower.
But when they and her coworkers started catching COVID, the secret street taqueria lurking deep within her began to emerge.
“I worked on the front line,” she says. “It was exhausting. It was traumatizing. I experienced severe burnout, and I was so jaded by the healthcare system. I was feeling the push from corporate America to become this machine, and the empathy and care for patients was slowly dwindling. I said, ‘Fuck this. I’m out.’”
Late night craft beer and bourbon decompression sessions with her husband showed her the path. “It was in many drunken conversations that I talked about, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna open a taco truck. I’m tired of eating garbage food anyway. This has been a passion all my life, and I’m tired of living other people’s dreams.’ It finally got to the point where my husband’s like, ‘If you’re that serious, just do it, I’ll support you 100 percent.’”
And so, channeling the culinary skills she absorbed from her Duranguense father and Nuevoleonese mother she quickly became an omnipresent force on the pop-up brewery scene.
It was only a matter of time before she conquered Avondale, and that’s exactly what will happen when Tacos las Manitas kicks off the 2025 season of Monday Night Foodball the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Frank and Mary’s Tavern.
Valdovinos, along with a small army of sisters, daughters, nieces, and nephews will throw down an array of antojitos anchored by her core taco trio: carne asada, chicken “tinga tu madre,” and veggie tofu, each bedecked by a thatch of her signature pickled red cabbage and lashed with her fresh avocado-serrano, green tomatillo-jalapeno, or chile de arbol-tomato salsas.
Don’t stop there. Order that choice of fillings on her quesataco—a fresh El Milagro tortilla crusted with grilled chihuahua cheese. Or order it “La Gringa” style, with half steak-half veggie tofu.
There’s plenty for the January abstemious too: simple quesadillas; or hold the tortillas for an “un-taco” salad.
And there’s a secret menu item: her chicken pozole roja built on a foundation of scratch stock ancho and guajillo.
Tacos las Manitas launches a new year of Foodball at 2905 N. Elston starting at 6 PM this Monday, January 6.
The full late winter lineup drops that very same day. Check out the menu.
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2025-01-03 14:31:22