“Inhale Tacos. Exhale negativity. In Tacos, we trust!”
By Team FoodeMag: The words on the walls reflect the ethos of Maiz Tacos, the taqueria that promises to serve 100% fresh authentic, homemade tacos. In many ways than one, we believe in it. Way back in December 2017, we had featured the husband and wife team behind a new Mexican food truck in one of our favourite sections – Foodpreneur. From a food truck that catered at various events to setting up a permanent pop-up in the form of a ‘brick and mortar’ shell in One Third Food Hall in Dar Wasl, this home grown grand has come a long way. They have won a few accolades in their journey so far, including two awards at the Dubai Street Food Awards 2018 held at the Beach Canteen during Dubai Food Festival – for the Best Main Course: for El Dorado Fish Tacos and Best food concept. FoodeMag was part of the jury and selecting Maiz Tacos as the winner was a unanimous decision. El Dorado – marinated white fish, battered and fried, served with bell peppers, red onions and dill-chipotle mayo, had definitely won our hearts. So did Luma Makhlouf, the vivacious co-founder and Head Taco Maker of Maiz Tacos with her passionate stories about what the brand stood for.
Once Maiz Tacos had set up a permanent pop-up at Dar Wasl, we dropped in. FoodHall is a community mall, a hub for homegrown foodies and created the perfect environment for Maiz Tacos. The space could seat up to 34 persons at time and was vibrant with a bright wallpaper on one side – tall cactii and cactus flowers al Frida Kahlo style! El Dorado matched up to our memories of its initial flavours. We also tasted El Jefe, a 6 hour slow cooked, marinated pulled angus beef served with chimichurri and the Churro Icecream sandwich drizzled with lotus. Luma Makhlouf spoke about her journey, “Maiz started as a food truck in October 2017. A few months later, we got a bunch of catering enquiries and soon we felt that we should be throwing fiestas at people in their homes! We launched our catering business and was asked by the One Third Food Hall in Dar Wasl to join their food hall. Any authentic taqueria in the world probably has menu 6 items at the maximum – some tacos, maybe guacamole and of course, salsa. Even in the pop up here, we are keeping it very simple just like it was in the truck. We have added a few more appetisers, dips and other exciting things that we weren’t able to do in the truck. We are playing around with the tacos. We are still going to keep it simple and small, rotate the items around every once in a while, with new fillings for the tacos.”
What about the pricing – is it going to be more now that they have a restaurant than in the truck? On the contrary, the pricing remains the same although the portion sizes are much bigger as they had greater control over the ingredients that when into the food when it’s not a central kitchen.
While you have to follow Maiz Tacos on their socials to know the whereabouts of the food truck, you can pop in at their pop-pop for a taste of authentic Mexican street food. Hope you enjoy the video featuring Luma and her award winning El Dorado as much as we enjoyed making it!
Website: www.maiztacos.com
Contact Number: +971 50 392 0418
Email: [email protected]
Location of Pop-up: Dar Al Wasl Mall, Wasl Road, Street 2D
Open 1pm to 10pm on Saturday – Wednessday; and 12pm to 11pm on Thursday – Friday Location of Truck: Follow the Maiz Tacos on Instagram for regular updates