For this inaugural edition of Kids Eat…11 year-old Iris and 6 year-old Lyle traveled, with quite a bit of adult assistance, to Los Lupes III, one of the local Tex-Mex chain’s seven franchise locations.
The basics: Iris opted for the chicken kids fajitas ($5.99), featuring a generous serving of sliced meat, along with sauteed onions, tortillas, orange “Spanish” rice, generic refried beans and a piece of corn on the cob—and by piece, I mean part of the cob. Lyle decided on the bean & cheese nachos ($4.99), which consists of about a dozen large corn chips topped slathered in refried beans and grease-sweating melted cheddar. Guess that should read “cheddar.”
To help adults kill time: Drink specials on this night included $2 bottled beers and $2.50 peach, mango or peach/mango margaritas. The frozen mango margarita was tangy, headache-cold, Slurpee-sweet and Holmes-sized, although not particularly strong. The server didn't ask about my preference, so I'm guessing there was no rocks option.
My excuse for greasy, nutrition-free generic Tex-Mex: if I wanted them to have a healthy meal, there’s no way we would have stopped at a purple-neon Duncanville Tex-Mex joint. We—meaning they—were starving.
Iris, you got the chicken fajitas. Did you like it? Iris: Yes! I loved it. I got chicken and rice and beans and corn on the cob, which was so delicious. I love corn on the cob. I ate every bit. I got it because it came with corn. At practically every Mexican restaurant the chicken is all fatty, and this wasn ’t fatty at all. I don’t like chicken anywhere else, but I liked it there.
Lyle, you got bean and cheese nachos. Did you like them? Lyle: Umm, let me think.... [Humming.] Hunnnhhh! That means, ‘Yes, I did.’
They were just chips, refried beans and cheese. That doesn’t seem very healthy. Does that concern you? Lyle: I don’t care about being healthy. I just like the food.
Iris, yours seemed a little healthier. You had chicken with tortillas, rice, beans, corn and onions. So you had meat, cheese, bread and vegetables. Except you didn’t eat the onions. Iris: I don’t like onions unless they’re like mixed in with something.
So you’d want to eat there again? Lyle: Umm, let me think... [Shouting.] YES! Iris: Lyle’s was good. We traded one of his nachos for some of my chicken and I liked his too. Except I don’t think it would have been enough for a kid my size. Mine filled me up, though. It was just right. Lyle: [Shouting.] We did not trade! I just gave you one of my nachos! Iris: Yes we did! I gave you some chicken.
She did, Lyle. I saw you eat it. Lyle: Oh, yeah.
Did you like it? Would you get the chicken next time? Lyle: Yeah, it was good. --Jesse Hughey
