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Feature article
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Molcajetes: Not your run-of-the mill Mexican grill
By Fred Sauceman
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Molcajetes Mexican Grill
LOCATION: 1504 West Stone Drive, Kingsport, Tennessee
PHONE: 423-246-1490
HOURS: Open Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Closed Tuesdays
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Diners expecting chain fast food at 1504 West Stone Drive in Kingsport got a spicy surprise on September 10, 2005. Burgers had yielded to burritos. Fries were replaced with fajitas. And the décor of the former Wendy’s restaurant had evolved from cookie cutter to creative.
Daubing earthtone paint and hanging their nephew’s wood carvings on the wall, Salvador and Regina Nuñez have made the space look like a Mexican home.
Salvador hails from La Piedad in the Mexican state of Michoacán; Regina from Sullivan County. Most times, at their Molcajetes Mexican Grill, she handles the cash register while he’s in the kitchen stirring vats of rice and pots of beans. He likes interacting with his team of cooks, and he likes being able to see all his customers. Molcajetes isn’t partitioned. You can stand at any spot in the restaurant and view every table.
When it came time to name the place, Salvador turned to his twin nieces, Laura and Lupita Nuñez, who still live in Michoacán. They’re young ladies, but they reached far back into Mesoamerican prehistory to come up with the restaurant’s moniker and its symbol. A molcajete is an ancient tool used in food preparation. It’s a hollowed out hunk of lava rock — one of the earliest versions of a food processor. Using a tejolote, the grinding implement, cooks in the regions now known as Mexico and Central America have been mashing garlic and peppers in molcajetes for thousands of years. The molcajete is a close relative of today’s mortar and pestle.
At Molcajetes Mexican Grill, four dozen of those volcanic rocks, hand-fashioned in Mexico, take on another function. They become serving bowls. After the molcajetes are heated to 500 degrees, marinated and grilled fajitas are raked into them and brought to the table smoking and sizzling. It’s a dish that gets attention.
As does the Super Sopapilla dessert. Flour tortillas are deep-fried, blanketed in butter and honey, sprinkled with cinnamon, and decorated with ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate and cherries. Salvador says once someone orders one, in that open dining area where all is visible, the “what is that” whispers start. Pretty soon, half the restaurant is eating Super Sopapillas.
Unlike some Mexican restaurants in the area, the Molcajetes menu offers a wide selection of seafood. Credit Salvador’s godfather, the late Pablo Mesa. He ran a 10-table restaurant in La Piedad and specialized in seafood soups. The Caldo de Mariscos served at Molcajetes is Pablo’s recipe. It’s a bowl of fish, crab legs, mussels, scallops and shrimp in broth, along with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes and onions.
“Everybody likes it,” says Salvador. “And our chicken soup (Caldo de Pollo) is my godfather’s, too.”
For the last two years, during Fun Fest’s Taste of the Tri-Cities in Kingsport, Molcajetes has taken first place — for Fajita Quesadillas in 2007 and this year for the Burrito el Mojado, with grilled chicken, tomatoes, peppers, onions and cheese.
And if there were a plaque for friendliness and enthusiasm, Salvador and Regina would deserve that one, too.
--------GoTriCities--------
Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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