For the patient and devout, seafood satisfies during Lent and Easter Sunday.
Latinos who observe Catholicism, and their relatives and friends who don’t, usually spend the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday abstaining from red meat for the entire season of Lent — or just on Fridays. Instead, a lot of time is spent scheming about ways to prepare a delicious vegetarian, poultry, or fish dish to satisfy carnivorous appetites.
As Reno’s Latino community has grown and diversified, it’s become possible to find some of these items on the menus of local restaurants — even before Holy Week (aka Semana Santa). This means that folks can taste-test some of these meals in advance to help them decide what to serve — or where to take their families — on Resurrection Sunday.
Johanna Villalobos and her husband, Mario Jimenez, are the proprietors of Señor Tequilas Mexican Kitchen & Cantina, right on the border of Reno and Sparks on Fourth Street. The restaurant, which opened in July 2019, survived the challenges the Covid pandemic brought to the local dining scene. While the couple was unable to wow patrons in 2020, fortunately, for Easter 2021 and every year since, the two Mexicans have prided themselves on their special seafood menu, which was influenced by their many years living in Baja, Calif., specifically Ensenada, Cabo San Lucas, and San José del Cabo.
Among Señor Tequilas’ top-selling dishes during Lent are lobster tacos, octopus tacos, and campechana seafood cocktail, made with oysters, octopus, and shrimp. Also popular, and available year-round, is the 7 mares seafood soup, which boasts an array of fish, clams, crab legs, oysters, octopus, shrimp, and scallops. Other favorites you can try now are the ceviche sierreño, the camarones la loka, and the aguachiles Señor Tequila.
For Easter 2024, the pair could bring back some other previous showstoppers, including pulpo zarandeado (grilled octupus), camarón zarandeado (grilled shrimp), grilled Oaxacan-style fish wrapped in a plantain leaf, and a fried fish option — tilapia la tumbita drenched in spicy la loka sauce.
Wash all of this down with the traditional Lenten water, or agua de cuaresma, prepared with beet juice (add sugar and water), sliced bananas, chopped oranges and apples, and small chopped pieces of lettuce.
If you gave up dessert for Lent, Señor Tequilas has you covered for the end of Lent with its decadent capirotada bread pudding, Villalobos’ grandmother’s recipe, which she prepares once a year. It includes — in glass bakeware greased with lard — layers of corn tortillas, sliced French baguettes (air dried for about a week), and a liquid concoction of water, cinnamon, and milk (you need to let it boil and then simmer before adding a special Mexican brown sugar called piloncillo). Before repeating the layers, she adds raisins and a special Oaxacan cheese that has a paprika-spiced rind. Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes. Remove and add rainbow sprinkles.
RESOURCES
Don’t get bored with simple fish or seafood dishes during Easter. Expand your taste buds locally at these Latino restaurants. Looking for meat to break the fast? All are options for that, too.
Señor Tequilas Mexican Kitchen & Cantina
1490 E. Fourth St., Reno
775-384-2933 · Senortequilasreno.com
Ask for its Lent and Easter menu.
Empanash
900 Ski Run Blvd., Ste. 106, South Lake Tahoe
530-600-4455 · Empanash.com
This restaurant serving Argentine empanadas is a great option for meat lovers.
A La Parrilla Latin Food
Inside Reno Public Market, 299 E. Plumb Lane, Reno
Find A La Parrilla Latin Food on Facebook.
Serves food, mostly containing meat, from four different Latin American countries.
