Tacos At El Tigre

If you like your tacos less Sloppy Joe and more the receptacle for coriander aioli, fresh pico de gallo and sweet apple slaw, then El Tigre is the taqueria you’ve been praying for.

Newly opened at The Brewers Market, the functional little stall is the gourmet food child of Sathy Thambapilai and gifts the city delicious, authentic, passionately prepared soft-shell tacos quite unlike the cheesy Americanised fare we’ve gotten used to gulping down our throats.

“What I like about Mexican cuisine in general is that there are a lot of parallels between Mexican food and flavours and Sri Lankan and Indian food and flavours,” says Thambapilai.

“I’m Sri Lankan and the spice bases, herbs and basic flavours are quite similar in each cuisine. It’s just the way they are prepared that is a bit different.”

Offering carne asada (beef steak), frito (fried chicken), carne parrilla (pork steak) and vegetal (pulled carrot and bean spread) tacos served with El Tigre’s specific combinations of salsa roja, coriander aioli, jalapeno/habanero coleslaw and apple slaw, the stall serves a selection of mouthwatering little tacos packed with crisp, fresh ingredients.

The most popular taco, which I devour on The Brewers Market’s deck overlooking Tal Street on a sunny Monday afternoon, is the frito, which is an enjoyable bite of alternating tenderness and crunch with a jalapeno buzz.

“I guess why it’s so popular is because of the play on flavours and textures,” says Thambapilai, who marinates the chicken in a lemon bath with a selection of herbs and aromatics.

“We then flour the chicken and deep-fry it twice so you get a super crispy shell, but the chicken is moist and tender inside. The pickle helps to cut through the fattiness of the oil, and we add a little salsa roja to it as a little bit of kick.”

While most people think ‘taco’ and imagine the popularised Tex-Mex version of the cuisine, El Tigre attempts a return to a level of authenticity.

“We wouldn’t necessarily call the tacos we’re creating at El Tigre fast-food tacos,” says Thambapilai, who is El Tigre’s owner and head chef and makes everything, including the tortillas, aioli, salsas and slaws from scratch.

“Our tacos are more accessible, gourmet tacos. Nothing is store bought. We use fresh ingredients and create our own flavour bases from that,” he says.

A misconception about Mexican food, which El Tigre is doing its bit to dispel, is that it is predominantly like what we see on American television, which is often simplistic and relatively chaotic.

“I think if you delve into Mexican cuisine and you look into what they create, a lot of the ingredients are fresh. They also put a lot of care and thought into how they prepare things. For example, when they are doing something that is braised or cooked and has a high fat content, they usually pair it with something pickled or with something fresh just to cut through the oiliness,” he says.

“There are a lot of gourmet aspects to Mexican cuisine which haven’t been highlighted, and that’s something we are trying to do.”

For taco newbies, Thambapilai recommends the carne parrilla or the carne asada, the latter for reasons that will become obvious upon swift delivery of the beef strip taco topped with salsa verde and pico de gallo.

“It almost reminds you of having kapana and salsa, but it is a traditional Mexican taco, which is very nice because you’re not really taken too much out of your comfort zone,” he says.

Foodies who tend to live beyond these zones will be in for a treat either way.

Head to El Tigre for Taco Tuesday or for Taco Every Day, and marvel at just how creative the humble taco can be.

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