Adelaidians, there’s a new hip Mexican and Latin American joint in town located in the burbs of Bedford Park! You may have seen the name ‘Lucky Lupitas’ pop up on your feed on the book of faces with friends checking in or if you’re a frequent visitor on Urbanspoon, it’s been on the top 10 ‘Talk of the Town’ list for quite some time.
Lucky Lupitas – licensed to sell tequila!
Friends have been raving on about this eatery for months and it was only until recently that plans were made to pay Lupitas a visit. The plan (Plan A) was to arrive as they opened their doors (5.30pm-you can’t make bookings, so I suggest you get there early to avoid the line up!) and snag a table, have a feed and then head down the road to catch a movie. Unfortunately, by the time we got there the joint was already full resulting with our names being the first ones on their waiting list (approximately a 45 minute wait informed by the waiter).
We’re left with two options:
Plan B: eat elsewhere (but where??) and make it on time for the movie session or
Plan C: wait out the 45 minutes and push the movie session back.
We opted for plan C and subsequently, movie plans were pushed back to accommodate an anticipated Mexican feed.
45 minutes later… and we were in! (the waiter was right on about the wait time!)
Negra Modelo beer and margarita
I took the reigns with ordering and ordered a bit too enthusiastically thinking our stomach capacities were the size of the Grand Canyon (fyi, it is not!). Our waiter highly suggested that I eliminate at least one item cause ‘that’s a lot of food for two people’, haha… and seeing that she was so spot on with the wait time earlier, I took her advice.
Smoked chicken empanadas; $10.90
Three bite sized fresh masa (dough) filled with smoked chicken, roasted corn, cheese, green onion & cilantro with guacomole, pico de gallo & sour cream. They were kind of bland on their own but when paired with the guacamole and salsa, it kicked it up a notch in terms of freshness and flavour.
Elote; $4.50
Hot grilled corn on the cob with chipotle mayonesa, cheese & lime. The corn was sweet and juicy however the folks in the kitchen were a bit heavy handed on the chipotle mayo and cheese. We may or may not have scraped off what we could before gnawing away at the cob.
Quesadilla de pollo y championes; $15.90
The quesadilla was a lot bigger than what I envisioned; it was filled with grilled chicken & mushrooms with a cheese blend, chipotle, onions & spinach with salsa & guacamole. Now with all those ingredients, I was hoping for a punch of flavour with every mouthful but instead, we found it slightly over salted and was left rather underwhelmed and disappointed with the lack of flavour and textural contrast.
Lucky Ribs with chimichurri; $23.90
Lucky Lupitas signature dish: their wood smoked and slow cooked beef short ribs. Two huge ribs with super tender meat falling off the bone with a heap of chimichurri on top, all sitting on a bed of white rice. The wood smoked flavour was overwhelmingly strong and drowned out the chimichurri. Apparently their BBQ sauce is the ‘better’ alternative but I’m not sure if I’ll be back for their signature dish. :/
I wouldn’t mind trying their burgers or chips next time I’m in the area but that won’t be for a long while! Thanks Lucky Lupitas for your friendly and on point service and quick food turn around! Psst, made it to the movies on time but was disappointed at how crap The Bourne Legacy was – bring Matt Damon back! 
Food: 2.5/5
Service: 4/5
Value: 3/5
Ambience: 3.5/5
-d
Lucky Lupitas
1/4 Rupert Avenue
Bedford Park SA 5042
P 08 8277 4004
Opening hours
Mon-Fri 11:30am-2:00pm, 5:30pm-9:00pm
Sat 5:30pm-9:00pm
chimichurri, corn, elote, empanadas, lucky lupitas, margarita, negra modelo, Quesadilla, ribs
The people at uni have been talking about this place and it seems really good!
And so close to Flinders Uni as well! The general consensus about the place is pretty positive so it’s definitely worth a try.
Thanks for dropping by!
There are loads of places to eat around there now. Maru, Kwikstix, the Greek place (Olive Garden? – right next door to Lucky Lupitas) and Mumbai Indian is just around the corner. Maru is pretty good, Kwikstix is rather generic and Mumbai is run by the same people who do Belair Bhavan in Belair (though I think that’s changed its name). I haven’t tried the Greek place yet but reports seem reasonably positive.
Yeah.. we thought about Greek Olive, Maru and TGI Friday’s as well but we had our
heartsstomach set on Lucky Lupitas and the thought of driving out to Bedford Park at a later date wasn’t something we were looking forward so we altered our plans.You’re wrong.
This is the best (only, really) Mexican joint in town.
This post was just my personal opinion, you don’t have to agree with them. Nevertheless, thanks for the comment… if you have any recommendations on what should be ordered at LL, please let me know as I can always give it a try another time.