Meet Greg… the Creator of the Lucido Burrito!

Greg creates his Lucido Burrito giving Taco Tuesday competition!

I thoroughly enjoyed the Lucido Burrito, created by Greg Lucido of La Cruz and available Tuesday evenings at the Tree House Bar and Grill. Greg retired here with his lovely lady, Mary, and their two boys as they call them, their cats. As my mission is to share about the good folks that make up La Cruz I asked Greg about retiring here. He told me that they were looking for a place to retire and originally considered Panama. They then went to Roatan and then they came to visit Puerto Vallarta and thought, “We might consider here.” They got a call from a real estate agent who said she had a really good property and sent some pictures. We even made an offer but did not get it.” They decided to come down for a week and looked at more properties but didn’t really see anything that they liked. Greg looked on the MLS and saw a condo and said, “We’ve got to go check this out!” After a thorough background check and appreciating that there is a vibrant expat community they were almost convinced to invest. Learning that La Cruz had a reputation for being a live music center where you didn’t have to stay out until ten pm to see a band start hooked them! “It was like being in Old Mexico but being able to see familiar faces where most people spoke English.” They bought that condo, which happened to belong to Chris and I, and a friendship was born. They took about a year to settle in and now have made many new friends and are thrilled to call it home.

Greg LOVES his cats and creates unique scratching posts for them.

Why they picked La Cruz all began with the condo and the gorgeous view of the bay. They also liked:

The harbor and the town are perfectly located for owning and enjoying a boat.
The good expat population.
It’s relatively noise-free except for some construction and celebrations.
Compared to Puerto Vallarta there’s much less traffic and its cooler!
It’s known to be the music capital of the Banderas Bay; we tried going out in PV showing up to see a band at 10:30 and they didn’t start playing until 11:30 and we weren’t up for that at all. In La Cruz often you can go as early as 6:00 and see some great music.
The restaurant scene is world-class, vibrant and has a great variety of cuisines.

What surprised Greg the most was the friendliness of the expats and the locals living here and the very reasonable cost of living. “As much as I like the traditional cobblestone streets, I think to have a paver system like in Guayabitos would be ideal, a lot easier on us old folks feet and would be easy to ride bicycles on. Generally, more street improvements that would cut down on dust would be preferred.”

How the Lucido Burrito came to be? Greg shared that story; “Back in Southern California, there is a very large population of Hispanics and a great number of Mexican restaurants. We have always liked Mexican food and there’s one particular burrito that I like from a small mom and pop chain call El Ranchito where you could always get a wet burrito. My fave had a unique flavor so, we would always go back for it. When I came down here and ordered burritos several times, they weren’t what I was used to. They were meat or fish wrapped up in a tortilla and fried with a little sauce on the side; not very appealing to me.

During our pre-move trips, we would try different places to go listen to music and to eat food and Octopus Gardens was one of our favorite places to go. We became friends with Alfredo and Marichuy and told them about the burrito that we missed from home. Alfredo said, “Bring me the recipe and we’ll see if we can make it.”

When I got back to the US before our final move I started doing the research. Unfortunately, the secret recipe to the burrito was exactly that a family secret and they didn’t want to give it out. Then I lucked upon an old El Ranchito restaurant that had been bought out but had the same menu! They were still kind of hesitant to give me the recipe but I managed to talk to a cook to get a basic recipe and I started cooking it at home. Once I knew that I had it pretty close I wrote everything down and waited for the trip to Mexico.

We made our move with the burrito recipe in hand I went to Mega and gathered up all of the ingredients and cooked it up and brought it to Alfredo. He was immediately impressed and said that he would add it to his Taco Tuesday menu, he modified the ingredients a little bit to incorporate the local taste but it came out really good but unfortunately, it wasn’t selling real strong.

A few months ago I was called back to the States and had a chance to go back to the restaurant to see if there was anything missing and I noticed they also had a red version so I got that sauce and brought it to Alfredo when I came back and now we have a two choices for sauce or divorced which is both sauces on the burrito. I convinced him that Taco Tuesday just wasn’t happening and we needed to change it to make it something special that nobody else has… he said great we’ll call it the Lucido Burrito!!

I think the reason it is so popular is because it’s not like anything else you can get locally; it’s full of simmered pork, Chili Verde sauce with rice and a dab of carrots, corn and beans wrapped in a burrito smothered in cheese and then covered with a healthy amount of sauce and bits of meat and a giant blob of guacamole on the side!

The trend originally started for the people of the La Joya condos to get together and get to know each other but gradually people from other areas and even other towns are coming to enjoy this great burrito!

Tuesday’s at The Treehouse Bar and Grill. We’ll see you there.