Mercadito Serves Up Tacos For Strength

By Melissa Wiley in Food on Jan 14, 2013 8:00PM

Hunger has assumed staggering proportions in America. Fortunately, organizations like Share Our Strength are taking viable measures to help end it. And when you order a certain spicy taco at Mercadito through January 31, you’ll be part of the solution as well.

To benefit Mercadito’s Tacos for Strength campaign, now in its third year, Chef Andrew Zimmerman of Sepia has created an Indian-inspired chicken tikka taco with cucumber raita and cilantro-red onion relish. We tried it ourselves and loved the cool, salsa-like topping in concert with the marinade of traditional Indian spices.

In the words of Chef Patricio Sandoval of Mercadito, “With the Tacos for Strength program, we see the best of top chefs’ cuisines reflected in their taco recipes, but we also see their imagination come into play when they take a different route and experiment with the foods they like to eat in their free time. Chef Zimmerman is known for his inventive American cuisine, so it’s fun to see what he can do in a different direction with his Indian-inspired taco.”

You can order four of these delectable babies for dinner (four for $16.50) or lunch (three for $12.50), and Mercadito will donate 5 percent of the sales to Share Our Strength. Over the last two years, the campaign has raised more than $7,000 for the organization.

Mercadito is located at 108 W. Kinzie.