New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Mexican eatery offers an Ecuadorian twist
WEST HAVEN — After moving here from New York three years ago, Martha Lojano and her family couldn’t find enough healthful places to eat out.
So she took control and opened her own place, where the vegetables are cut fresh daily and only olive oil is used for cooking.
Lojano, who lives in West Haven with her husband, Carlos Buestan, and three boys, ages 8-17, hails from Ecuador.
But she made her Chiquita
Queen restaurant at 215 Saw Mill Road — in a small plaza — authentic Mexican, bringing in a Mexican chef to come up with the menu because she thought Mexican food would be more popular than Ecuadorian, she said.
Lojano said through a translator that she “Gives thanks to God that I continue to work,” and she’s so happy she didn’t give in to people who said she couldn’t do it and listened instead to the encouraging words of her husband.
While someone else does the cooking and the menu is Mexican — tacos of beef, chicken and lamb and burritos, quesadillas, fajitas — Lojano offers some specialty Ecuadorian dishes on weekends that she learned to cook from mom, including, Guatita, an Ecuadorian tripe stew, ribs, roast pork; Morocho, a spiced corn pudding and more. Her sons are trying to get her to offer more Ecuadorian food, Lojano said. She worked in a Mexican restaurant in New York.
The homey restaurant with mostly Mexican music playing comfortably in the background opens at 9 a.m. because they offer many breakfast dishes — American and Mexican, the latter including eggs with rice and beans, chorizo, a type of pork sausage.
“I like it when the customers are happy with their food,” she said through a translator. “I want them to feel satisfied.”
She’s been open a year and has lots of regulars, taking that as a good business sign. The business has received glowing reviews on various Facebook and other social media sites.
“I like the food. I come on my day off,” said lunch customer Picante Wallace.
The family had lots of ideas for names, but her 8-year-old had good reasoning in coming up with “Chiquita Queen,” she said: “Chiquita” means small and Lojano is tiny and the Queen comes from her being the only woman in the household, and therefore queen.
Her husband, Buestan, whom she met as a child in Ecuador, is in the demolition field in New York. They chose to live in West Haven rather than stay in New York because the cost of living is more manageable, she said.
The atmosphere in the restaurant is bright and cheerful with papel picado — brightly colored cutout designs on plastic and paper strung across the ceiling. The designs, considered Mexican folk art, are in yellow, purple, pink, green, blue, white. There are also lots of sombreros and Mexican shawls around.
Lojan, who speaks little English, said some people discouraged her from opening, saying it would be tough and indeed she almost gave up during the frustrating red tape stage of opening.
She had a Mexican chef devise the dishes and always in the forefront for her is that food is healthful and fresh. The vegetables are cut the day they’re used — many restaurants prep days ahead.
Her husband — whom she describes as great husband and father — and their three boys help on weekends, with her oldest taking a shining to cooking.