Eyeball tacos built Viliulfo Andablo’s new Berwyn restaurant, El Chimbombo. Those are tacos de ojos, warm tortillas wrapped around chopped and seasoned orbs plucked from steamed lamb heads. For five hard years, Andablo has hawked them at a buck and a quarter from a stand in the new Maxwell Street market, along with tacos de trompas, lengua, cachetes, and sesos–lips, tongue, cheeks, and brains.
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When he was four years old Andablo’s family left their tiny mountain village in the central state of Queretaro for Mexico City, where a few years later he spent school vacations working at a taco stand. He liked to cook and often tried to duplicate classic Mexican cuisine at home, but for a while his life took a different track. As a teen he discovered he had a talent for racewalking, and by the age of 15 he was traveling the world with the national team. At one point he was ranked third in the country. He was on his way to the 1988 summer Olympics when he lost his spot on the team. The coaches never told him why.
“But I just see in Mexico you don’t have a future,” he says. In 1996 he brought his family back. He worked in his sister’s Cicero restaurant, El Mason, for a while and saved money.
Two years ago he’d set aside enough money to buy a large storefront on Cermak. To save on decorating, he bought a truck, drove it to Mexico, and filled it with a few tons of artisanal tiles and fixtures. Problems with his electrical contractor held up the opening of El Chimbombo until this past October. By then he’d depleted his savings and was forced to open with what he calls a “provisional menu.”
El Chimbombo is at 6725 Cermak, Berwyn, 708-484-9420.
