Kamellos

Fernando Kabande García cooks classic Middle Eastern foods including falafel and stuffed grape leaves, plus some related dishes born here in Mexico, from this food truck on the highway in Ajijic.

The kamello, which is kind of like a pita sandwich stuffed with shawarma, was invented in the early 1980s in the restaurant El Chamuco in Torreón, Coahuila, a region long-influenced by its Middle East immigrants. This dish is relatively unknown outside of specific areas of the country where it’s caught on, such as Torreón.

The taco árabe (Arabic taco) comes from Puebla and has chopped beef, hummus, parsley, bacon, and onion. This dish is more common in Mexico than the kamello but is still regional. Kamellos Food Truck may be the only place lakeside that serves them.

All the dishes at Kamellos Food Truck are served with a green salad and a very fresh-tasting dressing made from cilantro, parsley, basil, garlic, and oil.

Dishes are also served with a dollop of jocoque, which is a mildly fermented cream perfect for cramming into your kamello or taco árabe. Fernando makes it at home with a process that takes 20 hours from the first step of heating the milk to finally letting it hang for 12 hours.

Fernando came from Guadalajara two years ago, though he and members of his family have lived here at Lake Chapala for years. His grandmother comes from Palestine and his former mother-in-law operated a restaurant which sold kamellos in Torreón, which is how he came to own Kamellos Food Truck in Ajijic.