Tio’s New Mexico tamales are as nearby as downtown

A tiny restaurant serving big portions of Southwestern-style Mexican food in downtown Honolulu specializes in tamales and says so right in its name: Tio’s Tamales.

Owner Ray Mascarenas is the “tio,” or uncle, of the name, and also the cook.

Tamales are available with pork, chicken or vegetarian style with zucchini, corn, roasted jalapenos and onion. They can be ordered a la carte or as a plate, served smothered with sauce, alongside rice, beans, lettuce and tomatoes. Plates range from $8.50 for a single tamale to $12.50 for three tamales with sides.

The menu also offers burritos, chimichangas, papitas (french fries) and most of the types of sides you might expect at a Mexican restaurant.

The food is mildly spiced, with spice mixtures Mascarenas blends himself.

“A lot of people can’t take heat,” he said, but he is happy to make dishes spicy upon request, using chilies brought in from New Mexico. Every instance of the word “chile” on his menu is spelled with an “e” at the end because that is how it’s done in New Mexico, where he was born, he said.

Single a la carte tamales are $2.50, a four-pack costs $8.50 and a dozen are $22. An order of multiple tamales can include all three flavors.

Leading up to Christmas, Mascarenas took preorders for the labor-intensive food that customers picked up Friday for family celebrations.

For a Castle Medical Center gathering, he prepared some 300 tamales and a gallon each of his red and green sauces, all vegetarian. The sauces normally are made with meat, though “we do offer New Mexico red (sauce) without meat,” he said.

About the business: Mascarenas, a former HVAC (heating, air conditioning and refrigeration) technician and handyman, was encouraged to start his own business by his adult son, whose girlfriend and her family members raved about his tamales. The business name is from his wife, Joelle, a local girl whose federal job brought them back to the islands. She did much of the paperwork to get the business started, configured the seating to maximize square footage and did other work to help her grateful husband launch the restaurant Oct. 4.

Mascarenas loved learning to cook from his grandmother and his mother, starting as a young boy. He continued learning from cooks at the Mexican restaurant where he worked during high school.

He was born in New Mexico and was raised both there and in Colorado but also spent time in Utah. All through the Southwest, Native American fry bread is a staple, and one of Mascarenas’ weekday specials is tacos using fry bread as the shell.

What to order: Breakfast burritos ($3.50 to $4), served from 7 to 10:30 a.m., come meatless or with chorizo or Spam, each with a slightly varied ingredient list.

As a Marine, Mascarenas’ father was stationed at what is now Marine Corps Base Hawaii and learned to eat Spam. Mascarenas grew up eating and loving it. He makes a Spam-and-egg dish for his New Hope Windward Men’s Ministry mates and was encouraged to add a Spam burrito to his breakfast menu.

His top sellers are the pork tamales, chimichangas and anything with carne asada, Mascarenas said. The carne asada is offered in burritos, chimichangas or atop french fries.

A bonus to being an owner and operator is the ability to be nimble. Tio’s originally was open from lunchtime into the evening hours, but the rush-hour parking ban in front of the Nuuanu Avenue restaurant caused him to shift his hours to mornings through afternoons.

“Now I have my regulars. … They know what they want or decide to change it up,” Mascarenas said.

Saturday mornings can be packed in the small restaurant, as can lunch hour.

Grab and go: Metered parking stalls front Tio’s and its neighboring businesses, but a quarter will buy you only 10 minutes, so a phone order coupled with a tag team of driver and runner for lunchtime pickup makes the most sense for those driving.

“Grab and Go” focuses on takeout food, convenience meals and other quick bites. Email ideas to crave@staradvertiser.com.