My first restaurant report of 2022 was a brief round-up of a few meals eaten at El Triunfo in 2021. And my first restaurant report of 2023 is of a few meals eaten at El Triunfo in 2022. El Triunfo, as you may remember, is a small Mexican restaurant in our town of Northfield, Minnesota. When I first wrote them up on the blog, many years ago, I referred to them as our favourite restaurant in our town. This is still the case. The restaurant scene in Northfield has not remained static in the past decade but that’s not to say it’s improved radically—though there have been some welcome additions (Tin Tea and Coco’s Place among them). El Triunfo remains, however, and it remains reliably dependable for what it does: putting out an edited menu of basic Mexican fare; they push no boundaries and follow no trends, but the food is predictably tasty and always a good deal. And they remain an essential part of our town’s cultural geography. Continue reading
Tag Archives: El Triunfo
Pandemic Takeout 72: El Triunfo To Start the Year (Northfield, MN)
Yes, I’ve posted quite a few restaurant meal reports already in 2022—but those are all of meals eaten in 2021 in Los Angeles. Today’s report is the first from 2022 proper. And I’m kicking the year in restaurant reviews off in hyper-local style with another look at some things eaten at our favourite restaurant in Northfield, Minnesota: El Triunfo.
Okay, so I’m cheating a bit here. This report encompasses food from three separate outings, two of which were in the summer of 2021—and one of which was eaten at the restaurant when the pandemic was briefly looking less concerning. But the largest report is of the most recent meal, which we picked up and ate just this past weekend. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 46: El Triunfo (Northfield, MN)
It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on Northfield’s house of Mexican deliciousness, El Triunfo. Which is not to say that we hadn’t eaten their food since my last report. Indeed, today’s pandemic takeout report covers things eaten over four meals. Since my previous report they’d opened for dining-in, closed it down again when the governor mandated it (not a given in these parts) but have not yet restarted it after the restrictions were once again loosened in January. They are still ticking along but business is not exactly booming. The food is as delicious as ever though and if you are in town or within easy reach I urge you to give them a call. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 20: Back to El Triunfo (Northfield, MN)
I am very glad to report that our favourite restaurant in our little town, El Triunfo, seems to have weathered the pandemic fine so far. Business seems to be steady—makes sense as their food is as good as ever. I haven’t reported on our meals there since mid-May but we’ve been picking up food every once in a while, even as we’ve expanded our takeout range quite a lot since then. Their socially distanced pickup routine has changed a bit since my first pandemic report. Curbside pickup now happens via the front entry of the restaurant. Everything else more or less remains the same. You can still pay over the phone if you prefer to (as we do) or you can go in—with a mask on, naturally—and pay and pick up your food. The phone number and pictures of the menu are included in the slideshow below. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 07: Back to El Triunfo
El Triunfo, as I noted last week, is the place we’ve been ordering the most takeout from during the quarantine. Both because we like the food and because we want to support this immigrant family business that is such an important part of our town as far as we are concerned. I’m glad to say that, at least as far as I can tell, they are doing decent business during the pandemic. We get food from them about once a week and each week it’s seemed like there have been more people waiting outside to pick up orders. I do hope they will make it through. Here now is a brief report on what we’ve been getting from them over the last month. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 01: El Triunfo (Northfield, MN)
People who pay attention to my restaurant reviews know that I am not very high on most of the food options in our small town in Southern Minnesota. This, however, is not a time for restaurant meal reviews of the kind I write in normal times. These are not normal times. I am rooting for all the restaurants out there even as I know that many/most of them will have a tough time making it through the business crash of the pandemic. And I am particularly rooting for the restaurants whose owners don’t have deep pockets or investors backing them or easy access to loans or the ability to leverage most of the strategies that more established and savvy restaurants are deploying to survive. The deck is stacked against them even in normal times and even more so now. Which brings me to El Triunfo, a small grocery and informal restaurant in our town that people who pay attention to my restaurant reviews know I am very high on. I am rooting for all the restaurants in our town to make it—even the ones I’ve said the rudest things about in normal times—but I hope they’ll forgive me if I admit that I’m rooting the hardest for El Triunfo. Continue reading
El Triunfo, 2019 (Northfield, MN)
I may not have much of a readership on my blog but I also am under no pressure to chase novelty. I am free to return to restaurants, either to check in to see if they’re still as good as they were or to continue to shine a (small) light on deserving places that don’t get much if any attention from the professionals. The latter description fits El Triunfo, the best restaurant in Northfield, MN very well. I’ve reported on them twice before in the last five years but that’s not to say we’ve only eaten there twice in the last five years. They are our go to for all our “oh shit, we haven’t cooked” dinners or weekend lunches and I often stop in for lunch from campus as well. I am glad to report that they’re still going strong—though their menu has shrunk quite a bit since my first report—and that their food is still very tasty. Continue reading
El Triunfo, Three Years On (Northfield, MN)
It was almost three years ago that I first wrote up El Triunfo, a small family-run Mexican eatery and market in Northfield, MN. We’ve been eating there at a regular clip since and the time seems right to post a quick update on the blog. It’s not that there have been major changes to the menu. In fact, not only are there are no new things on the menu since I last reviewed them but a few things have dropped off the menu. Tragically, they no longer have goat barbacoa on the weekends (I was told a while ago that not enough people were ordering it) and some of the things on the regular menu have also dropped off. Business on the whole, however, I am happy to say, seems to be going really well. Continue reading
El Triunfo (Northfield)
Northfield, Minnesota is a small college town of just over 20,000 people. Its motto, derived from the presence of a number of dairy farms in the vicinity and two liberal arts colleges in town, is “Cows, Colleges and Contentment”. This contentment, however, rarely derives from the quality of food available in town. Perhaps because both colleges are residential (and most of the students on paid meal plans) the town does not offer the wealth of acceptable dining options available in many college towns across the US. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 