We really need a historical survey of the Twin Cities metro’s casual Mexican restaurants. As I never tire of telling people who don’t live in Minnesota, there is a large and growing Mexican (and more broadly Hispanic) population here and a large and growing Mexican food scene to match. This is, of course, true almost everywhere in the US now, but casual Mexican is probably the most dependable category of food in the Twin Cities metro now. No matter where you go you are probably not more than a 5-10 minute drive from some excellent tacos, quesadillas and more. Someone more steeped in the scene than me should map all these places (to the extent it would be possible to map them all) and annotate them briefly with years of founding, names of proprietors and chefs and so on. I am not equipped to do that for you; but I can tell you what we thought of our lunch this past Sunday at an excellent place to grab tacos and more in South Minneapolis: Tacos El Kevin. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Mexican
Andale, Three Years Later (Richfield, MN)
I think I’d said last week that this week’s Twin Cities restaurant report would be of either a dinner we ate at 112 Eatery last month or the dinner we were scheduled to eat (and did eat) at Spoon and Stable this past weekend. Here, accordingly, is a quick report on lunch eaten at Andale Taqueria in Richfield in August. You’re welcome. This was a quick lunch eaten after a family trip to IKEA. We chose it over Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and had zero regrets about having done so. This is not a slam on IKEA’s Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce, which we enjoy greatly when we partake; it’s just that on this occasion we were in the mood for something with some spice to it. The prospect of also stopping in at Andale’s adjoining mercado sealed the deal. Continue reading
Homi, August 2024 (St. Paul, MN)
It’s been a while since we’ve eaten at Homi, almost exactly a full year in fact (my last write-up of a meal there was posted on August 29, 2023). Homi has long been our favourite affordable Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities metro—and until Oro came along it might even have been our favourite Mexican restaurant of any kind in the Twin Cities metro. This is not on account of just their food (which has always been very tasty) or their menu (which has always been far more expansive than those at most other affordable Mexican restaurants). It’s also because of their hospitality. The pandemic and then inflation has been very hard on small restaurants (and other small businesses) that don’t have very many resources to fall back on. But Homi has managed to stick it out through it all so far with their trademark warmth. This is their 15th year of operation—that’s a pretty good number in this business but in truth they feel like an institution that’s been around longer. They deserve all the support they can get to keep things going. To that end, here’s a quick writeup of a recent lunch there with friends we’ve eaten with at Homi many times before. Continue reading
Holbox, Again (Los Angeles, Dec 2021)
One of our favourite meals on my last visit to Los Angeles before the pandemic was at Holbox, the seafood-centered counter at Mercado La Paloma from the people who first brought us the excellent Chichen Itza. We have been plotting a return ever since, never expecting that it would take another three years. Of course, dining out on this trip was complicated. While proof of vaccination is required for dining in at restaurants in Los Angeles proper—the mandate is not really being followed elsewhere in LA County—our preference was also for dining outdoors whenever possible. Thankfully, both sets of caution were in evidence at this meal: proof of vaccination was checked stringently on entry to Mercado la Paloma to order our meal and there was excellent outdoor seating out front on a lovely, sunny day. And so, our meal. Continue reading
Andale Taqueria, Again (Richfield, MN)
We were scheduled for Mexican dinner with friends on Saturday night but not this Mexican dinner. We had reservations at Colita for a four-top on their patio. Alas, as the day approached the weather forecast turned ever dire. We woke up with hope on Saturday as the meteorologists predicted that the rain would end before dinner time. But the meteorologists are dirty liars and as the evening approached the threat of rain remained constant and the restaurant cancelled all patio reservations. We could, of course, have chosen to stay at home but I put it to our friends that we could go somewhere else for a Mexican meal and they were up for it. And so we drove to Richfield and ate dinner on Andale’s patio. It was not the fine dining meal we’d planned but it was a very fine meal. 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
Quetzal (Toronto)
Back to Toronto. As you probably do not recall, I was there with for a few days with a group of colleagues in June. On the first night the entire group ate a banquet dinner at Crown Princess together. On the second night I ate dinner by myself at Canis. On the third and final night two members of the group joined me for dinner at Quetzal, a modern Mexican restaurant that has garnered strong reviews since its opening last year. I gather that the strongest of the reviews came when the original chefs were on board. Early in 2019, however, there was a parting of the ways over artistic differences and a new regime took charge. I was advised that it was still worth a visit and so I decided to make the reservation. Continue reading
Popol Vuh (Minneapolis)
Popol Vuh, a high-end Mexican restaurant, opened in trendy Northeast Minneapolis—or Nordeast as the really trendy people refer to it—last autumn and we’ve been planning to eat there ever since. This even though they describe their cuisine in terms I deplore: “elevated Mexican cuisine”. Mexican cuisine does not need to be elevated. We don’t refer to high-end French or Italian or Japanese restaurants as serving “elevated” versions of those cuisines and there is really no need to justify higher prices for a high-end, cheffy iteration of Mexican cuisine by calling it “elevated”. And people who might be iffy about paying the big bucks for any form of Mexican food—alas, I am sure such people exist, and not just in the Twin Cities—are not, I think, very likely to go, “Oh, so it’s elevated Mexican food, that’s entirely different!” In other words, you’re not convincing anyone to come by billing your food as “elevated”, you’re only displaying anxiety about the status of what you do and inadvertently implying that the rest of the cuisine is down there somewhere near a gutter. Continue reading
Holbox (Los Angeles, December 2018)
Well, I’m certainly not done with my reviews of meals in Delhi in December but thought I’d get started anyway with my reports from Los Angeles, where I met up with the missus and the brats after the end of my Delhi sojourn. As always, we ate out at least once a day. This was not our first meal out together on this trip but I want to start with it as I am writing this on a cloudy, damp Saturday in April and it feels good to recapture a bit of a much nicer Saturday morning in L.A in late December. And this meal at Holbox was one of our very favourite food outings.We spent the morning at the California Science Center—where you pay for all-day parking—popped out for lunch at Holbox, and then returned to spend the rest of the afternoon back at the Science Center and the African American Museum. A very good day. Continue reading
Homi, Again (St. Paul, MN)
A nice thing about reviewing restaurants on your own blog is that there’s no compulsion to only go to new(er) places—you can go back and revisit places and see if they’ve maintained their standards (and in some cases, to see if they’ve gotten better). I’ve done a fair bit of that this year with returns to Tilia, Hmongtown Marketplace, Bangkok Thai Deli, Szechuan, Tea House, House of Curry, Spoon and Stable, A&L Chinese, On’s Kitchen and Grand Szechuan. Here now is my second report on what is now probably our favourite Mexican restaurant, Homi, on University Avenue in St. Paul. I posted my first write-up just over two years ago. We’ve eaten there a few more times since and this seems like a good time for a re-visit on the blog. This report covers meals eaten over the last year and a half, though the pictures are all from two dinners, one last summer, and one two weekends ago. I am happy to report that Homi is still very good. Continue reading
Andale Taqueria (Richfield, MN)
I made a pledge a while ago to explore more of the Twin Cities’ Mexican food scene but haven’t really made good on it. This is finally going to be the year I do it. It’s certainly not a risky proposition—as, for example, a pledge to explore more of the local sushi scene would be. Mexican food in Minnesota is actually pretty good. And I am happy to tell you that some of this pretty good Mexican food can be found at Andale Taqueria in Richfield. We stopped in there for lunch on Easter Sunday with friends and liked everything we had—and some things we liked a lot indeed. Continue reading
Chichen Itza (Los Angeles, December 2017)
Chichen Itza, located in the Mercado La Paloma building in the Figueroa Corridor, right by USC and the Exposition Park museums, is one of the most celebrated Mexican restaurants in the city. This despite the fact that it’s not a restaurant per se but a counter in a food hall within a community center. It specializes in the food of the Yucatán (it is named for the Mayan city site there), which even in Los Angeles is not very widely available. A mainstay on Jonathan Gold’s annual lists of the best restaurants in the greater L.A. area, it doesn’t lack for publicity. As always with cuisines of which there are not very many exemplars available, it is hard to know to what extent enthusiasm is driven by relative uniqueness. As someone who has not been to the Yucatán (or any other part of Mexico), I can’t really evaluate this. I can tell you though that we liked the food a lot, even though it was not as revelatory as the talk had perhaps led me to expect it would be. Continue reading
Tinga de Pavo
Most years I do a traditional roast turkey for Thanksgiving (though I spatchcock/butterfly it to cook it very quickly at high heat). No matter the size of the bird or how many guests we have, we usually have enough turkey left that we get sick of it after the first day of leftovers. Or at least that used to be the case until I started recycling most of it into a down and dirty version of tinga de pavo/pollo. Tinga de pollo is one of the signature dishes at our local Mexican restaurant, El Triunfo, but it’s very easy to make at home. Leftover roast turkey is perfect for this dish which calls for pre-cooked chicken (pollo) or turkey (pavo) breast, shredded and added to a simple sauce made with onions, garlic, tomatoes and chipotle chillies en adobo. Provided you have everything on hand, this is as easy a dish as you can hope to make with leftover turkey. 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
Homi (St. Paul)
Homi has been around on University Avenue in St. Paul for seven years now. Friends who work and live in the area had been telling me about it for some time now but somehow we didn’t get around to eating there until earlier this summer. This is largely because we are creatures of habit—when food shopping in St. Paul we’d eat at On’s Kitchen or Bangkok Thai Deli; our Mexican eating would happen on the way to and back food shopping in north Minneapolis—at Los Ocampo or Maya or, for a brief, glorious period, at La Huasteca. After the demise of the original version of La Huasteca, however, we were in need of a place that would fill the soulful hole in our Mexican food world (neither Los Ocampo and Maya quite fit that description). And so we finally ended up at Homi. And while I am not quite ready to say that it has helped me come to terms with the disappearance of Jose Gonzalez’s birria and barbacoa (and much else), I will say that Homi comes pretty close. Continue reading
Tacos etc. at Los Ocampo (Minneapolis)
Taqueria Los Ocampo was one of the first places we ate Mexican food at in the Twin Cities, shortly after our arrival in Minnesota in 2007. To be exact, it was the third place. The first was the late, lamented La Sirena Gorda in the Midtown Market (I can still recall the taste memory of their octopus tacos) and the second was the food counter at Bymore Meats, also at the Midtown Market—there I was partial to their goat tacos. The outpost of Los Ocampo in the Midtown Market eventually seduced us as well, but the quality of the toppings was never quite as good as at the other two places. But we spread our custom generously, picking a taco or two from their counter to eat alongside things from the other two places. After the demise of La Sirena Gorda and Bymore Meats we took our appetites across the street to their larger, stand-alone restaurant on the corner of Chicago and Lake and discovered that the quality was much better there. Throw in the fact that they’re open very late into the night on weekends, and in our pre-parent days this branch of Los Ocampo was thus often where we ate after a show or a late movie in the Cities. Continue reading
Pozole Rojo
So I said last week in my Palak Posole post that I’d not already purchased hominy/posole from Rancho Gordo on account of the fact that I associated posole entirely with the Mexican soup/stew of near-identical name, and that as our local house of Mexican goodness, El Triunfo, offers a very good version on weekends I didn’t need to make it at home. Here I am, therefore, with a recipe for a rough and ready pozole rojo. You see, I soaked and cooked a pound of posole last week and even after using a lot of it in the Palak Posole and some more in a keema dish (recipe coming soon) I had a few cups left over. And as I also had a large package of pork neck bones in the freezer, it was hard to not end up making pozole. I’ve eaten a lot of pozole but have never made it before. Scanning the intertubes it didn’t seem like the hardest thing to do. What follows is an approximation/intersection of a number of recipes I looked at. If you want a more precise recipe (and with chicken rather than pork) you could do far worse than to look at the posole rojo recipe in the Rancho Gordo e-booklet on posole. Whatever recipe you use, the results are likely to be good. Continue reading