Regional Mexican is Alive and Thriving in the 'burbs

A few weeks ago, Antonious so rightly pointed out that Mexican food in Chicago should not be so easily dismissed. It is hard to imagine better Mexican food anywhere else in the USA. There's a few obvious reasons that make eating Mexican so good here, the authenticy of Maxwell Street; the sucessful upscaling of Bayless and Bahena. Still, at the end of the day, two things stand out: the regional diversity and the ubiquitous-ness of Mexican food. These places demonstrate.

I remember eating at Arandas on the corner of Division/Milwaukee/Ashland when it seemed dangerous just to walk from the car to the front door*; it was where I learned that tacos were not supposed to be served in crunchy U-boats and stuffings could include guts and brains. Arandas there is long gone, but the name lives on. Actually, as I found out, Arandas is the name of a town in Jalisco state, and the Arandas in South Holland has no connection to my memory.

And as authentic as that one was, this one goes up a few notches. It's a bit like an indoor Maxwell Street. There's a decent bowl of birria.



The tortillas are handmade but made in advance. Still, combined with the table condiments, it made for a great lunch.


In the Maxwell Street vein, they also had tacos al vapor with all the exotica** including ojo's.

Unfortunately, I cannot find the card I took with the address of this place, nor could I find it on Google. It's on Halsted just south of the I-294 Intersection; I'm guessing around 180th Street.

Birria (goat stew), steamed cow head, these things are old hat to us chowhounds. One aspect of Mexican food that we see less is the food of the North, for instance food from the state of Durango.

That guy Antonious again, made the astude statement to me a few weeks ago that some malign Northern Mexican food in the sam way some do Cantonese (or as his wife, Amata pointed out, Southern Italian). That is, people too often associate poor early examples with the cuisine generally. There is nothing per se wrong with cucinina nortena. Just find the real thing.

Like El Duranguito in Maywood. They specialize in real burritos, smaller, limited to meat and dressing, and wrapped in made in house flour tortillas. Choices include pork in green or red sauce or steak. They look like this:





I mentioned dressing, and the tortillas are slathered in mayo before adding the filling. I'm not a big mayo guy, it actually took me 2 visits to diagnose the taste, but on the the third visit, when I went dry, I found it too dry. I'd stick with the mayonaisa.

There's other interesting stuff here, including the hamburguesa I mentioned the other day. It's a ReneG kinda thing, fun in principle but not that tasty.



On our first visit, Ms. VI wanted a carne asada burrito but ended up instead with the carne asada dinner. It's been her dish since. It may not look too exciting, but each component tastes really, really good.



This place seems in the top tier of taquerias.

El Duranguito
402 Lake St, Maywood, IL
(708) 343-4584

*Well for one thing, the area IS a lot safer but as I have gotten older, lived in the city and traveled far and wide, both with my family and the company of LTHers, the whole fear factor has disappeared.

**Said in Homer Simpson voice

Vital Information wrote:The tortillas are handmade but made in advance. Still, combined with the table condiments, it made for a great lunch.

Arandas gets points for authenticity for their pottery as well. I recognize those salsa containers as coming from a particular pottery factory that we found on our recent Puerto Vallarta trip. We admired them in a restaurant we went to, and the manager told us where they came from. We picked up an assortment to bring back to the states.

VI,

I'm glad you brought up the anti-norteño prejudice and very happy to have the information regarding El Duranguito in Maywood. We've noticed that there are some interesting looking Mexican places out that general way but, since we're usually out there on an expedition to buy pastiera or some such thing, we haven't had a chance to stop in.

Yes, the gringoised burrito is four out of five times an overloaded bundle of mediocrity (or worse) and a very bad representative of the fine tradition out of which it grew. But the sort of sober little burrito (or burrita), with a well-made wheat flour tortilla, some well prepared meat and a little chile-substance of one sort or another, now that's something simple and delicious. I definitely plan to get out to El Duranguito sometime soon.

Along these lines, I've sung the praises of one of my favourite norteño treats around town, namely the tacos de Sabinas at both Nuevo Leon in Pilsen and Nuevo Leon in La Villita and they are mighty swell, but also relatively 'exuberant' -- lots of stuff piled on... they're really a treat in my book...
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=73158#73158


But more like what you're talking about in Maywood... In New Mexico last January, we had some outstanding Norteño fare, including burritos much like the sort you describe above: small, high quality flour tortilla filled just with excellent pork in red chile sauce (carne adovada). Absolutely wonderful stuff...
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=76612#76612

http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=64006#64006

Many thanks for the post.
Munchas gracias pal post.
Antonius

I was somewhat put-off by the Durango-style burger (http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8902&highlight=durango), but mine was made without the advertised bacon and other ingredients that might have made the sandwich more palatable.

Hammond

Holy crap, really? Fond memories of THAT Aranda's?

ick

that, thankfully long gone, grease pit of despair never, ever served me a decent meal; it was an alcohol sop all the way

...it was "sad" to see it go, I suppose, as a vestige of pre-yuppie Wicker Park...but...

it and the sister(still there?) Aranda's just down a few storefronts from Berlin were the stage for some serious drunken shenanigans...it was never about the food...

Vital Information wrote:Like El Duranguito in Maywood. They specialize in real burritos, smaller, limited to meat and dressing, and wrapped in made in house flour tortillas. Choices include pork in green or red sauce or steak . . .

This place seems in the top tier of taquerias.

El Duranguito
402 Lake St, Maywood, IL
(708) 343-4584

VI thanks for spotting this place, its one we might well have missed without your report. we tried this out last weekend and liked it quite a bit. Though we did have the recommended burritos, what I enjoyed more actually were the gorditas with the fillings mentioned above, especially the rojo. The shells for these are made in house, but in advance and are really very good. I noticed on the wall a special of fish ceviche but didn't try it out this time.