Sabroso Grill mentioned upthread has new management and has replaced references to Pollo al Carbon with Birria Estilo Guerrero. They have both goat and lamb birria. References to Sabroso Catering are apparent in the shop. The web site basically deals with catering and does not mention any management change. Current management has been open for a couple weeks according to our waitress.

My wife and I had a fairly late lunch there today. The restaurant has been redecorated and is now quite light and cheerful even on a gloomy rainy day. I had birria de chivo dinner. Soup form is available. The goat has a lot of ground chilies, is quite flavorful with moderate heat and is falling apart tender. The dinner comes with rice, beans and a bit of salad on the plate. The rice was average plain Mexican rice without vegetable bits. The beans were a bit strange as they were about a cool room temperature. I think that warming them up would have brought out the flavor better. The salad was the typical iceberg lettuce topped with a little raw onion and a slice of tomato that was a lot better than the usual restaurant tomato.

My wife had a decent pork torta made with an above-average roll. It did not have any avocado slices, which may be connected to high avocado prices. Both our lunches came with a cup of cream of broccoli soup and three salsas.

Edit to note that the horchata is fairly heavy on cinnamon.

Sabroso Grill
3816 W. Montrose Ave.
Chicago, IL 60618
773-961-8531
http://www.sabrosocatering.com/

Another change at Sabroso Grill. Several weeks ago the banner advertising birria went away. Initially I thought it was due to high winds. Now window signage refers to having Peruvian food. The web site still is largely about catering with no mention of any management change.

Signs in windows about Peruvian food have gone away. Place looks dead.

Passed Sabroso on Wednesday. Sign in window says hall for rent and catering. This place has more flip flops than some politicians.

Hit Taqueria San Matias for the first time this evening. My experience mirrored much of what Mike G. posted above.

Mike G wrote: Service seemed only distantly interested in us, . . .Then the food came and pleasantly surprised us all. Not city-class, perhaps, but certainly at least pick-this-one-over-the-five-closest-in-any-direction good . . .

Followed the advice in this thread and ordered two al pastor tacos and one chorizo (next time will remember to inquire about cochinita). Enjoyed the pastor; it probably didn't come right off a trompo, as it was a bit dry, but otherwise it was well executed. I'm not a big chorizo fan, but this was quite good, although my sleeve somehow soaked up quite a bit of grease.
Fresh, quality ingredients, cooked to order for the most part. Definitely worth a try if you're in the area.
(Sad to say my friend and I were the only customers there at 7:30 on a Wednesday.)

Had some excellent tacos recently at Los 2 Michocanos:

3808 W Lawrence Ave
Chicago, IL 60625
b/t Hamlin Ave & Avers Ave in Albany Park

Tacos pastor were flavorful, really great, and tacos carne asado had a nice sear, also very good. Guac was freshly made for us. Small, casual place with great food.

mrsm wrote:The building that housed Taqueria San Matias is undergoing a renovation. All of the stores appear to be vacant, and their signage has been removed. When I called their number, it rings and rings but no answer.

As mentioned in the Lawrence & Montrose Taquerias thread, this place was better than many of the other nearby taquerias. I appreciated the fact that they were one of the few restaurants in that stretch of Lawrence that was generally open until midnight. I hope they re-open in the same or nearby location.

Taqueria San Matias
3005 W. Lawrence
773-467-7533

Ouch, I hope they aren't gone for good. First Los Nopales and now this. Where's a girl to go for some good Mexican food in Lincoln Square-ish?

Smassey wrote:

mrsm wrote:The building that housed Taqueria San Matias is undergoing a renovation. All of the stores appear to be vacant, and their signage has been removed. When I called their number, it rings and rings but no answer.

As mentioned in the Lawrence & Montrose Taquerias thread, this place was better than many of the other nearby taquerias. I appreciated the fact that they were one of the few restaurants in that stretch of Lawrence that was generally open until midnight. I hope they re-open in the same or nearby location.

Taqueria San Matias
3005 W. Lawrence
773-467-7533

Ouch, I hope they aren't gone for good. First Los Nopales and now this. Where's a girl to go for some good Mexican food in Lincoln Square-ish?

Not Lincoln Square (unless "ish" includes a 2 mile radius) but El Carrito on Lincoln & Peterson is a really good spot. They make a great Baja style fish taco and have a number of other offerings. Their corn tortillas are made in-house as a nice added touch.

Although I have yet to go, Ixcateco Grill at Kimball/Montrose has had some nice reviews (mainly because the owner was a line cook at Frontera for over a decade).

Smassey wrote:Ouch, I hope they aren't gone for good. First Los Nopales and now this. Where's a girl to go for some good Mexican food in Lincoln Square-ish?

Taqueria El Asadero has great carne asada tacos, cooked over real charcoal.

Taqueria El Asadero
2213 W Montrose Ave
Chicago, IL 60618
(773) 583-5563

Sometime in the last few months Taqueria Santa Rita was replaced by El Puerto Mariscos and Grill. A banner referring to mariscos has been up for a while, but I did not take a closer look until after the Santa Rita sign was taken down.

The two storefronts were gutted and completely rebuilt. Tables now have granite slab tops with wood chairs complete with padded seats. While Santa Rita had moved to be more than a taqueria, this edition is definitely a restaurant.

My wife and I had a somewhat late lunch there today. The chips were not the crispiest, perhaps due high humidity, and the table salsa was quite mild. There were two different Mexican bottled hot sauces on the table while two other sauces were available in squirt bottles.

From the two menu pages of seafood I had the pulpo ranchero platter. Tender pieces of octopus in ranchero sauce along with a plentiful amount of lightly cooked yellow, red and green bell peppers. The salad was the common lightly dressed iceberg lettuce with slices of overly mature cucumber and a slice of bright red tomato. The platter also had mediocre rice and poor French fries. There was a choice of bread or tortillas.

Another two pages of menu had many standard Mexican items. My wife had a torta with beef milanesa. My bite of the beef was crisp and flavorful. Her horchata had good flavor with a fair but not excessive amount of cinnamon.

The open kitchen had a trompo of pork al pastor. No sign of pineapple or onion at the top, though. The menus had a number of items blanked out and a bunch of price changes hand written in. One oddity that may reflect sloppy proofreading or English limitations is that barbacoa was translated in two places as broiled beef. All of the other customers appeared to be Mexican.

I definitely want to give the al pastor a shot as well as some of the other seafood dishes.

Signage indicates open seven days a week. Yelp listing says closed Monday.

El Puerto Mariscos & Grill
2752-5 West Lawrence Avenue
Chicago, IL 60625
773-930-3160
BYOB

In a peculiar manuever, I need to update this thread in order to make a GNR nomination.
It is surprising Taqueria el Asadero does not have a dedicated thread here on LTHF. This thread has what I decide is the plurality of coverage. The times I have visited Taqueria el Asadero, and I have both eaten in [c.v.], and taken out - most notably when attending the closing event of select Chicago Craft Beer Weeks: The Welles Park Beer Fest.
Here are photographs from two of my dines-in. The first one shows the complimentary chips & salsa; the 2nd shows the price paid for the (3rd) carne asada burrito, which was superb with succulent meat tenderness. The 4th image is from a later visit, and illustrates the obscure chicken burrito. It was similarly tender and flavorful, and it tasted like chicken.
I intend to nominate Taqueria el Asadero for a GNR. But as I scribed above, I need a thread to which to refer. As it is, I encourage all LTHFers to give Taqueria el Asadero a shot.