Cuenca's Panaderia y Pasteleria & More

The Chilean restaurant thread reminded me of this neighboring bakery I posted on shortly afterwards:

Cathy2 from August 9, 2003 wrote:Hi!

In June, my guest Maria and I arrived early to the Latin Sandwich Cafe (4009 N. Elston Ave.) chow event. At Maria's initiative, we used our time to explore Cuenca's Panaderia y Pasteleria whose rear service entrance is across the street from Latin Sandwich Cafe. We walked around the corner to the Irving Park commercial entrance.

Maria, who is from Ecuador, quickly learned this bakery is owned by Ecuadorians. She was quite delighted to advise every weekend, this bakery roasts whole pigs. The proprietress went into the rear and returned with a small take out container. On a lettuce leaf was a sample of the roast pig with skin, hominy and a salsa. She advised a meal could be purchased for $5.

On this same occasion, we bought a 'sweet corn' tamale which we brought over to Latin Sandwich to compare with their tamale variant. Today, I purchased the same but was advised it was not a tamale but rather a 'Humitas.'

Today was my first opportunity to try the $5 pork dinner, which I reminded them I wanted with skin. My order included a very generous quantity of roast pork with crisp crackling skin. The pork was not dry but moist, succulent and required no additional seasoning eaten as-is. Accompanied by hominy, two small mashed potato pancakes and a lettuce cup filled with a fresh salsa. This salsa has thinly sliced red onion, chopped tomato and cilantro in the middle of a lettuce cup. Additionally, she included a small container of hot sauce to go.

Separately, I purchased one humita which was sweetly delicious like before. My entire purchase, including a 20 ounce Coke, was $7 and change.

Please note, I have no clue what their baked goods or pastries are like. If I had not learned through Maria of this bakery offering roast pig every weekend, then this was just another bakery. I can assure you there was no visible clue to the pork offering. This is not just a secret menu but an unexpected offering!

Best regards,
Cathy2

Cuenca's Bakery
3658 West Irving Park Road
Chicago, IL 60618
Tel: 773/588-0771

Cuenca is a city in Ecuador, and is also part of the name of my favorite Ecuadoran place, Mi Ciudad (Cuenca). I think you'd like it. They have llapingachos (potato cakes) mote y tostado (hominy, boiled and corn-nut style), etc. The cook is (or was) the lunch time chef at one of the major steakhouses. It suffered from a lukewarm review in Cheap Eats (unlike Hecky's, say) followed by a fire. It is reopened better than ever.

It remains one of my favorite places, and I think Ecuadoran is an under-appreciated cuisine here and generally. Nice mix of Spanish, African, indigenous, and Italian flavors. Ceviche, of course, but also stews based on coconut and peanut, One of my favorite goat dishes is seco de chivo. And they have some very nice aguardiente based drinks.

A nice travel book about the cities of Ecuador, and its most famous export, is the Panama Hat Trail.

PS, your mention of the tamal-like humita reminded me of a quirk in spanish. Mexicans and some Central Americans call the singular a tamale. Most others say un tamal.

The garlicky roast pork at Panaderia Cuenca is served with boiled hominy and a refrehing though mild salsa.

Hi JeffB,

Is this the place?

MI Ciudad
3041 West Irving Park Road
Chicago, IL 60618
773-866-2066

If it is, it is very close to where my maternal Grandparents used to live. I will offer your enthusiastic endorsement when I contact Maria Kijac about this place. I'll let you know if she has been there and what her opinion may be. If she hasn't, then I'll put it on the short list of places to do very soon.

Yourpalwill: thanks for your clarification. I know you've been there far more times than I have.

Regards,

That is the place. I just went to pick up some food the other day. Shrimp encocado (coconut shrimp dish much like Brazilian moqueca) and seco de chivo were great as always; ceviche was not for me. I'll admit that the very soupy Ecuadorian style is my least favorite behind Mexican, Peruvian, etc.

The drinks at the bar are the place's secret strength, IMO. The Espiritu sour is one great mixed drink. Quite an unusual collection of rums and aguardientes as well.

JeffB wrote:The drinks at the bar are the place's secret strength, IMO. The Espiritu sour is one great mixed drink. Quite an unusual collection of rums and aguardientes as well.

I noticed their selection and was surprised that I was given a gratis glass of amaretto at the end of my meal. Muddling my metaphors, I didn't want to look a gift drink in the mouth, but I was curious why they didn't use this an attempt to turn me on to something more unusual.

Unfortunately, my meal was so long ago that I can't offer any commentary beyond the fact that the quality of ingredients and preparation were far higher than I expected when I picked the place based on a random drive by.

rien

I'm counting my blessings: I live a mile away, and I made it home without indulging. Any further, and the car would've needed an upholstery shampoo.

Cheers,
Wade

I've often had to take the box of baby wipes down to the car to clean the steering wheel after coming back from Panaderia Cuenca, Wade. It's addictive stuff.

this reminds of once naively attempting to eat a pork jibarito "sandwich" from Las Palmas (at the boathouse) while driving down Division. I swear I had garlicky mayonaisey pork juice dripping from my elbows. it was a sliippery situation . . . .

anyhow, do they offer the pork plate at La Cuenca throughout the week or only on the weekends?

thanks.

bjt

It is only offered on the weekends.

thanks , I know it was mentioned in the first post that the pigs were roasted during the weekend but I thought, well, conceivably one could stretch the meat of a whole pig over a week . . . so thanks for the clarification.

bjt

La Cuenca Panaderia is moving this summer to new quarters at 4229 W. Montrose (at Tripp). Hand-lettered sign is already up at the new location. A stop at the current location (Elston and Irving Park) today for lechon asada confirmed it, but there's no date yet.

That's good news for me, because it'll be even closer to my home (six blocks away) now, and yet another great chow place for Albany Park.

Cheers,
Wade

P.S. Based upon a partly overheard conversation, it seems that they may very well sell custom orders of the Saturdays-only lechon asada.

waderoberts wrote:That's good news for me, because it'll be even closer to my home (six blocks away) now, and yet another great chow place for Albany Park.

Sorry to have to tell you this, but Albany Park doesn't get to carve another notch into its tally of places to eat. This location is actually in Irving Park ("Old Irving Park", to be more exact). Not that we Old Irving residents begruge Albany Park for its many interesting chow-worthy establishments...it's just that we have so few places like this in our neighborhood that we have to make sure we claim bragging rights whenever we can.

Seriously, it will be good to see this location be occupied, again.

For many years, this address was the home of Beil's Bakery. It was one of those family operations that, whenever I was in the area and stopped by, always seemed packed with customers. But it was worth the wait to get their baked goods. I thought this was a big plus when we moved into the neighborhood 5 years ago...Beil's was only 2 blocks from our house! It closed its doors 3 weeks before we moved.

After being vacent for a year or two, Sweet Mysteries Bakery moved into the storefront from their former location on Southport. Although it hung around for a couple of years, it never really made it as a neighborhood bakery (I believe they also operated as a business that supplied baked goods to restaurants). Some people made comparisons to Beil's and found Sweet Mysteries lacking. Others thought they were overpriced. As for myself, I just didn't care for the way their baked goods tasted (the first loaf of bread I bought there tasted like it had been crafted with moldy flour) and felt their selection of sweet rolls were pretty paltry.

Anyway, after looking at an unoccupied storefront for the past year, I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival of La Cuenca Panaderia. A search both here and that "other place" have me hoping that they don't leave any of their quality behind when they make the move.

Ken

We were driving west on Montrose this morning and saw store lit up including the open sign. Did not stop in the rain to check further.

HI,

After passing the new location of Cuenca's Bakery many times since they moved to Montrose Avenue, I finally stepped in today.



While I came exclusively for the roast pork dinner, by their weekend menu they have expanded their menu a bit:



The hornado is their roast pork, which you can buy by the pound or as a plated dinner to eat-in or take-out. At the old location this dinner cost under $6, while at the new location is $7. However two people could easily make a meal from this plate:



I especially like the pork skin, which is crisp and glossy like glass.

The counter girl advised the fritada is fried ribs. Morocho is corn hominy. Morsilla is blood sausage. Guatita is tripe. Their empanadas for 50 cents have a cheese filling and are sprinkled with sugar:



Like their old location, they are situated in what was once a bakery. In addition to their weekend menu, they offer pastries and a small grocery section. There are also several tables and chairs for eating your meal fresh from the kitchen.

Cuenca's Bakery
4229 West Montrose
Chicago, IL 60647
Tel: 773/588-0771
Daily: 5 AM - 9 PM

Cathy,

Looks good. However, I want to point out another one of those Rico's Huaraches issues on the name; to wit, Cuenca is one of the larger cities in Ecuador (and an important part of the Panama hat industry). There is probably not a person named Cuenca involved. NB, as there appear to be many folks here from Cuenca, one must be careful to find the right place. Sort of like Leon or Jalisco.

FWIW, one of my favorite spots remains Mi Ciudad (Cuenca) on Irving.

Cathy,

Nice post -- thank you. The pork and esp. the pork skin looks great...

Just a note about the term fritada. In Spanish (and Portuguese) it means literally just 'fried (dish)' but then takes on different specific meanings in various places. In Spain, one encounters this term as a regional equivalent of the more widespread pisto, that is, the Castilian 'Western Mediterrranean vegetable stew'. Fritada is the name for the vegetable stew in Aragon and some other areas in northern Spain. But, as I mentioned in my paper on the vegetable stews, there's an older use of the term to refer to offal stews in Spain. That use is still found regionally in Mexico but in Ecuador (and some other parts of Latin America), the term is applied to a dish made with pork meat, sans offal.

Bottom line: fritada in an Ecuadorean place should involve pork, fritada in a Meixcan place might well be 'guts-n-such'...
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=50721#50721

Antonius

I just wanted to say thank you for all the great reviews. My father is the owner of Cuenca’s Bakery and he has worked so hard to get it where it is today. He went from a little rented space on Irving Park to own a big store on Montrose. My family loves to cook our Ecuadorian specialties and I’m glad everyone has enjoyed it. Keep buying hornado at Cuenca’s Bakery :).
Thank you so much

Hi,

Is the hornado still a weekend only offering?

Regards,