Día de la Independencia - Festival de la La Villita

Chicago's La Villita neighborhood - which is probably now the principal center for Mexicans in the city - is holding its annual "Festival de la Villita" celebration September 14-16 to coincide with Mexico's Día de la Independencia festivities.

The festival is located on W. 26th St., from Kostner Ave. to a point about 1/2 mile west.



Mostly, this is an event where businesses not located in the neighborhood set up booths trying to get people to buy their goods/services; there's very little community commercial participation or support - from what I see. There's a nice carnival ride area for children, though.



Food offerings are sadly lacking at the festival. I was there mid-afternoon today and only two or three food stalls were operating, and another 1 or 2 were setting-up.





El Pollo Sinaloa is a company that management representatives I spoke with told me will "soon" open restaurant locations in Chicago and/or the Chicagoland area; they were handing-out samples of their cooked product.







I wanted to try some of the food, but with the limited offerings I hesitated, but finally selected a pambaso torta with pork (nicely caramelized and reminiscent of al pastor) and I can't remember ever before eating a better pambaso. Pambaso's may include varied fillings and the bread is the same roll traditionally used for tortas. The roll is dipped into a red chile sauce and then lightly fried/griddled before the filling is placed inside. The pombasa is often referred to (in the USA) as the Mexican equivalent of our "Sloppy Joe."



There wasn't much to do at this festival so I left after maybe 1.5 hours and headed E. on 26th St. to check-out what's been happening there since my last visit. Lots of flag vendors were working the street, in anticipation of tonight's El Grito and tomorrow's parade down 26th Street.



I walked as far E. as Atotonilco (1.5 blocks E. of Pulaski) and was going to go in for something more to eat. The place was packed and the al pastor spit was whirling and a carver cutting away.



After walking through the door to Atotonilco I turned around and walked back out - and boarded a bus that took me to 26th & Cicero - and I walked the 4 blocks to XNI-PEC.

Festival de la La Villita continues all day Sunday, September 16th - after the parade - and music groups are scheduled to perform and I suspect some additional food stalls will be in operation.