Las Piñatas - the concept of the filling fallback

In a city featuring the best variety of authentic regional Mexican cuisine in some beautiful, creative spaces and prepared by polished, market-savvy chefs, why would anyone go to a dumpy, cheesy, overpriced ($20.95 fajitas), frat-boy and yuppie-laden, unadventurous Tex-Mex living room crammed between comedy clubs in the culinary wasteland (ducking) that is North and Wells?

Having enjoyed epic meals and storytelling sessions Las Piñatas many times over the past decade, here are a few of my answers:

- a friendly, no-nonsense family of owners who work seven days a week and always remember your face and engage you in calm Spanish if you've visited repeatedly. On my last visit (yesterday), I hadn't been there in 18 months and was still warmly greeted along with two other less-than-regulars, and they comped us flan (more about that below) at the end of the meal with a smile and week-late "feliz Cinco de Mayo."

- really strong, virtually straight-tequila margaritas by the pitcher or half-pitcher with lots of fresh lime, even if I suspect there is a pre-mixed component

- an unabashedly spicy table salsa with usually excellent, salty, home-fried chips made from their tortillas de maiz, which are very nice in their own right. I don't know of another Mexican restaurant where the only sauce put on the table will burn a hole in your soft palate slowly over several hours.

- a consistently pleasing marinated carne asada ($16.95) which comes with a decent quesadilla and a brace of grilled green onions, maybe the only fair price on the menu, as it's a generous portion. It also constantly reminds me of how inedible asada can be at other purportedly "good" places like Nuevo Leon (motto: our good chefs leave after breakfast).

- a mole negro sauce that is, to my experience in Mexico, inauthentic, but very tasty: quite sweet and homogeneous but a good counterpoint to the other basic ingredients they use in their enchiladas

- a delicate, silky flan with hardly any "eggy" flavor, caramelized at the edges, poured over with cinnamon liqueur and presented with an additional shot of dulce de leche liqueur

- very little if any wait for a table, even on a Friday or Saturday night. Not the hallmark of a great restaurant, but a nice feature for a fallback.

These reasons, perhaps the hypno-margs most of all, combine for me sufficiently that even though I paid the same for a meal last night at Pinatas as I did last week at Avec, I'm not really pissed off, and instead leave full and content.

With guests from out of town I'll more readily go to Cuatro, Fonda del Mar, Salpicon, Frontera, Taco Veloz, or Tio Luis depending on circumstances and budget, but if I'm in the neighborhood with the right company, Pinatas typically satisfies. I'm curious as to your own thoughts and experiences, and other restaurants that you go to for calories and calm but wouldn't necessarily recommend to those seeking the finest exemplars of a given cuisine.

The Devi(tte)l in me does acknowledge: the wall art is God-awful, and made worse by the fact that I don't think it's intended to be self-mocking. I especially love the Aztec lord ravishing the Colonial maiden. The staircase to the lower level smells like old flood damage. The bathrooms are hideous. Every time I go in there, one overserved table is always laughing obnoxiously, or a Trixie couple is breaking up loudly and sobbingly. Your clothes are saturated with chimichanga after even an hour's visit. But that salsa is burntoxicating.

Las Piñatas
1552 N. Wells
Starts with a C, ends with an O, and in the middle is HICAG, IL

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Las Pinatas, and I don’t remember it as being so bad, but between the last time I was there and today I’ve been to probably 100 or more other Mexican places, so perhaps I would feel differently if I went again.

One must wonder if over-priced fajitas are not subsidizing over-generous Margaritas (I notice their site boasts that their margaritas are “well known for their flavor and potency”), and that drink could influence one’s (certainly my) opinion of the place. It sounds like what you’re describing is a joint you love (for the most part) despite the food, and it reminds me of Algren’s comparison of Chicago and a beloved gal with a broken nose.

Russell’s certainly fits that bill for me, as I go there strictly for nostalgia purposes. I visited this roadside “BBQ” first in the 70s with some roommates and years later it became the favorite place of my youngest daughter and me – I still have a crayon drawing she did of her and me driving to Russell’s; she drew it when she was like 6; she’s entering college in September.

Horwath’s (RIP) was also in this category; I went almost every weekend throughout a six-month period in 1999 – there were more interesting places to go (and The Wife, finally, refused to visit again), but I liked the steady, consistent and capable menu, the waitresses, the dark and old-timey wood bar, the relish plate and the Jello course.

It seems, though, that as of the early 21st century, if I don’t like a place on the first visit, I will not go back, and the only way I will actually like a place is if they serve good food for a good value (that does not mean cheap; I think Trotter’s is – or was – a good value). What I’m saying is that now I would use the Deerhunter model to describe my response to restaurants: most places get one shot with me; if they bag hit me the first time, I’m not going back.

Thanks for the well-written observations – I am inspired to revisit Las Pinatas.

Hammond