We have ordered off the regular menu. I thought the steak sopas were very good. It's been a while since we have eaten there, so I don't recall anything outstanding.

Suzy

I am going back to Amanacer Tapatio for lunch this Saturday, we are going to order one item off the daily specials menu(hopefully the ribs again), and try some of the items off of the other menu. I doubt we will be disappointed.

Taking the hubby for dinner this weekend.Ive sampled the tacos and burritos with my daughter excellent!Now I want to try a dinner...please give recomendations for pork and beef dishes.Thanks!

Deb,

If the Costillas in chile morita are available get them. You can't go wrong if you order from the special menu on the wall.

Flip

Deb,

Don't bother with the menu, just order from the specials board! The Mole Verde is my favorite dish there.

Glenn

Went to Amanacer Tapatio yesterday for lunch while we were in Joliet getting a headlight for my truck @ the Honda dealership.

We decided to order our favorite dish the braised ribs in the red sauce as well as try a couple of items off the menu. The ribs were excellent as always, and we got 2 steak tacos served with cilantro, onions, cheese, and sour cream, as well as a chicken gordita. The tacos were some of the best I have had, and the Gordita was a hit as well. The chips on the table were crisp and saltym and the sauced on teh table were good as usual. The fresh tortillas served with the ribs dish, and used in the tacos, and gordita made the meal complete. That and mexican coke to drink with a meal make this place one of my favorites. Lunch with tax and tip $23.

Visited this place a month or two ago after seeing the posts on here.
My wive and I walked in at noon on a Sunday and the place was nearly full, and what made me really excited was that my wife, me, and our 18 month old were the only non-mexicans in the place.

I had the falling of the frickin bone chicken mole verde (how do they cook that stuff, is it steamed or something?)
and my wife had a steak torta.
FANTASTIC STUFF
chips and salsa were great, the rice was even great, had a couple of those mexican sodas, and it was one of the cheapest meals I have paid for out in a while.
I was talking about it for weeks, and am not sure why I haven't been back already. I'm going to dive deeper into the specials next time.

Thanks again for pointing out this gem that is 15-20 minutes from my home.

I made my maiden voyage to Amanecer Tapatio late last week and was not allowed to bring in the 12-pack of Negra Modelo my friend and I brought with us. The nice waitress, who said she was newer, told us she had called the owner while we were putting the beer back in the car and had confirmed that beer was not allowed.

After that inauspicious start, the meal could not have been better. We split 3 entrees off of the specials list. We had albondigas which is a meatball soup with a spicy, beef based broth that had a nice balanced heat to it. Our second entree was a rib dish with morita chiles. It was a bit mild but the sauce was very hearty and and had a great tomato base. The other entree we had was bistec al pasilla. It was another heavy home-style dish. It had a deep brown gravy and was a perfect match inside one of the homeade tortillas with some salsa verde.

As we finished up I was sadly looking at the leftover albondigas broth and lamenting that it would go to waste. Then, I remembered that I happened to have some tupperware in the car. The soup was saved and dinner Sunday night was that and a quesadilla made with the leftover tortillas. I had 2 wonderful meals for $15. It's places like this that make me so grateful that I found LTH. I was a bit disappointed about the no-BYOB but will definitely be back for some home-cooking Mexican style.

Yep good food...bummer about the beer! Ive been there 2 times and brought wine and that was fine.I called and they said o.k. Wonder why beer would be any different hmmmmmm?

We had been planning this for awhile but our schedules kept conflicting. We called about a month ago and asked if it was ok to bring beer and had been told it was allowed. From my experience I was thinking maybe it was a new policy. Has anyone been in the last couple weeks and been able to booze?

I'm glad so many of you are enjoying Amanecer Tapatio.

I cannot give a definitive answer on the restaurant's BYOB policy, but I can offer a few notes:

When A.T. was still on Collins St. but outgrowing that original space, Monica told me her mom had turned down an opportunity to buy a larger, shuttered Mexican restaurant because that joint, which had a liquor license, had been the scene of drunken violence, and Monica's family did not want A.T. to lose its reputation as a family restaurant.

Mom is on an extended visit to Mexico. (Thus Monica is doing the cooking but, she told me ruefully, her mom did not leave her the recipe for mole poblano.) Without Senora on the scene, perhaps policy is inconsistent.

I've always noticed a drop-off in ease with English speakers from Monica and her sister, Rocio, to the other staff members.

Communication in English over the phone has never been A.T.'s strong suit.

I sincerely hope all of you will continue to enjoy the comida corrida at Amanecer Tapatio. I can't wait for my next meal there, just fifteen and a half hours from now.

Mugs,

A very warm welcome to LTHforum, old friend.

Looking forward to your posts going into the future.

Best regards,

Mugs, echoing C2's sentiments. It's been some years since I've read one of your posts. Good to see you again.

With the desire to maintain a record of evaluation of GNR restaurants, I was recently in the southwest suburbs, and returned to Amanecer Tapatio, the first time I have eaten at their spiffy (and orange) new location. As before, I was impressed. Amanecer works within the a well-established Mexican repertoire, but does so very well, and in a friendly environment. I ordered two specials (one to eat in and one to take home), both were superior (and with impressive tortillas):

Costilla en chile morita (pictured), a satisfying rendition of braised ribs: not too hot and with a slightly subtle sauce and beans less heavy than usual.



The other dish, Picadillo a la Mexicana, is a spiced ground beef, also enjoyable.

Amanecer Tapatio is the place to go in Joliet.

Last week when getting carry outs from Amanecer Tapatio, I had a disappointing conversation with Della (sp?) who is Monica's cousin and a waitress. Della told me that over the past few months business has been very, very slow. Business is finally starting to pick up, but not enough. If any of you find yourself with a mild hankering for Mexican, please consider treating yourself to one of their delicious entrees. Like many of you I would hate to lose Amanecer Tapatio.

Thanks for the save this restaurant post, Veloute. Seems like I need to get down there more often.

seeing this news makes me even madder at myself that I wasted a lunch @ Merishka's in Joliet instead of heading over to Amanacer Tapatio last Saturday.

Went tonight for dinner and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Two of us ordered Costillas en chile morita, which were delicious. My wife concocted a combination plate, of which she ate every bite.
One note--when my friend told our server that about his gluten allergy, she took it upon herself to call the chef (who had already gone home) to verify no wheat was used in the sauce on the ribs. A thoughtful touch, really appreciated.

Paul SL wrote:Went tonight for dinner and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Two of us ordered Costillas en chile morita, which were delicious. My wife concocted a combination plate, of which she ate every bite.
One note--when my friend told our server that about his gluten allergy, she took it upon herself to call the chef (who had already gone home) to verify no wheat was used in the sauce on the ribs. A thoughtful touch, really appreciated.

Monica has been exceptionally gracious in helping me to figure out which of their entree are gluten free. As it turns out, all of the costillas, desebrada, pollo en crema, picadillo, carne asada, carne en su jugo, barbacoa are gluten free. Having said that I avoid the tortillas, rice and the delicious beans as something in one of them bothers me and I've been unable to figure out which is the root.

If anyone is interested in a gathering at Amanecer Tapatio I would gladly work with Monica to arrange it.

Lunch @ Amanacer Tapatio was my 2nd favorite stop of the day, and the first. I met Dicksond there around 11:00 a.m., and enjoyed the company, conversation, and the food quite a bit. It was a typical visit food wise for me. I had a Mexican coke, and the costillos in chili verde. I also had a steak taco. I typically have the costillos in the red sauce, but decided to try something a little different. The pork was as tender, and flavorfull as other visits, and the green sauce was very good, not the smokey goodness of the red sauce but very good. The fresh tortillas, rice, and beans rounded out a very solid dish. The steak taco was also good, flavorfull steak with cilantro, and onion. dicksond ordered the chiliques wth scrambled eggs, and I now know what I am going to try the next time I am there. It looked excellent. He also ordered a tostada de lomo. A pork tostada with avocado that looked good as well.

Amanacer Tapatio seemed to be partially full as the lunch hour prgressed, and I hope they can survive the current economic downturn. It is a must hit when I go to Joliet, and is the first GNR I knowingly tried.


costillos:

Amanacer has had some ups and downs in the last couple of years, IMO. The early days in a tiny space with Mom doing all the cooking and the other ladies making fresh tortillas up front while I watched were the best, because Mom was so good and woke up each day to be inspired by whatever food she found.

The transition to new cooks and the larger space have been spotty at times, as they learned Mom's recipes and adjusted to the changes required by a larger operation.

When I joined Jim for lunch last week, the food was interesting, authentic and good. Monica has started to cook as well, and she was doing a fine job. The printed menu has expanded beyond the original small selection of anotjitos to include weekly specials, chilaquiles and a few other things that were previously treated as specials on the board - I just found this out, as the last couple of times I had been there was on the weekend and I looked forward to having Chilquiles only to be disappointed to find they were not specials that day. Now I know why.

Through all of this, the food has remained very good, the service always pleasant, the prices a real bargain, and I can only fault Amanacer today if I compare it to what it was a couple of years ago. The current cooks do not (yet?) have the touch and taste of Mom, but they do a good job and are working with her recipes.

A great place, even if I miss Mom. Best chilaquiles I have ever had, too. And I would love to buy jars of their chile sauces to use to dress meats at home.

It saddens me to write this post. Three weeks ago a group of us went to Amanacer Tapatio on a Friday night and the restaurant was closed. Something seemed askew, but I thought maybe there was a family issue. A week or so later we tried again and the doors were locked. I happened by Friday afternoon and spoke to Monica, Rocio and Deya who told me they've closed the restaurant. According to Monica they were slow in paying their rent so the building owners decided not to renew their lease. Deya has told me many times that business has been slow. It was evident that business was not what it had been on the east side.

It's their hope to reopen someplace along Collins Street near the original restaurant, but at this point there are no vacancies. We all exchanged phone numbers so when (if) they reopen I'll post.

Also, mom has decided to stay in Mexico.

damn.. thanks for the report, like you said sad news, Amanacer Tapatio is/was great, not just good.