Omaha Mexican

Omaha Mexican

(This post is quite long—I included a much briefer summary toward the end.)

When I lived in Omaha, I didn’t spend a lot of time on the south side, South O, as it’s locally known. I knew some Italians that lived down there. I had a vague knowledge of its historic standing as a heterogeneous ethnic enclave. I knew the old stockyards were located that direction, about 8 miles east of where I grew up in the southwest annexed suburb of Millard.

I’ve known over the years that South O was becoming the Hispanic cultural center of Omaha, but I was quite pleasantly surprised at the vibrant Mexican cultural display on 24th Street south of L.

A younger sister has a wedding upcoming, and she’s interested in a taco bar-type reception dinner. She’s in Texas, and I’m only too happy to help with the research. I’m not sure I’ll ever have a better opportunity to drag my mom and another sister along a two-day 8-stop taco crawl, exploring a load of ethnic joints previously unknown to me. This kind of event, of course, is the ideal use of my spare time as far as I’m concerned.

Our first stop was the Mexican restaurant at the GI Forum. I’m not quite sure of the set-up here. Presumably, the GI Forum was empty most of the week, and a family needed restaurant space so they partnered up. In any event, it’s brightly lit and spacious, a very eclectic mix of South Omaha families, Mexican families, gringo families, multigenerational Mexican-gringo families—all enjoying cheap food and cheap beer.

A poster on Chowhound, joypirate, put this place on my radar several years ago, and this was my first chance to try it. I don’t think I’ve been missing much, but it was oddly enjoyable.

We got a mixed nacho plate (yes, there are some odd choices throughout this report). Two kinds of homemade chips (flour and corn) topped with un(or barely)seasoned, finely ground beef, some processed nacho cheese, and sliced pickled jalapenos. Certainly not “authentic” by any stretch. The menu didn’t have any choices that suggested traditional Mex, and this nacho plate supported that observation. It looked kind of gross too, but tasted pretty good, and very reasonably priced beer ($2.25 for a Pacifico) and nightly drink specials left me thinking I could easily spend a night here if I had time to kill. Super friendly, eclectic neighborhood crowd…food wasn’t what I had in mind, but I dug it.

Leaving here, I spotted a large band playing in a window with a sign outside reading Los Gallos. I have positive gallos associations, probably from a couple different Chicago establishments. I made my mom stop the car so I could jump out and check it out. As we pulled up in front of the window, the tuba player smiled at me knowingly, winked, and motioned me inside with his index finger.

It was a full band, a high school band maybe, probably 30 strong, lots of brass, and they weren’t holding back in the modest, rather barren space. Through some halting conversation and a blaring musical background, I gathered they weren’t actually open yet, coming soon, but I saw a plate in the back that looked pretty darn good and the menu I saw written out on a piece of notebook paper revealed cesos, cabeza, lengua and a host of other things I don’t really eat but take as the sign of a potentially good restaurant. I thanked them and moved on, back to 24th Street proper. (Looking up the web address, and seeing as how I found a pic online and an Entertainment.com coupon, I guess it’s been there a little while, just must not have been open when I stopped.)

The next stop was Don Gaby’s, “Los Pioneros de la Gordita.”* A review in the Omaha World-Herald claims that the original Don Gaby’s introduced the gordita in Chicago in 1974. I await Rene G’s opinion. We couldn’t resist, of course, and ordered the gordita de chile rojo[/url] advertised on hand-written signs on the wall above each booth. We also got a couple tacos, noting the tortillas [i]hecho a mano[i], one [i]carne asada and one al pastor.

The gordita was rather unlike what I expected from my experiences at, say Taqueria El Gallo in Albany Park, where you get a pupusa-like gordita with thick masa surrounding a filling. This gordita was more like a middle Eastern pita sandwich, a thick tortilla sliced open at one end, hollow in the middle, and stuffed with the goods, actually, just the meat. It was hot, fresh, and really quite good. I was surprised at how well the gordita held the filling, given the relative thinness of each side.

The homemade tortillas for the tacos were excellent, if fairly unique, maybe even the same tortilla as used for the gordita. On a taco, it seemed quite thick, chewy in a good way, and of very wide diameter, maybe 8 inches. (They also offer a small size, not made in-house). The steak was good, but perhaps a tad too gristly. The table salsas were decent, fairly standard chile-based salsas, though the chips were not—boring store-bought rounds.

Afterwards, feeling a bit full, we stopped next door at Restaurant San Luis. This place is very large, a big buffet table (not active when we were there at 8:30 on a Saturday night), and a lively adjoining bar where the sister who was with me could have likely found her own husband had she been so inclined.

A gentleman behind us was taking some food photos for their menu, and the parrillada was stunning, a rich medley of split grilled Cornish game hens, grilled steak, pork, octopus, crab legs, lightly battered shrimp, and who knows what else. I think it was about $16/person, and we weren’t even hungry, but I was still tempted to order.

Despite the impressive display, we didn’t order anything off the menu here, but I hope to return. For wedding food, chips and salsa quality are a good indicator of mass appeal, and I didn’t care for this place on either count. The second place I’d seen flour tortilla chips, which is perhaps native to El Norte, but I liked these worse than those at the GI Forum, and the salsas were nothing to be too excited about. I paced myself with a Bohemia.

The final stop of the night was Hector’s, on our way back home, out of the Mexican strip. A bored or stupid server breezily told us they (maybe she meant “she”?) didn’t cater, but a manager indicated otherwise. They brought us out samples of many different meats (shredded beef, ground beef, chicken, carnitas), a few salsas, guacamole. I had moved from beer to tequila at this point. Nothing was very good here. The pork bore no resemblance to carnitas. The shredded beef was passable. The ground beef had pretty muted flavor. The chicken was white meat, which pleased my mom, but it wasn’t very good either. The guacamole tasted off.

Oh, and this place claims to serve “Baja-style” cuisine, so maybe we weren’t testing their sweet spot, but I’m not necessarily eager to find out. The flour tortillas, I should say, were actually quite good, fresh and a bit flaky, almost like pastry.

On Sunday, we headed back down to 24th Street. We’d heard somewhere that El Alamo was worth a shot, and I’d picked up a menu the night before and the place seemed the right mix between a real Mexican “care about our food” place with enough Tex-Mex-type accommodations to satisfy a wedding crowd. I mean, how can you not love a menu that offers “a culturalized chesseburger, topped in green chilled and served on a sesame seed bun.”

This place is promising, though not an unqualified winner. The chips were fresh, made in house, and excellent in the thinnish Tex-Mex style. The red salsa was a great mix of tomato-y Tex-Mex scarfability with a pleasing accent of chile heat. The green salsa was surprisingly strong on oregano and green onion, not necessarily to my taste but a sure sign they were doing their own thing.

The carne asada was good, not as fresh as I would have liked, but with good flavor and good char. The al pastor was a little weird, kind of mushy, big chunks, clearly not cut from a spit or griddled all caramely like I like. Rice and beans were okay, but they, like other offerings in hindsight, suffered from a little undersalting and underseasoning. Oh, and the tacos were served with a single tortilla, not homemade and a little disappointing overall. Having written this, I’m not sure why I thought this place was promising. I guess the chips and salsa were good. Oh, and I didn’t try the culturalized cheeseburger, but I’d like to. I still think I could get a good meal here.

There were a couple other places down there I noted but we didn’t sample, and numerous others that I barely even noted. Las Tortigas Tortas looks like a nice torta shop, a white board menu, only tortas. And La Cabaña d’Franko has a weird name and a menu of “huaraches 100% estilo D.F.” There are a lot of huaraches to be found on 24th Street, actually.

Our last stop, though, was Guaca Maya, a huge freestanding building a bit west of 24th, nestled in among some remaining meatpacking plants in the old stockyards. An article posted in the entryway gave an interesting account of the $2 million dollar investment in the space, a move from a humble 24th Street storefront restaurant started in the mid-1990s.

You could tell there was a lot of money put into the place. It’s huge and nicely appointed, pretty tile, nice woods, lots of Mexican decorations and color, the waitstaff all dressed in costume. By all appearances, a place very high on style in the style vs. substance equation.

Luckily, there was some substance. Chips were okay, though made from flour tortillas, which I continue to find odd. The red salsa was of the tomatoey type, and too tomatoey for my taste, a little like cocktail sauce also.

The real winner, though, not just here but of the whole trip, was the carnitas taco. The tortillas are made fresh here—there’s a woman working the masa in a prominent place in the restaurant. The carnitas were really terrific. Not quite as rustic as a dedicated carnitas place, like Uruapan. And you can’t pick the bits of pig you want. But it wasn’t the bland pork cubes that often are passed off as carnitas other places. These were rich, fatty pork chunks, fatty in a meltingly tender way rather than chewy or rubbery, and complemented by crispy pork ends. The taco came out hot, juicy, fatty, fresh, tender and full of pork flavor. This was the single best item of the two day tasting trip.

The carne asada taco was good too, though it would have benefited from a bit more grill flavor. Rice and beans were unmemorable. Beans were straight up pintos, not refried. I asked if they had other beans and, though communication wasn’t entirely clear, I eventually ended up with a small bowl of charros that were quite unlike other charros I’ve had.

It was basically the same pinto beans with a variety of uncertain pork products—there looked like 1 inch square slices of some kind of pressed ham product; little crunchy bits of chicharron, maybe some carrots. All together, it was pretty much just weird to me. It tasted okay, I guess, but really weird.

Summary

There’s a lot of potential here, but no home run. Not sure we accomplished much on the wedding food front.

Winning food stuffs included the carnitas at Guaca Maya, the gorditas and tortillas at Don Gaby’s, chips and salsa at El Alamo.

The GI Forum was cheap, entertaining, seemed like fun and the nachos were somehow more satisfying than they had any right to be by appearances.

Guaca Maya was easily the most fancified, least mom-and-pop space, and had a huge menu (with actually quite a number of different offerings).

Restaurant San Luis has a beautiful parrillada that I didn’t taste.

(A surprising number of mixed grill-type offerings across these restaurants, and a number of seafood specialties we didn’t get to also, provide fodder for future visits.

Hector’s is unlikely to see me ever again.


*Just for kicks, I ran this phrase through an online translator and enjoyed its rendition: "The Pioneers of the Chubby one."


American GI Forum Restaurant
2002 N St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 733-9740

Los Gallos
4630 S 20th St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 933-5834

Don Gaby's Restaurant
“Los Pioneros de la Gordita”
4806 S 24th St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 731-0936
Don Gaby’s menu

Paleteria & Restaurant San Luis
4804 S 24th St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 933-9940

Hector’s
3007 S 83rd Plz
Omaha, NE 68124
(402) 391-2923
(2nd location at 201 S 157th St, Omaha, NE‎ - (402) 884-2272)

El Alamo
4917 S 24th St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 731-8969

Guaca Maya
5002 S 33rd St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 733-3440
http://www.guaca-maya.com/

La Cabaña d’Franko
4835 S 24th St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 614-9977

Las Tortigas Tortas
(Can’t find it online, but next door to the place above.)

Hi LTH and thanks, Aaron for bringing up a great topic. I’ve enjoyed LTH anonymously for the last three years but felt I would be remiss to not contribute on a topic that I hold dear to my heart. I grew up in South Omaha and ate more than my fair share of Mexican while living there. Omaha has long been a great city for Mexican and Chinese food (also, The Bohemian Café, with its chilled steins of Pilsner Urquell, does indeed strike me as a proto-typical LTH restaurant, an Omaha GNR, if you will).

There are a number of great Mexican restaurants that weren’t brought up in Aaron’s initial post. The finest of which might be Netties in Bellevue, not far at all from the 24th Street area. Netties has been run by the same family for as long as I’ve been going there. The food is Americanized Tex-Mex style (as is virtually all of the Mexican food in Omaha), and it is exceptional. Of special note are the potato and pea enchiladas, the searingly hot pork chili (long believed to be the hottest in town), and a surprisingly extensive - and high end - margarita menu (a more recent addition). They also have a unique dish called a toad, which comes in different sizes and most closely resembles some sort of chimichanga. Nachos are cheese-laden and wonderful. Tacos are deep-fried, greasy, and very tasty. Salsa is of the blended garlic-tomato-chili persuasion and it is noteworthy. This is a destination restaurant, and a place where I could easily see myself whiling away an afternoon at the bar drinking margaritas and eating a combo plate. Keeping in line with it being family-run, the interior of Netties looks like a converted living room. Don’t miss this restaurant if you’re in Omaha. It really is considered one of the very best in a city that can crank out some great Mexican food.

Aaron paid a visit to a restaurant that I have very fond memories of, El Alamo. I spent my first year of college visiting El Alamo three times a week for lunch. The restaurant has a very homey, welcoming feel. For that entire year, I would order a shredded beef enchilada platter. As Aaron noted, the salsa is very tasty here. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone back, but it was a great dark place to hide in a booth with some cold beers and great food.

Not far from El Alamo is El Aguila. My parents had told me stories of the “old” El Aguila, where during dinner one time, a rat ran past their table. The food must have been exceptional. El Aguila is now a much cleaner restaurant. Service can be a little slow, but again, the food is very good in the Tex-Mex vein. Enchiladas are excellent. Again, I haven’t visited in a while, but El Aguila remained consistent over many years and is still someplace I would recommend highly. (Side note: This is mere blocks away from another Omaha classic – Louis M’s Burger Lust – a worthy addition to any food lover’s itinerary).

Any conversation about Omaha Mexican would be incomplete without a mention of Maria’s. Again, this restaurant has been around forever. I’ve been eating here since before I can remember. Maria’s is notable in that it’s the only Mexican restaurant I’ve been to that serves a brown gravy on some of its items. This may sound like blasphemy, but it really is very good. This restaurant is wildly popular and with good reason. Items of note include the nachos, bean dip - a tasty mélange of beans, brown gravy, and a mound of cheese (make sure to get jalapenos and onions as well), burritos sauced with said gravy, enchiladas with a distinctive sauce heavy on chili powder, and probably the best soft tacos in Omaha. All of the above benefit from their hot sauce (similar to Netties in that it is very heavy on the garlic). If you make your way through a bottle of hot sauce at either of those restaurants you will likely enjoy a nice endorphin high as you leave the restaurant. Everybody orders margaritas and eats plentifully. A good recommendation for larger appetites – and a good sampler of the restaurant’s dishes – is the Maria’s Special (taco, burrito, enchilada, tostada). This qualifies as another all-time Omaha classic.

One last recommendation is California Tacos. Located in a somewhat unsavory neighborhood near Creighton University, California Tacos is mostly known for their namesake – soft tacos filled with beans, beef, chicken, or fish (a deep fried fillet) and topped with the usual accoutrements (cheese, lettuce, tomato). You get green and red salsa, both tasty. They serve all the usual traditional fare, which is done well, but I come here for the tacos – bean and fish.

Note: Maria’s and Netties do not take credit cards, so bring cash. Also, several of these restaurants have unusual hours, so call beforehand.

Netties
7110 Railroad Avenue
Bellevue, NE 68147
(402) 733-3359

El Aguila
1837 Vinton St
Omaha, NE 68108
(402) 346-7667

El Alamo
4917 S 24th St
Omaha, NE 68107
(402) 731-8969

Maria’s
7630 Burlington St
Ralston, NE 68127
(402) 592-3623

California Tacos
3235 California St
Omaha, NE 68131
(402) 342-0212

Bohemian Café
1406 South 13th Street
Omaha, NE 68108

Louis M’s Burger Lust
1718 Vinton St
Omaha, NE 68108
(402) 449-9112

Check out San Diego Taco. 10737 Mockingbird Drive 1 block north of Q street

Thanks, Tawl John, and welcome to posting...great first post, and excellent info!

I was in Omaha this past weekend, and unfortunately couldn't do nearly the eating I did last time, but will definitely have to give Nettie's a shot.

Maria's is a place my sister used to go rather often, but I've never been.

I do enjoy Louie M's Burger Lust quite a bit.

Funny that Bohemian Cafe came up twice in the span of a few days.

We did have a late Mother's Day lunch at Stokes in the Old Market. This is the second location of a local place (which I believe shares ownership with the HuHot chain of Mongolian BBQ restaurants). It bills itself more as "Southwestern" rather than Mexican, and it's a much more refined dining experience than most of the places upthread. It's certainly worth a look, though.

It has a little of the feel of a corporate restaurant, but in a way I like more than not, sort of like Dixie Kitchen or Calypso Cafe (different style, of course, but it reminds me anyhow). They have a number of different taco and enchilada-type things, but they use better cuts of meat and serve the food prettied up.

We had an appetizer of some carpaccio, which was terrific, and served with a nice spicy, Mexicanish sauce drizzled over it, some capers, and I don't know what. Sorry for the sparse details...my attention wasn't 100% on the food, and I can't find a menu online.

I had something called "wrapped fire", a burrito with beef tenderloin tips...not fiery, really, but pretty good. It was served with some adobo-ancho chile paste that reminded me of why some people think they don't like mole, though it's better than that makes it sound....some sneaky heat, and I ate a good bit before I tired of it and moved to a different salsa.

The green and red salsas were both excellent. Not a gratis chips kind of place. Someone ordered fish tacos, someone else, tacos al carbon, and dear old dad ordered a cheeseburger. Everyone was happy.

Surprisingly, they also had a really nice wine list. We had a really delightful Domaine Wachau riesling, one of many pretty good (and well-priced) choices. I'd definitely return here.

Stokes Bar and Grill
1122 Howard St.
Omaha, NE 68102

(original location at:
646 N 114th St
Omaha, NE 68154
(402) 498-0804)

paulpleskach wrote:Check out San Diego Taco. 10737 Mockingbird Drive 1 block north of Q street

Hey Paul,

Welcome to LTHForum. I realize your new, but please check out the Posting Guidelines, especially the following:

- Disclose any special relationship (be it owner, employee, friend, or frequent customer) you have with an establishment you're discussing. Make sure you provide enough information so that readers know where you're coming from.

(In addition to Catering by Paul, Paul is the owner and chef at San Diego Taco.)

I actually visited San Diego Taco last fall, and I've had every intention of doing further research and a fuller post. I only stopped in for a couple tacos, spying it leaving Burger King, where I met my father but didn't eat.

I had posted briefly on Chowhound hoping to alert some other Omaha eaters, and gain a little more intel:

Aaron Deacon, Nov 1, 2007 wrote:There's another place in Omaha that's opened in the last year or two called San Diego Taco. It's in an unassuming strip mall at about 108th and Q. Excellent salsas, Del Rey tortillas (a pretty good Chicago tortilleria) though he'd like to make in-house, I had a very tasty chorizo taco, though it was homemade chorizo, very different from standard Mex.

I talked with the owner a bit, seems like a great place. BYOB also. Kind of goofy hours, because the guy also does catering, but very worthwhile. I'm excited to try more of the menu here.

Certainly on the wedding list, but still has goofy hours and no one's been organized enough to set a time to sample more extensively. Also, I don't believe it's BYOB any longer.

Just really busy, got a couple minutes the other day and ran across this message board. I have extended the hours a bit;
M-W 10am-3pm & T-F 10am-10pm. Still closed on weekends. Got a liquor license we have a top notch margarita. I have found better tortillas and fish tacos are available anytime. Stop in soon! We a bit busier since the last time you stopped in.

So San Diego Taco catered my sister's wedding over the weekend, a buffet-style taco bar, and I was really impressed with their operation. The most impressive part of the spread was the fixings....easy, it might seem, but way overlooked in this kind of setting.

The salsa for the chips was terrific...tomatoey and fresh tasting.

The taco toppings featured three salsas...a mild tomato, which I didn't sample, a medium tomatillo/verde, and a somewhat hotter chili-red chipotle (maybe some guajillo, too?). The two I tasted had excellent flavor and appropriate heat. Lots of fresh red onion, cilantro, cotilla cheese, tomato slices, shredded lettuce. Not traditional Mex, for sure, but then again, we're talking about a place called San Diego Taco.

It's much different to eat this style than in the restaurant, but I'm as excited as ever to make a proper visit, surely an excellent entry in Omaha's Mexican scene.