La Cabana: Melrose Park

La Cabana
2015 N Mannheim Rd
Melrose Park, IL 60160





My father and I were in a rental car looking for this other Mexican Restaurant.. We took a wrong road and instead of getting more lost, we decided to drive straight on a road we knew until we found something..

The town of Melrose Park does not seem pretty. Though our only view was from this three lane industrial drag, the place looked rough.. One spot we considered was a small restaurant that was on the corner of this old floppy looking motel that was turned into super low income housing..

We drove passed a Papusaria that made me want to stop but, I wasn't feeling very lucky with the place.. We we passed a truckyard that had a large flagpole which hung a big American Flag with a smaller Mexican Flag hanging underneath.. We figured it was time to start looking for some Mexican Food..

We pulled into a strip mall and gave this place a shot..

There was this 8 year old boy who sat facing us 20 feet away on this counter smashing die cast trucks together making explosion sounds.. His 18 year old sister was our waitress.. The mom was in the back cooking.. How bad could it be.

It was the typical decor of many Ethnic places.. Often times they just move in.. Assuming the decor of whatever restaurant was there before them.. Whether it's the art hanging on the walls, the wallpaper, often the name of the restaurant itself.. They just move in and set up their own kitchen and menu..

So as we were sitting around stat\ring at these huge murals of Native Indian scenes, it came to no surprise, they had no idea about the art or artist..

The pictures were a trip and if taken from these walls would sell for thousands of dollars with the right salesperson.



Queso Fundido.. really good.. The chorizo was great. the tortillas not made in house were fresh.



Pa doo ordered chicken quesadilla with flour tortilla.. These would have been good if for the chicken... It was either canned or cooked into salty mush.. I am thinking canned.. Something offensive and unnatural was going on.



I had enchilada verde..I forgot to mention, they had chips and salsa.. The case of the chips were freshly fried, the sauce was most likely canned..

They were little pieces of diced steak in the enchilada.. I think this place would have made a good steak burrito.. Beans were ok. Rice was standard...Salsa verde was green liquid.



It was funny, the mother wouldnt let her daughter serve us liquor because she thought we were the fuzz..

It was definitely just an ok home cook or a really good home cook, trying to make a large and varied restaurant menu on her own.. You have to cut corners if you do the whole thing alone.

I am starting to begin to think that if a casual Mexican place doesnt have a huge loud ass shiny jukebox, the food is probably not going to be good.

Nice post. I wandered between want to go and ambivalence, in the end ambivalence won.

G Wiv, you're not misssing anything here. Went there twice a couple years ago and have not returned.

I'm amazed at the lack of a decent Mexican lunch place in the area, given the considerable Mexican-american population. Any places I'm missing out on in the River GRove/Melrose Park/Oak Park area?