Rudy's Taste

This is a repost of a recent message sent out on the LTH list-serve. There has been followup to this at that other food board, but I thought it would be worth placing here in case anyone wants to eat there and post about it here.

I had planned to simply dine al fresco for lunch with my friend Wyatt at Twisted Spoke. Unfortunately half the Loop apparently had the same idea so we gave up and started heading up Ashland intent on trying something we hadn't tried before.

And then, like a shining beacon, it called to us from 1024 N. Ashland (across from El Barco). A brand new awning with a shield emblazoned with a fork and two knives, and the words:

RUDY'S TASTE
Guatemalan, Caribbean & Mexican Food
Seafood Steaks Jibaritos (some more stuff)

A lot of ethnic bases covered there, but with Guatemalan first and foremost, I figured this would be a good place to try to improve on the less than entirely successful visit I had made him make to La Luna del Xelaju a few weeks back. So we popped in.

New place, pretty and clean with fairly generic trappings of Guatemala. Menu is what I had hoped the new menu at La Luna del Xelaju would be (may yet be, who knows), more entrees than small lunch items, divided into a Guatemalan, a Caribbean and a Mexican page, with a nice mix of pretty typical stuff (churrasco, Ropa Vieja, pollo guisado, huachinango) and some very promising sounding stew-type dishes (i.e, "Jocon-- Chicken with green beans and squash simmered in a Mayan green sauce").

However, it was a bit hot for anything too stewy so we stuck more or less with the grilled items, apart from taking the waiter (owner? Rudy?)'s recommendation of "Taquitos Mix Estilo Rudy's Taste." I was a bit dubious about those from the description but they turned out to be actually surprisingly light little cigar-shaped taquitos, probably lighter because a mix of corn and wheat flour, with a bean-shredded beef mixture inside and two really excellent accompaniments-- a chopped cabbage salad which surely would be called cortida, but was less vinegary and much crisper than I've had elsewhere, and a creamy guacamole strong with lime juice. Alas, I have no pictures, but a pretty as well as a very tasty dish.

The main dishes we had were fairly standard fare (Carne Asada and shrimp in a kind of creole) but very nicely done, a much better and bigger cut of skirt steak than I expected, the latter topped with "chirmol," which is basically Guatemalan salsa, sort of pico de galloish, and pretty good though not up to the terrific homemade salsa at Xelaju. Sides included freshly cooked plantains and tostones (I am, in fact, no fan of the latter, but they were about the best I've tried) and good black beans and rice, the black beans meeting Wyatt's authenticity test for use of lard and tasting like the ones in Guatemala.

It's interesting to note that for years I have known of exactly two Guatemalan restaurants in town-- El Tinajon and Chapin-- and suddenly now I can name five. (I still have one secret up my sleeve, which I haven't tried yet.) Seems to me that, much like "Ecuadoran" suddenly became a distinct, openly advertised category after years of merely being "South American," Guatemalan has come out of the closet and places that not long ago would have called themselves "Mexican" but had a few native dishes now see an advantage in being more openly authentic. That's good news, so check Rudy's Taste out.

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Link to a later Rudy's post with pictures.

rudy's taste on ashland is under new ownership. they said they're keeping a few items and going towards more c food.