Every Las Pas fan I've converted over to Las Asadas... which is saying a lot. Best steak taco in all of chicagoland to me, same family or not this is the best.

The true test for Las Asadas is about to occur!
I stopped in the Western Ave. location Wednesday night. I noticed that that location is now open until 1:00 am six nights a week. When there at 6:45 pm, noticed four Chicago Police Department officers sitting and dining at the table in the front.
What should I have ordered here? Oh dear, I don't know. I opted for the standard Cilantro Steak Burrito.
I carried out that Steak Burrito, and walked over to the Map Room Tavern, where I paired it with Anchor Porter.
There, I cut the burrito in half. It was delicious. However, it did need the green salsa on it.
The "test" is: My dad told me to bring something back for him to eat, if I didn't get back too late. (Did I mention I was going to the Map Room to drink beer?)
I went back there after finishing at the Map Room, and ordered another standard Cilantro Steak Burrito. It has been sitting on a slightly-warm stove top for all this time (17 hours). Dad has told me he doesn't want to try to eat the entire burrito. So I'll cut this one in half, and put it in the microwave for one minute at medium power.

It needed to be heated for 3½ minutes total at medium power. It was very delicious. I paired it with Trader Joe's (a|k|a Gordon Biersch) Vienna style Lager.
Here are three photographs of it. The first one is before it was re-heated, #2 & #3 afterward.
http://twitpic.com/3gkulj
http://twitpic.com/3gkx0b
http://twitpic.com/3gl2p7
This is photograph #4. Notice that, for the outlet on N. Western Ave., Armitage and Fullerton are flopped, and its telephone number has dashes instead of dots between its aspects.

pudgym29 wrote:I carried out that [Las Asadas -BR] Steak Burrito, and walked over to the Map Room Tavern, where I paired it with Anchor Porter.

That sounds like a very, very nice evening.

My wife and I stopped by today at the Western Ave location about 1pm today for lunch - a carne asada burrito (her) and carne asada tacos (me). My wife had a taste for carne asada and I suggested going here instead of one of the Las Pasiditas, with which she became enamored recently during the Bucktown holiday weekend.

Bad call. I mean, really, really bad call. Absolutely no flavor to the steak. No char, no nothing. For the first time ever at a taco place I actually salted the meat to try coaxing a little flavor out.* All five of the orders before us, and ours, the meat was taken out of a pan dripping wet and went directly into the tacos. No re-grill or re-heat at all. The steak was slightly less chewy than Las Pasiditas but I'll take flavor over tenderness. Finally as we were leaving, the grill man loaded up the grill with fresh meat. This was the only time the grill was in action for the entire 45 minutes we were there.

The salsa on our table was literally almost black with no heat at all and pretty bland. I guess they put all the blackened skins in ours. Some of the other tables had salsa verde in the usually green color. Strange. I made better for New Years for the homemade tamales.

These were without question the worst tacos I have ever had in Chicago including the first ones I made for myself. I will not be able to get my wife to try again and, truthfully, I am not inclined to myself. The burrito had a couple other issues beyond the meat but I realize this place is about the tacos so I will refrain from commenting.

* On the other hand, the portion was good sized!

While nobody would blame you for not going back, please do not get coaxed into thinking that not every place can have an off day. You will be missing out in a big, big, way. I actually went out to lunch today to an extremely popular place. I was regretting pulling up at 11:50 am expecting to see a mob scene, and a line. Nothing. Dead. Possible that they overestimated their crowd that day and had to hold a buncha cooked steak. As for seasoning, I can think of no real excuse other than off day, or new grill guy. Salsa can be their weak point, tho it sounds as if you got a bottle of their sometimes available negra. Feel free to ask for a bottle of verde at the counter or even a "to go" cup of salsa, but I can almost guarantee you won't even see the negra if you go again. IMO, you owe it to yourself to go again for therapy's sake if nothing else. I'd really chalk this up to the stars lining up in a bad way, and it's really not the norm.

Las Asadas, at least on western, always has both the negra and the verde. Same goes for Pulaski. I much prefer the negra, personally.

In any case, it can be hit and miss. Seems like much of the time they're cooking steak they're still giving it to you out of the bucket. Not a big deal to me. I also find it underseasoned, but I add salt to most foods, so that's not too surprising. Anyway, I don't find it to be vastly better than the LP expresses (Elston is the one I go to most), but I generally prefer it.

I've got to scratch my Las Asadas itch about every two months. With the wife partying at the Pride parade, my two boys and I decided Las Asadas would hit the spot for lunch while watching the Cubs game. 3 lengua tacos, 2 carne asada tacos, 1 chile rellenos taco and 2 sides of rice was the order of the day. As I sit here typing this with the lucious irony lengua still dancing on my tongue, I've got to say that their lengua taco gets unfairly buried in the hype for their asada tacos. My 6 year old, weaned on their asada tacos, now eats the lengua tacos exclusively. Me, well I cant' help but get a sampling of the asada, lengua, and chile rellenos with a side of rice. For me, it's a perfect lazy day Sunday lunch.

Las Asada - count me a regular and hard core fan.

In my experience it's almost always at least pretty damn good, but when you hit the Logan Square Las Asadas during a shit-hot lunch hour (as I did today), it is The Truth. On a day like today those microwaved corn tortillas act as vehicles for big muscular gorgeous chunks of steak the way that virtuous mortals carry out the Earthly work of divine entities. On a day like today I look up this thread eight hours after finishing my last taco and find that the lunch afterglow is so long-lived that reading a lukewarm post still feels like hearing someone call my mom plain. I'll have to try the lengua next time.

"Afterglow"
EXACTLY - love it.

The Brookfield location, if anyone cares, has been showing a remarkable consistency of excellence, and since I've asked the owner when I saw him, they started making a daily batch of the salsa negra.

paddleboard wrote:In my experience it's almost always at least pretty damn good, but when you hit the Logan Square Las Asadas during a shit-hot lunch hour (as I did today), it is The Truth.

do you mean the one in bucktown on western? or there a new location in logan square?

Yeah, I meant the Western Av. location. My apologies: I was raised by native Southsiders and years into adulthood consider it a gold star achievement when I describe anything north of Division with more specificity than "up in Lincoln Park," "almost in Evanston," or "kinda by Cubs Park." By the way, today I allowed a lunch taco craving aftershock to lead me to the east-side Pasadita on an off hour and it pretty much tasted like boiled dog food by comparison.

I lived in Pilsen for a while and I couldnt find anything that compared with Las Asadas steak. Im not a huge fan of the tortillas, but the steak makes up for it.

Egads!
I wanted to eat something before arriving at Beer Under Glass (the 2015 Chicago Craft Beer Week opening event). I rode the #77 Belmont bus to Pulaski. I walked north on Pulaski and got to Las Asadas. It was "temporarily closed".
There were three vehicles parked in its front lot. Perhaps it is undergoing renovation.
Do not do what I did. Do not try to visit the Las Asadas on N. Pulaski until I (or somebody else) tell you it has re-opened.

The Brookfield location is shuttered.

It went through some ups and downs. When it first opened, it was every bit as good as the others. Soon after I noticed that the regular workers seemed to hand the keys off to the newer workers, and the quality drop of was sharp. I swore the Brookfield location off for a long time. A few years ago, I hit it up for a try and it was stellar. Went back a few times quickly after that, and the stellar consistency had returned. I had been enjoying it for the past few years, never really saw the same big lunch crowds at peak times as the other locations. I think they closed up shop a few months ago. Sad to see it go. If in that area, Zacatacos on Harlem & Pershing is now the ONLY game for fire grilled skirt tacos. Their salsas are definitely consistently better than Las Asadas were, but those times when Las Asada's steak AND salsa "BROUGHT IT," it put Zacatacos to shame.

My friend and I had a massively disappointing visit to Las Asadas on Western last night. I've just moved to the neighborhood, and I suggested this place given all the LTH love. Popped in at 7:30pm for steak tacos to go.

Unfortunately, they were, well, terrible. Tasted like they'd been held and warmed--some bites were downright cold. The salsa is excellent, and was by far the highlight.

It was quiet in there, and maybe we should've just turned around and found somewhere else. What a bummer.

I think most of the Las Asadas locations have closed - I was truly missing the one in Brookfield on Ogden as a go to fast fill up for quality Mexican....even after the quality slippage was evident.

The good news for those that also frequented (and miss) that ease of satisfaction, I stopped in to Tony's Mexican Grill a few blocks east of there on the rec of a friend. Place was sufficiently crowded at lunch but the food came out quickly....quality surpassing what Asadas had (or Zaca has been throwing up lately). Sizable portions, grilled steak, very delicious al pastor - fresh tasting all the way around.

http://www.tonysofbrookfield.com/

stoutisgoodfood wrote:I think most of the Las Asadas locations have closed - I was truly missing the one in Brookfield on Ogden as a go to fast fill up for quality Mexican....even after the quality slippage was evident.

The good news for those that also frequented (and miss) that ease of satisfaction, I stopped in to Tony's Mexican Grill a few blocks east of there on the rec of a friend. Place was sufficiently crowded at lunch but the food came out quickly....quality surpassing what Asadas had (or Zaca has been throwing up lately). Sizable portions, grilled steak, very delicious al pastor - fresh tasting all the way around.

http://www.tonysofbrookfield.com/

The ones in Des Plaines are still good.

adipocere wrote:

stoutisgoodfood wrote:I think most of the Las Asadas locations have closed - I was truly missing the one in Brookfield on Ogden as a go to fast fill up for quality Mexican....even after the quality slippage was evident.

The good news for those that also frequented (and miss) that ease of satisfaction, I stopped in to Tony's Mexican Grill a few blocks east of there on the rec of a friend. Place was sufficiently crowded at lunch but the food came out quickly....quality surpassing what Asadas had (or Zaca has been throwing up lately). Sizable portions, grilled steak, very delicious al pastor - fresh tasting all the way around.

http://www.tonysofbrookfield.com/

The ones in Des Plaines are still good.

Unfortunately, my recent experiences at the Oakton location were not good. In fact, I kind of wrote the place off after several visits in a row with dried out, ultra-chewy meat being the main theme. Did these places change hands or are quality visits random occurences, or . . . ?

=R=

adipocere wrote:The ones in Des Plaines are still good.

Ehhh... not so much on my last visit. Meat was gristly, not so enjoyable. Could have been an off day, but Ronnie's note worries me.

I have no further intel. Office moved further away, taking Lee street out of scope. Brookfield location closed and was re-invented as a health clinic (the wife and I laughed on a recent drive by, make yer own jokes.) Probably about a year since my last Asadas fix.

I can also give a mild second to the Tony's in Brookfield. Only went once, but left happy with the tampiquena plate's steak. Their salsa was very weak, but everything else was worth trying out more. For my fire grilled steak taco fix in that area though, my first stop is still Zacatacos. Actually wound up there last Sunday, and the steak was totally on point. Their salsa arbol is always earthy and breathing fire.

I'll try and hit up Lee Street Asadas for a trial - hopefully I can report something positive. These places were fantastic 'back in the day." Hate to see a turn for the worst if that is what is happening here.

Reminds me of what happened to Las Americanas up on Belmont west of Southport - RIP (A moment of silence, please.)
For YEARS, that place would have put Las Asadas to SHAME. Steak, salsa, ALWAYS A+ grade. Last time I went there, the workers appeared to be all of Asian heritage, and there was celery in the salsa. True story. Perhaps it's the end of the Asada's era. Just PERHAPS. I gotta keep the faith until I try. Many fond memories.

Going to Des Plaines later today- which Las Asadas is firing on all eight cylinders these days? Lee Street, or Oakton Avenue? Jonesing for a steak burrito (or two) with the basic cilantro/cebolla/salsa combo.

Gracias!

I have no personal experiences with any of their locations recently. Do know a coworker that has sworn off Lee st about a year ago, but I'd still give it a go if I ever had the chance. I'm actually in Mt P today, and drove by the Lee St location early this am. I MIGHT stop in for a taco on the way home. Please post if you visit either today.

gave the las asadas on oakton a shot about a month back....it was bad

gonna play it safe and stick with tamales oaxaqueños in the future

AlekH wrote:gave the las asadas on oakton a shot about a month back....it was bad

Unfortunately, that's been my experience, too. After a few disappointing visits I gave up on it some time back.

=R=

Sounds like Lee Street..... based on zero negative ratings for that location so far today, LOL.

If I was not 40 miles away from them, I'd go to El Asadero on Montose in the city. But it is what it is. Des Plaines is a mere 30 miles away.

Too bad there are ZERO places out here that do carne asada over open flame in the far NW burbs. It's all on the flat grill, with beef that's even nastier that what you have described. But hey, we have a Woodman's a few miles away for groceries. Y'all don't know that pleasure, in towards the city.

Speaking of Nw burbs...
I had a coworker who was my partner in crime for Las Asadas Lee st back in the day.
He lived in Huntley, and he claimed that a few places in Elgin had open flame going. I distinctly remember one of the names had the word "oro" in it...searching...aaaand I'm pretty sure it was Azteca De Oro.

Don't take this as any kind of endorsement. I've never been. The coworker is no longer with us, so I can't ask him. HE was the one who introduced me to Asadas, tho, and he knew all about the whole flame grilling carne asada thing. Again, I've never been there, and his recommendation of this place was probably 15 years ago.

Nix on that Azteca de Oro. Now on the griddle, not open flame for years. Not good meat. Check out the reviews on Yelp. Tried it years ago, never going back.

Report on Lee St.

The chain owner, the nephew of late La Pasadita founder Mr. Espinosa, was there assembling the dishes. Made my steak burrito a bit too skinny (less meat than standard). Steak was okay, not particularly gristly. Both salsas, verde and negra, were okay. Went to Oakton location afterward.

Report on Oakton St.

Owner's son was managing this one today. Burrito was proper size. Meat was okay, but salsa verde in squeeze bottle was off. He apologized and gave me a different bottle to use. That one was fine. Salsa negra was okay.

Obviously, one cannot draw big conclusions from one visit. But yes I guess all the La Pasadita offspring have seen better days, from what I've seen and read here and elsewhere. Things change- sometimes for the better... or not.

Just can't warm up to Las Asadas on Western, I go about once a year, recent lunch visit with temp at 8° my first for 2017/2018. Two Spanish speaking women only other customers, a pleasant female counter/order taker and a cook that bounced from the back to assemble my order in hyper-speed and promptly disappeared back whence he came.

Lengua/stringy chunks with little flavor.
Carne Asada/chewy, fibrous with little flavor straight from a warming tray.
Chile Rellenos/Molten cheese encased in mushy batter, little flavor though best of the three tacos.

Blah watery salsa both green and black.

Insult to injury, three tacos with tax, bottle of water and decent, though not over the top, tip came to $15 and I was in/out quick time.

An unsatisfying lunch within sight of Red Hot Ranch and short drive to California or Ashland Carniceria Guanajuato

In 2012 I was ready to bust someone's shit up for posting a blah review of Las Asadas on Western and in 2018 I'd 10 times out of 10 rather blow $20 on Traspasada delivery than pick up a Las Asadas burrito on my way home! Sick, sad world!!