The Other Dark Meat at Carnitas La Michoacana

The Other Dark Meat at Carnitas La Michoacana

My continuing search for food of the state of Michoacan and Misty Tosh’s glowing review on Centerstage compelled me to drive through rush hour traffic to get to Carnitas La Michoacana before it closed at 7:00 PM tonight.

The food was so-so; still, I thought I’d better grab some carnitas to go. I found the carnitas man very hesitant to sell me the remains of the day: small, gnarly brown pieces…in other words, the not-so-great looking but entirely delicious little piggy scraps. I assured him that what he had was just what I wanted.

It has been my experience when buying carnitas at Carniceria Jimenez, El Nuevo Mundo and other Mexican groceries that if I ask the counterman for carnitas, he will invariably give me the bigger, whiter pieces (figuring, I suppose, that I’m an Anglo dimwit who prefers dry, tasteless white meat). When I get the chance to direct that butcher’s hand, I go for the dark hunks, the gnarly knots of fatty goodness which I find to be moister and tastier.

Now, here’s the interesting menu item I found at Carnitas La Michoacana: gordita de boronas, which is stuffed with the juicy, lard-loaded almost black pork chunks that fall to the bottom of the carnitas pot during cooking. They're scraped off the pot into a tortilla and there you go. Carnitas La Michoacana offers this wonderful sounding gordita only on Sunday, though the mediocrity of their other offerings does not inspire me to make a return trip. Still, I'm intrigued...

Carnitas La Michocana
2040 W. Cermak
Chicago
773-254-2970

David Hammond wrote:Now, here’s the interesting menu item I found at Carnitas La Michoacana: gordita de boronas, which is stuffed with the juicy, lard-loaded almost black pork chunks that fall to the bottom of the carnitas pot during cooking. They're scraped off the pot into a tortilla and there you go. Carnitas La Michoacana offers this wonderful sounding gordita only on Sunday, though the mediocrity of their other offerings does not inspire me to make a return trip. Still, I'm intrigued...

That's sounds awfully good. Reminds me of Mother's in NO where you could get a ferdi (a roast beef sandwich) with excellent 'debris'.

But why only Sundays? Do the pork chunks not fall on the other days of the week?

sazerac wrote:But why only Sundays? Do the pork chunks not fall on the other days of the week?

Hey sazerac,

Weekends are a big day at this and other hispanic restaurants: it's the day when long lines form to purchase carnitas, menudo and other "special items." My guess is that the volume of carnitas manufactured on weekends makes it possible to generate the requisite critcal mass of debris to actually offer these sandwiches as menu items.

Hammond

DH, thanks for pointing out the obvious My car battery died so I'm a bit slow today.
(but at least my question above wasn't outlandish)

sazerac wrote:DH, thanks for pointing out the obvious My car battery died so I'm a bit slow today.
(but at least my question above wasn't outlandish)

sazerac,

Not at all!

The menu offerings at some Mexican places are quite beyond comprehension. Very unpredictable. La Michoacana offers chicken mole Michoacan style every day -- they even have a sign posted to that effect -- but had none when I was there.

Taqueria Chorritos offers chorundas, masa polyhedrons of meat, but I've called three times in the past two weeks, and they were "out."

Hammond

Carnitas La Michoacana, a popular 29-year-old Mexican eatery at 2049 W. Cermak Rd., was destroyed in a fire on Tuesday.

http://chicago.eater.com/2016/10/26/134 ... unch-intel