I work with a lot of real live Mexican people, the kind that were born in real live Mexico. Every time two of them are around me they love to trade secrets in their native tongue, thinking I’m none the wiser about their top secret conversations about
tacos al pastor.
See, the other day I was talking to one of my Hispanic coworkers about how gyros are prepared & served and he was under the impression I was talking about tacos al pastor, which up until now were an ill guarded secret from Goldilocks like myself. These specific tacos are a bit difficult to find in Chicago, but authentic Mexicans agree that they’re the best tacos on the face of the Earth.
What exactly are tacos al pastor?The simple answer: pork tacos.
The complicated answer:If you’re familiar with your standard
gyro-log spit, you have the basic idea how to cook the pork. The pork is marinated, and then cooked on the spit (exactly like gyros)
with a peeled pineapple sort of corked on the top. The pork is then sliced off of the spit exactly like a gyro, and served in a tortilla with onions, cilantro, a slice of pineapple and a squeeze of lime.
Hidden two blocks east of Cicero on 63rd Street, there are two restaurants that specialize in tacos al pastor:
Mario’s at 4540 W 63rd and
Taqueria el Pastor at 4418 W 63rd.
Taqueria el Pastor had
an awful review on Yelp, so I tried Mario’s first.
My first experience with tacos al pastor is this…
The pork has a standard spiciness to it, typical of the meat in just about every good taqueria I’ve been to in Chicago. What makes this taco so great is the pineapple,
which helps tenderize the pork, and is a sweet & clean compliment to the spice, onions & cilantro. A thin slice of pineapple garnishes your taco and I at first mistook it for a parmesan cheese crisp, but then remembered as far as I’m aware, fresh grated cheese is more of a Taco Bell thing. Traditional tacos are topped automatically with cilantro & raw onions, everything else would be optional.
To be fair to Taqueria el Pastor, the Reader gave them
a mighty fine review (close to perfection) then simply noted then passed on Mario's because their spit wasn't spinning (a fact that I can not confirm). I also am partial to family run restaurants so I’m going to hit them up later in the week.
In other news I was riding the Orange Line to work the other day when I noticed an older Asian gentleman board the train and stand up in front of his seat with his ass practically resting on the poor girl’s head in the seat in front of him:
I get that he wants to talk to his wife and all, but the train was full of empty side-by-side seats so this wasn't exactly necessary. I mean sure I like talking to my wife, but not enough to stand up on a train while there are perfectly good seats all over the place.
