Taquería El Milagro
1923 S Blue Island Ave
Chicago, IL
It’s an annual tradition for the Eaters to spend a day in December wandering around Chicago’s Pilsen district. We stop by the National Museum of Mexican Art to catch their annual Día de los Muertos exhibit, do some Christmas shopping at the museum’s Mercado Navideño (Christmas Market), and then have an afternoon meal at one of Pilsen’s great Mexican restaurants. For the past few years, this has meant ordering the mole enchiladas (for L) and the fajitas (for M) at Restaurante Nuevo León (1515 W. 18th Street). But this year we decided to try something new, so we walked an extra few blocks to Taquería El Milagro.
El Milagro’s relatively unadorned exterior wouldn’t be very noticeable from the street – if it weren’t bright magenta/pink, that is. The interior is inviting – Spanish colonial tiles adorn the walls around the entrance, and large Mexican paintings hang from the other walls. But this is by no means a fancy restaurant – the cafeteria-style setup is quick and simple. You wait in line, order your food, pick a seat, and a few minutes later it is brought out to you. It being a cold day, L and I took the opportunity to each try a champurrado, ($1.75) a Mexican hot chocolate drink, thickened with cornmeal and with cinnamon and other spices. If you are thirsty, this is not the drink to try – think of it more as a liquid dessert. Perfect for a cold day, though. Champurrados are normally served with churros, and while I didn’t order any, I really should have bought some from the man who came in the restaurant to sell them.
We had anticipated finishing our warm drinks by the time the food arrived, but no such luck. Both L and I had ordered chicken burritos ($4.95), which to our shock were entirely made to order. Neither of us care much for refried beans, but we decided to go with it because asking for our burritos sin frijoles just seemed like such a gringo thing to do. Otherwise, there were no other order options. No qualifications for what toppings or sides we wanted, no tortilla specifications, nothing. Just straight chicken burritos – and they took care of the rest.
We can use this to contrast with Chipotle, the fast-food joint that bills itself as Mexican. When you order a chicken burrito at Chipotle, the chicken is sliced into little cubes that get put inside a watery, thin flour tortilla, all for $7. They ask you each and every ingredient you want, holding up the line and using all the questions to overcharge you for prepping. Not so at El Milagro – when we ordered chicken, two fresh raw chicken breasts were plopped down on the grill, just for us. When the burritos came, they had lettuce, rice, two halves of a tomato slice, and some cheese all bean-sealed inside a thick, warm, grilled flour tortilla. Five bucks. And so very excellent – you could tell all the ingredients were fresh and filling without being unhealthy. L and I had purposefully not eaten all day in anticipation of our meal, but suffice to say between the champurrados and the burritos, we both had a hard time finishing.
We were so hungry in fact that we neglected to take our usual context photo. Instead we present the remains of our burritos, after I remembered we had forgotten to record them for our readers. This is a fairly common problem for the eaters – accordingly we have no photos of Jim’s cheeseteaks or any of our breakfasts in Puerto Rico. Overall impression? Take Chipotle – subtract the lines, the fat, the questions; add fresher ingredients, better prices, and more food – and you get El Milagro. Also, if you’re jonesing for some more tortillas, the El Milagro Tortilleria is right next door! We’ll be back.
Eating The World 