Homemade tortillas. Do you even know what that entails? Honestly, I have no idea, but the good people at El Mexican Restaurant in Glenview, are serving them daily.
The restaurant opened up just six months ago in the same plaza as Jewel-Osco and Panera Bread on Waukegan Avenue.
Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘Why would I go to any other restaurant when I am already so close to Panera?’ A week ago I would have said the same but I can now say that I would trade in a broccoli cheddar bread bowl for some tacos from El Mexican any day.
I have never had tortillas like these before; they’re thick but not crunchy, they come apart easily but they don’t crumble, and they taste incredibly fresh. I have always seen the tortilla as a vessel for getting the good part of the taco into my mouth. My eyes have now been opened.
The tortillas are amazing and I’d eat them by themselves, but what goes on top of them is on par as well. I don’t speak Spanish but I think they call it Pork Carnitas: fried pork, pulled and cooked with pineapple. That last part is worth repeating: pineapple! Top that off with some avocado salsa and you got yourself one hell of a lunch, dinner, and life.
I’m the kind of guy that’s perfectly willing to eat Taco bell’s “meat filling” without asking any questions but to the people that shop at whole foods and like to eat healthy, El Mex is your kind of place.
“I’m crazy about meat and I can’t eat it unless I know where it came from, how it was raised, what went into the feed and everything,” Jennifer Eisen owner and manager of El said. “We took those same principles that we have at home and applied it here. It’s difficult but we work with people that we really trust.”
Eisen, who grew up in Northbrook, moved into the Glenview location as a hub for Roots Catering, a catering company that she runs with her boyfriend, Eloin Amador. In the meantime, Eisen and Amador opened up a restaurant.
“’In the down time, we thought ‘What would we want to eat and serve?’ and tacos are what we always made at home,” Eisen said.
If you drove by the restaurant, you wouldn’t see it. It’s tucked away with in a row of small stores with only a really standard red logo to point it out. Inside the restaurant, though, there is nothing indistinguishable about it.
Most Mexican restaurants try to keep to mosaic tables and 105.1 (the Spanish radio station) to keep the authentic feel going. El kept the authentic food but did away with the stereotypical look. Instead they seem to have gone for a fresher look; silver sheet metal covers half the walls and the other half is covered with colored chalk writing.
It feels like the type of place you would find in a college town and the prices would match a college kid’s budget. At $8 for a burrito and $3 for a taco, the food costs about the same as Chipotle, but tastes much better.
The name is El. Like “the” in Spanish but also like Eloin, who works as the chef. They make everything in house and I would encourage anybody to try it at least once.
