Carnitas Don Pedro1113 W. 18th | 312-829-4757
$ Mexican | Breakfast, Lunch: Sunday-Wednesday, Friday-Saturday | Closed Thursday | Cash only
La Casa del Pueblo1834 S. Blue Island | 312-421-4664
Just north of 18th along Ashland is this tiny, semi-fast-food joint where you place an order at the counter, then wait to pick it up. The extensive menu has mostly a la carte items like gorditas (thick corn tortillas split and stuffed with your choice of filling), sopes (hand-formed masa discs filled with ground beef, chicken, pork, chorizo, or tongue), burritos, and tamales. Both of the salsas available in squirt bottles on the ten tables are delicious; one’s tomatillo based, the other made from dark, smoky chile de arbol. —Laura Levy Shatkin
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Tired of dull, tasteless beef? Then get to La Cecina and savor the salt-dried traditional steak of Guerrero: when rehydrated and grilled, cecina is deliciously toothy and succulent. Other representative foods from Guerrero include a guajillo-chile-spiked chicken soup in a bright red broth with fresh squash and carrot. This place is swimming with seafood: fried smelts were especially tasty spritzed with lime, and ceviche was helium light. My dining partner had grilled seafood with gently charred chunks of octopus, shrimp, and (alas) krab in a light sauce. Less routine menu items include quail, game hen, and bull’s testicles. The tortillas at La Cecina are handcrafted, and we enjoyed quesadillas with requeson, Mexico’s answer to ricotta, and fish minced and fried in the tortilla. Alcohol is neither served nor allowed, but there are healthful beverages including a fresh-squeezed concoction of mixed veggies and fruits and a milk shake of mamey, a starchy, honey-tinged tropical fruit. —David Hammond
Mexican | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: seven days
Las Islas Marias4770 W. Grand | 773-637-8233
