Entering the restaurant pool with a splash isn’t all that hard to do–remember Cucina Cucina?–but toughing it out over the long haul is another matter. Times and tastes change, and a savvy restaurateur has to stay flexible while keeping his old customers and good employees. Mi Casa-Su Casa at 2524 N. Southport seems to have managed.
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“The change in the neighborhood hasn’t really forced us to change what we do,” Gomez says, but one casualty has been lunch–“It was popular when there were a lot of factories around here; now that the neighborhood has changed, we don’t bother with it anymore.”
The food at Mi Casa is thoroughly Mexican, with a nod to Anglo tastes, and offers more variety than most places on 18th or 26th Street, where budget-priced dishes from northern Mexico are the norm. A native of and frequent visitor to Acapulco, Gomez has kept Mi Casa ahead of most Chicago Mexican restaurants by keeping abreast of food trends in his hometown. For the most part, he doesn’t serve the bland tourist food that you find at Cafe Azteca or Lindo Mexico–the red pepper salsa on the table is uncompromising, and the strength of the menu is in the entrees, not the antojitos (tacos, enchiladas, burritos, and the like, the Mexican equivalent of a pasta course), though they’re just fine.
If choosing makes you crazy, opt for a combination. Antojito combinations run $8-$14, entree and antojito combinations $14-$22, and the substantial portions are the menu’s best bargains. Two of the tastiest are the Combination Pueblo (for two), which combines the restaurant’s signature skirt steak with chiles rellenos, guacamole, rice, and beans ($14.95), and the new Parillada Mixta, a belly-boggling assortment of chicken and steak fajitas, chiles rellenos, four broiled shrimp, guacamole, rice, and beans ($21.95)–after feeding two adults and a six-year-old with it, we had enough left over for two lunches.
