In Chicagoland, we’re fortunate to have many Mexican restaurants representing a range of regional Mexican foods, including the traditional cuisines of Oaxaca, Yucatan, Jalisco and Guerrero.
La Quebrada has multiple locations around the Chicago, but the closest one to Oak Park is at 4859 W. Roosevelt Road in Cicero.
“La Quebrada” means “gulch” or “ravine” in Spanish, and it refers specifically to the mountainous area along the Pacific coast near Acapulco where young men entertain tourists by diving into the waves below.
La Quebrada, the tourist attraction, is in the Mexican state of Guerrero.
La Quebrada, the restaurant, is in Cicero, and it serves many of the traditional foods of Guererro.
One of my favorite foods of the Guerrerense culinary tradition is cecina – beef that’s salted and dried and then rehydrated and cooked. Drying beef is a way to preserve it, but it’s also concentrates the flavor, which is a very acceptable collateral benefit.
Last week, I met some friends at La Quebrada, and although I was tempted by a lot of other stuff on the menu, cecina is what I wanted. This traditional dried beef is not a premium cut, and that’s just fine: the salting/drying process – and consequent flavor concentration – makes even a lean cut quite flavorful. The pieces of thin-cut beef were griddled and served with pico de gallo and guacamole.
The tortillas at La Quebrada are soft and made in house, and the usual way to eat cecina is to wrap the beef with a dab of guacamole and pico de gallo in the tortilla. Just as crustacean loves pork, beef loves guacamole. And because cecina seems relatively low fat, the guacamole adds a rounded richness to each mouthful of flavorful beef. Cecina comes with a side order of pinto beans in broth, which can also be added to the mix. It will make you happy.
We’ve been going to the La Quebrada on Roosevelt for over ten years. It’s a local treasure.
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