Ino’s (7100 Roosevelt) has been open for business a decade or two, and I finally stopped by. I’m so glad I did.
Ino’s is a humble place, and it’s the kind of drive-in that looks like it was once something else (maybe Taco Bell?). However, Ino’s serves tacos that are easily as good as ones we’ve had in more expensive places in the United States and even Mexico.
I had three tacos, going from front to back in the above picture:
- Lengua, or tongue, was soft but not spongey, flavorful without being the least bit funky, moist, delicious and clean-tasting. A shot of hot sauce was good but unnecessary: this is one of the few tongue tacos I’ve had that needed no sauce-assist.
- Carnitas, little pieces of pork, were excellent. Again, very clean meat flavor, and a good range of soft and chewy bits, making for textural diversity and interest, very good. Like the lengua, these carnitas are made in-house.
- Pastor, pork again, and this was the only weak (though not bad) bite in the meal. The meat was okay, but it wasn’t done on the traditional rotisserie (it was griddled), so there was no textural range or fire-roasted flavor, and it was served in what seemed a thin tomato-based sauce, which didn’t help.
Carolyn had a bowl of chicken soup that she really liked; I did clean-up detail on her lunch and thought the broth was very good: not fatty yet flavorful, with big chunks of onion, carrot and chayote, substantial. It was the kind of soup that will leave you feeling like you’ve had more than just liquid for lunch.
To drink, I had horchata, a lightly sweet cinnamon-tinged rice water that I believe is the perfect accompaniment to Mexican food: the sweet flavor complements the heat, and the milky-ness of the beverage cools the palate. Ino’s also offers a range of aguas frescas (fresh fruit or vegetable beverages): when we were there, they had watermelon and cucumber waters, both of which were tempting.
One thing I really like at all Mexican places, though it doesn’t happen everywhere, is that the kitchen doesn’t just hand out bowls of cold tortilla chips right from the bag. At Ino’s, they value-add by tossing the chips in the fryer for just a few seconds to warm them, add a golden glow, and amp up the crisp-i-tude. There is almost no material cost to this simple act of food enhancement, and the labor costs must be very low as well, so it’s surprising more places don’t follow Ino’s model and send the chips to the fryer before serving. It makes a difference.
The tortillas were not made in-house, but doing so is a huge task, and in Chicago we are fortunate enough to have many excellent tortillerias, so using store-bought tortillas is just fine. Ino’s uses El Milagro, which is the brand I usually buy when I’m shopping at Mexican grocery stores; it’s good.
At the lunch hour when we were there, Ino’s was doing a good business. It’s a small place, but I counted 18 people in the half hour or so that we were there.
I chatted a bit with the cashier who told me that they prepare all the meats in their kitchen, make their own soup and even have a lady come in on weekends to make tamales, which I plan to try on our next trip to Ino’s.
All in, we both ate for about $15, which is very reasonable and causes me to wonder why anyone would go to a mainstream chains like Taco Bell for food that is so much better, and hardly more expensive, at little one-off places like Ino’s.
