Del Toro
The Garcia brothers ported their mother’s excellent beef-cheek taco recipe from Pilsen’s La Favorita grocery, and some others, including a nice puerco adobada and threw in an excellent habanero-pepper-studded Mexican hamburger and opened up shop between the Skylark and Nightwood, making south Halsted near Cermak a burgeoning restaurant row to watch.

Del Toro, 2133 South Halsted, (312)733-7144, deltorochicago.com

Best of Chicago 2012

WRTE Radio Arte 90.5 FM
Radio Arte, serving Pilsen and Little Village, broadcasts a variety of Spanish/English programming. Operated by the National Museum of Mexican Art, it was acquired by Chicago Public Media this June. There are outlets for young adults through a free one-year journalism and digital media program. These WRTE productions create web-based projects that cover topics of health, homelessness and gay rights. Music programming includes a wide variety of Spanish pop, rock and hip-hop. Other day-parts showcase syndicated talk shows like “Latino USA.” Although the reach is confined to these neighborhoods, WRTE is streaming for the city to enjoy.

Best of Chicago 2012

Bring Your Own Beamer at the MCA

BYOB is a potluck for video artists, who contribute to this one-night group show by bringing art and a projector (beamer). Although it first debuted in Chicago at Pilsen’s Kunsthalle New in March, the BYOB event at the MCA in October was meaningful because artists chose the art exhibited in the museum, at least temporarily.

Bring Your Own Beamer
byobworldwide.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Ben Russell

This year marked the MCA’s one-hundredth 12×12 exhibition, the museum’s showcase for emerging artists based in Chicago. These coveted shows grant artists exposure to a broad audience, which is why Ben Russell, who is well liked in experimental film circles and by visitors to his Pilsen apartment gallery, was this year’s best; he is deserving of greater exposure.

Ben Russell
1716 South Morgan
dimeshow.com

Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago
mcachicago.org

Skylark

Juicy Skylark burgers and crispy tater tots with three sauces complement the inexpensive beer. Indulge in a dirt-cheap cosmo. Slide your chair to the middle of this dive bar, and try to balance evenly on the sloping concrete floor. Pile into the photo booth and splurge on black-and-white candid pictures; they’ll document your time at this vintage hipster joint since the cosmos might leave your memory wanting.

2149 South Halsted
(312)948-5275
skylarkchicago.com

Best of Chicago 2010

Golden Age

It’s been two years since Golden Age opened up shop in Pilsen, a testament to the neighborhood’s burgeoning art scene and also the sustainability of small-edition artist books. The hands-on medium is affordable and addictively collectible. Golden Age’s proprietors, themselves artists, also have an affinity for independent record labels, so you’ll find underground vinyl and even cassettes alongside the zines and silkscreened books. The inventory sports a healthy supply of local talent but also regularly features work from national and international imprints.

1744 West 18th
(312)850-2574
shopgoldenage.com

Closed November, 2011

Best of Chicago 2009

Abuelo’s cochinita pibil taco

Featuring tender shreds of sweet-and-hot-spiced red-sauce-infused pork, creamy black beans, and pickled red onions, this $1.99 taco is one of the tastiest and cheapest regional Mexican eats around.

2007 South Damen
(312)733-0329

Best of Chicago 2009

Peoria Street openings

Toss the Dixie cup of Chuck Shaw to the curb for the annual fall openings on Peoria Street, sponsored again this year by the brew in the pop-top bottle. What better way to unite the art crowd than getting them wasted? Oh yeah: art. Peoria Street in early September is ground zero for West Loop galleries to debut their art darlings, and with all doors flung open, the community comes out to see itself. Runners up: homemade ice cream served in the summer at Vega Estates; warm homemade cookies at Roots & Culture.

Audience choice:
Pilsen East

Best of Chicago 2008

2nd Fridays Gallery Walk

As far as first dates go, you want to avoid activities that involve stretches of time that prohibit conversation, like movies or plays or even concerts. However, you don’t want to go to a place where you can only talk either, as this usually leads to the dating horror stories we all have, or have at least heard recounted by friends. A balance between the two must be met, and 2nd Fridays Gallery Walk in Pilsen, which runs along South Halsted at 18th Street, does just that. The stroll down the gallery stretch will provide enough conversation bits in itself in case the talking gets a little thin—you’ll learn more about him or her by how he or she feels about this photograph or that sculpture than you ever would hearing about how that first semester at state school was an eye-opener. Finish the evening with a drink or two at the Skylark, the final destination for most of the gallery walkers and, often, the artists as well.

Chicago Art District
chicagoartsdistrict.org

Audience choice
Lincoln Park Zoo
2001 N. Clark
(312)742-2000

Birrieria Reyes de Ocotlan

Goat cheese is a favorite among local restaurateurs, with the likes of pear goat-cheese bruschetta, goat-cheese croquettes, sautéed truffles drizzled with goat-cheese, and so on. But what about goat meat? For the price of about half of one goat-cheese croquette, you can travel to Pilsen and get a gigantic plate of tender, exotic goat meat (known as birria) steamed for six hours in clay pots, then served in its own consommé, smothered with onion and cilantro with a side of tortillas. While Birria has yet to catch on with the “Check, Please!” crowd, it has taken a greater hold in the Mexican community. Signs advertising birria, and especially birria en fin de semanas (goat meat on weekends) have sprung up in the windows of taco joints and family restaurants in the dozens of Mexican neighborhoods throughout the city. Yet just as hucksters like the great Billy Mays, seller of such products as “Oxiclean” and “The Hercules Hook” would say—”Don’t be fooled by cheap imitations!” An unscientific sampling of many of these newer birria offerings yielded dry meat that lacked the juicy, flavorful consommé; meat that was not as tender; birria in a tomato-based sauce; and even a Salvadoran restaurant that featured birria with very small pieces of bone. The Birrieria Reyes De Ocotlan is named after a region in the state of Jalisco, Mexico which, like Maine is to lobster, is known for its birria. Reyes de Ocotlan does not serve enchiladas, refried beans, tamales and especially not nachos. It sells goat, goat and only goat, served as birria, as well as goat’s head (cabeza) and goat’s tongue (lengua). 

1322 W. 18th
(312)733-2613

Best of Chicago 2008