Oaxacan food isn’t the most well-represented subset of the vast regional Mexican canon that we have in Chicago, but we’ve had it both on the high and low end, from the mole dishes of the peripatetic Geno Bahena to the soft banana-leaf tamales at the Maxwell Street Market. Among the handful of established restaurants that do serve the great food of the mountainous southwestern Mexican state, few go at it full-bore.
There are a few other uncommon offerings, in particular, the tlayuda, aka the Mexican pizza, a crackly, superthin cornmeal flatbread smeared with black beans and loaded with cabbage, tomato, red onion, avocado, and the long white string cheese the state is known for, plus a choice of toppings, from mushrooms to chicharrones to skirt steak to the dried beef known as cesina. These are a rarity in Chicago—though they arrive shattered at the table with salsa at Rick Bayless’s Leña Brava—and occasionally they do here as well, for dredging through an inky black-bean salsa.
You’re not embracing the full protein experience without an order of chapulines, the tiny grasshoppers snacked on all over the state, though at Kie-Gol-Lanee they’re a bit overfried and missing much of the customary lime acidity.
5004 N. Sheridan 872-241-9088 kiegol.com/#traditional-mexican-cuisine
