Exploring Mexicantown

We had some friends in town from Cincinnati this weekend, and I was trying to come up with some ideas for their visit. After Gina mentioned she would definitely want to see Mexicantown, I decided to corral my mom and Patrick for a quick lunchtime road trip to the Southwest Detroit mainstay to see if it would be a good option. (I'll give a breakdown tomorrow or later in the week of my attempt to -- gasp! -- orchestrate a Detroit tour that really exemplified my hometown, but first I'll give a rundown of our Mexicantown trip.)

Mexicantown, a lively, bustling area lined with small supermercados and taquerias, is one of several distinct ethnic Metro-Detroit neighborhoods. (We also have the likes of Dearborn, with its seemingly endless array of Middle Eastern restaurants and bakeries catering to the large Arabic population; Greektown, that overflows with olives, opas! and baklava; and there's, of course, Hamtramck, which has Polish pierogi, placki and kielbasa galore.)

We popped by Armando's restaurant and ordered a quick round of Mojoitos. I'm not usually a rum fan, but the combination with mint and lime offered a nice refresher before digging into my plate of chicken flautas topped with guacamole, tomatoes and sour cream. A side of beans and Spanish rice rounded out the meal. My mum had beef flautas, so we exchanged. Patrick ordered the Mexican sandwich, which was no sandwich at all, but looked instead like a big plate of cut beef and cheese. The beef was so tender that it fell apart whenever I tried to snag a piece from Patrick's plate with my fork. Armando's was bigger than I expected, and I'll be excited to try some of the tinier restaurants when we have more time to explore.

Our meal was all the better because we got to watch the Tigers whup the Blue Jays 10-7. Ha!



After lunch, we were positively stuffed but decided to pop by the Mexicantown Bakery across the street. It was a feast for the eyes as well as the palate, and we ogled over rows of cookies, tortes, cakes and cornbread. We bought an assortment of cookies, doughnuts and fruit pastries for the downright scandalous price of $3.25. Yes, just $3.25!

The only downside of our Southwest Detroit excursion was that I was way too stuffed to return there later that night. So we constructed a whole new itinerary for the Cincinnati crew. More on later later. For more on Mexicantown, click here.