Everyone likes to find a hidden gem. A great little place that delivers more than it asks, a place you can tell your friends about, a cool undiscovered place that looks a little downmarket but ladles up superior food. Irazu is not that place. But we had been hoping.
Irazu has been around for years and has a loyal following. Judging by the way the host was frantically jockeying incoming calls for takeout while herding hungry patrons through the waiting area, the place can barely cope with the business it’s got. On the other hand, it doesn’t take much business to push it past the tipping point. It’s small and cramped.
Housed in a grungy looking green-roofed hut on an unlovely stretch of Milwaukee, Irazu doesn’t show well. Pick your way through the cars parked helter skelter on the pavement out front, walk through the front door and you are two steps from the kitchen, food is sizzling, phones are ringing, and people are clustering uncomfortably. The only reason you don’t throw in the towel and leave immediately is the alluring appeal of Costa Rican cuisine. Sounds intriguing, right? I mean, what could they possibly eat down there? And given the devoted following this place has, it’s just got to be good.
It had better be, because there’s a fair chance you’ll be jostled and stepped on while you wait and when you finally get to your table, the busboy will drop the silverware and napkins in front of you and run off. It’s BYOB so they’ll hurry back with a corkscrew and drop that on top of the silverware and now you’re all set.
Here come the chips. Do you want guacamole? Yes, of course. It appears that Costa Ricans eat guacamole and chips just like Mexicans do, except that Costa Ricans apparently favor a mushy flavorless guac with random chunks of nearly whole unblended avocadoes in it. What’s for appetizers? How about fried plantains with garlic? Now we’re talking. It must be the heavy reliance on plantains and yucca and the brazen willingness to fry them that sets this cuisine apart. But fried plantains are still a little too bland to stand on their own so a heavy coating of diced garlic provides 80% of their flavor.
After some consultation with the friendly, attentive waiter, we selected two dishes that promised to be most characteristic of Costa Rican cuisine and which are very popular. Thirty seconds later we were told they were out of one of them. We finally settled on casado, a thin ribeye steak with carmelized onions served with white rice, black beans, sweet plantains and an over easy egg; and breaded tilapia with fried yucca, black beans and cabbage salad.
The casado was savory but indistinctive, lacking the spiciness or sweetness to make it sing. The breaded tilapia was adequate on its own but enlivened by side condiments of mustard and, yes, diced garlic. Yucca is basically a tropical version of a sweet potato with about the same pizzazz. Frying doesn’t do much to mask the fact. The most interesting side dish is cabbage salad which enlightens you to the fact that coleslaw can be made more than one way.
All in all, we found nothing at Irazu to explain the loyalty of its followers, except perhaps the relatively low prices and the budget freedom that BYOB gives you. Maybe having a cash only policy forces some people to watch their pennies more carefully. So perhaps that can be seen as an advantage, although I tend to think such policies benefit the restaurant more than they do the customers.
As for exotic cuisine, Costa Rican suffers from the same shortcomings that many island based and native American cuisines have. At bottom, they are bland. Introducing garlic in such heavy quantities is a sheer giveaway to the difficulty of working with such a foundation. In terms of that, the Mexicans do it with much more daring and panache.
We had been hoping the cramped quarters and hectic atmosphere would be eclipsed by something spectacular but Irazu is not the hidden gem we'd been hoping it would be. It’s merely an adequate restaurant serving adequate cuisine to more people than it can comfortably handle.
Irazu
1865 N. Milwaukee Ave
773-252-5687 / Reservations Not Accepted
Hours: M-Sa 11:30am-9:30pm / Closed Sundays
Features: Outdoor Dining, BYOB, Cash Only, Carryout, Delivery
Avg. Price of a Meal for Two Including Drinks and Tax $40
Website: www.irazuchicago.com
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