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Sabor Latino the area’s Mexican food outlet
Sabor Latino is an ethnic restaurant and a full-scale Mexican grocery store located in Postville’s downtown district. Juan Figueroa of Crystal Lake, Illinois owns this operation and Sabor Latino II in Decorah. Juan also owns several Mexican restaurant and grocery store businesses in Illinois. Juan opened the Postville Sabor Latino in 2002. He believed the community of Postville would be a great place for a traditional Mexican restaurant.
Postville is known for it’s predominantly Latino population and Juan was certain the new restaurant would fill with area residents. Juan’s intuition was right on the money, the restaurant is always busy with local clientele but the business also draws customers from many surrounding towns.
“During the week we have mostly Latino customers but on the weekend we see many American customers,” claims the restaurant’s manager Juan Francisco Maguina Frenandez who goes by the name of Francisco. Francisco and his wife Daphne live with their two daughters Marie (16) and Ariadna (14) in Monona. Francisco manages Sabor Latino in Postville and also manages Sabor Latino II in Decorah. Daphne spends her days running the Sabor Latino grocery store and operates the cash register for the restaurant.
The name Sabor Latino is itself an invitation to try the Latino delicacies the restaurant offers. In Spanish Sabor means “taste.” The menu items are authentic Mexican specialties. Andres Aguilar has been the restaurant’s head chef almost since the restaurant opened in 2002.
Andres came to the restaurant with a perfect resume for the job of head chef. Andres had spent the previous ten years cooking in a restaurant in Mexico. He is an expert Mexican cuisine chef. Francisco and head chef Andres explain the origin of the menu items are Mexican and not from other Latin American countries where the fare can vary. While some items are fixed to anticipate American preferences all recipes are authentically Mexican.
“Latino’s order mostly tacos while Americans like fajitas burritos and enchiladas,” explains chef Andres. He further explains he has noticed a difference even in the way the two cultures prefer to eat tacos. Latino people like tacos served in a corn flour tortilla with cilantro and fresh onions while Americans like taco served with cheese, tomatoes and lettuce.
Many of Sabor Latino’s ingredients are shipped straight from Mexico. For example, tomatillos, which are small green tomatoes with an easy to peel husk, come from Mexico. The tomatillos are the base for the verde or green sauce used on many menu items. The verde or green sauce is usually a little hotter but not because of the green tomatillo but because of the fresh jalapeno peppers used in the recipe. Other items, which come from Mexico, include various dried peppers and the crucial herb cilantro used in their fresh salsa or otherwise known as pico de gallo sauce.
Every patron is greeted with a complimentary basket of fresh fried chips and a dish of Sabor Latino’s fresh salsa or pico de gallo sauce. The pico de gallo sauce is prepared in large batches about every other day with completely fresh ingredients. The freshness of these ingredients and the onsite preparation of the restaurants various sauces is what Francisco and Andres claim is the difference between their restaurant and America’s chain Mexican restaurants.
Dining at Sabor Latino is a very ethnic experience and different from the atmosphere experienced at Carlos O Kelly’s or Chi Chi’s. The feel at Sabor Latino actually teeters between a diner atmosphere and a Mexican nightclub. The kitchen, located in the front of the restaurant, is wide open and in easy view of patrons just entering the establishment. The dining area is spacious, including quaint window seating accommodating up to 200 guests. The restaurant has a large back room and private upper level dining area. The walls are decorated with Mexican flags and other native cultural items. The wait staff at Sabor Latino scuttle about effortlessly to provide fast efficient service. Spanish music is heard in the background along with conversations in Spanish as orders are usually communicating in the worker’s native language. The restaurant is an excellent place to brush up on one’s Spanish speaking skills, as do many area, high school students in the afternoon hours.
On one wall hangs 8x10-framed photos of various, delicious menu items to assist customers with their meal choices. The restaurant also has a full bar with a complete line of Mexican beer and of course the essential margarita.
The grocery store and restaurant adjoin each other. Daphne, Francisco’s wife is able to assist customers on either side of the business from her post at the cash register. The ethnic grocery store is really varied but complete in its inventory. It is a perfect place to find specialty items not usually found in local grocery stores. This store is the place for Mexican dinner staples including many varieties of dried beans and rice and Spanish pastas. The produce section carries tomatillos and cilantro along with many other produce items from apples to avocados. The store is also a great place for unique piņata’s that are produced in Chicago. The meat counter is stocked with many of the meat cuts served in the dishes on the Sabor Latino menu.
Francisco and his family moved to Monona from Peru in 2002. They are on standby status for gaining their citizenship to the United States. In Peru, Francisco was the successful director at ONG’D. ONG’D is a subsidiary of Care International a non-profit charitable organization, where he assisted others in finding jobs in Peru. I asked Francisco why he moved his family from their home in Peru to a foreign country where their future would be uncertain. His answer was simple, “Life was difficult in Peru.” He explains it is hard for people to understand how frightening it is to live in a county with so much political unrest and with such a poor economy. Francisco seemed to want to protect his family and provide them with an easier life. Here he has provided his girls with stable education and income. On this day in America he found himself hopeful about getting his citizenship. His main reason of late for becoming a citizen is so that his daughter, Marie might obtain her driver’s license. This type of obstacle seems to be much less thorny compared to the serious problems they left behind in Peru. While talking to Francisco, Daphne and Chef Andres it is evident they are brimming with hope, a kind of hope they did not feel was possible in their native countries.
Joleen’s Final Review: Sabor Latino’s menu is so extensive that lovers of Mexican fare may find themselves in the desirable situation of finding it difficult to narrow their choice. The menu has a very nice selection of the traditional items you would expect to see in an ethnic restaurant but also a surprisingly nice seafood menu served of course as Mexican dishes. I think from an authentic Mexican restaurant their fresh pico de gallo sauce is some of the best I have had. It is really fresh and is not overpoweringly hot. They sell the fresh salsa in to go containers and I recommended taking some home to try.
Readers may surmise the possibility of a language barrier could exist between restaurant workers and their customers. While it is true many of the workers speak in broken English one thing is certain, when it comes to an order, they know what you want and you will get what you order. When it comes to hospitality the crew at Sabor Latino are second to none and when it comes to good Latin food, Sabor Latino is the best choice around.
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