Today's Taco Tour takes us waaay back to Tuesday, Taco Tuesday, that is. Mi Amá Mexican Restaurant & Grocery in Richfield, just south of Minneapolis, has one of the best Taco Tuesdays around town: $1.00 for small tacos with a good selection of your favorite delicious meats. Mi Amá translated to English is My Mom.
The Place
Mi Amá is a Mexican grocery store and restaurant in one, separated by a dining room divider with a little doorway (without door) to get between them.
The back of the grocery, with meat counter.
The dining room and counter.
The interior of the restaurant is nice enough. The chairs are painted in bright pastel. The tables feel a bit retro and they now cover them with plastic sheeting as you can see above. There is the big dining area and then there is a side dining area down a step, which you can see off to the right. The place could benefit from more seating but there's not much more room for any. In busier hours, there is just enough seating for people to eat there but people waiting for takeout orders will be standing. You order and pick up your food at the counter to the right. There are windows under the menu looking into into the kitchen and prep area which is cool. You can see the main grill from the order counter too. Off to the left of the dining area is a coffee/cocoa station. On the right wall, above the silverware dispensers is the specials menu, half of which is for Taco Tuesday on Tuesdays!
Taco Tuesday menu
Pretty good selection of meats here. Everything but the tripe and tongue tacos are $1 on Tuesday! The bathroom is a single stall in the back corner of the grocery store. It's sparse but clean, there was a lid missing on the toilet, and a little effort was put into making it a bit nicer, but not much.
Rosia and Cris
Because they are smaller, I usually order 4-6 tacos from here on a Taco Tuesday. I ordered 2 tacos al pastor, 2 barbacoa (slow roasted beef), and 2 asada (grilled beef) tacos from the lovely Rosia.
The Tacos
Presented as served
I like to show how food is served to you, and I think they did a good job with arranging these tacos and presenting them on the plate! Each pair is lined up with each other. While there are other options, I always like to get my tacos topped with cilantro and onion. They also came with lime wedges plus red and green (jalapeño) salsas.
Al pastor
Being my favorite taco meat, I dove right into the tacos al pastor. The marination color on these is a great orangish-red. The meat was grill-kissed and had just a teeny bit of charred edges. The tacos are small, and use smaller-sized corn tortillas, but still have enough meat in them. I ate the first without any salsa. The pastor meat has a good flavor, the marinade tastes right. It's easily above average for the al pastor meats I've tried everywhere. The texture is good, they're little meat morsels that are moist inside. For the second taco, I tried some of the jalapeño salsa on top. Wow, it's a really good salsa! And very complimentary to the taco. A squirt of lime juice was even better. The onions and cilantro were fresh and of course made the tacos all the more better. The tortillas were thrown on the grill with a splash of oil and were soft and delicious. All in all, an excellent pint-sized taco package.
Barbacoa
As you can see, the barbacoa tacos were quite moist or greasy, depending on who you ask! I love it though, roast beef is great and when it's done with Mexican spices it's even better. The flavor is rich, you can taste the cumin and chili spices they add to the roast. The texture is soft and buttery, the meat feels like it's melting in your mouth. Combined with crisp diced onions it's amazing. I usually don't get beef in many places but whenever I'm here I'll at least get the barbacoa. You can see in the picture there was a stem from one of the spices they put in there. I discarded it but seeing stuff like that is encouraging to me that they're not just using powdered spices out of a can.
Asada
I knew from previous experience here that the barbacoa was good but I hadn't had the carne asada recently. The grilled steak tacos here are about average. Marinated, but not overflavored, then grilled up. I have only found one place in town that does asada tacos well enough that I'd order them over al pastor, but sadly they recently closed. The flavor is beefy as expected, nothing special. The texture is a bit tough, not in chewy territory but still takes more effort to eat than the pork or barbacoa. The morsels were small, not too dry, and there were a few mostly-fat morsels which is fine, but any more and it would have been a detraction. The onions and cilantro of course make the taco more fresh tasting.
Conclusion
I already spoiled it, but Mi Amá has the best Taco Tuesday in the Twin Cities area that I've found so far. The value on Tuesday is excellent. For $1 plus tax you get a small taco with some very yummy meats. Choose wisely, or just get one of each and you still won't break the bank. Or try a different meat, if you're adventurous enough to try buche: pork stomach. I don't get all of the meats, chicken is too boring for me, and I'd rather have al pastor than carnitas for pork. The meats I do get would be good on their own but they're great for the price. Six dollars and change gets me a plate full of tacos and a full stomach not much later. I definitely recommend this place on Taco Tuesday. I haven't been there for tacos on another day, so I can't comment on whether they serve bigger tacos at a higher price, but if they do, I recommend them the other days of the week too!
4 Pineapple Piggies out of 5
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