Texan witches often cursed their enemies with the Tex-Mex Hex—causing them to weep ranchero sauce, sprout burritos on their arms, and turn everything they touched into refried beans. Celebrate a more benevolent form of this delectable magic with today's Groupon: for $6, you get $12 worth of authentic Mexican fare and drinks at El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul. El Burrito Mercado is el pais for Cinco de Mayo revelry or just to fuel up after a morning spent swimming laps through guacamole.
Helmed by married couple Tomas and Maria Silva, the vibrantly embellished restaurant (formerly an 800-square-foot storefront) offers an energetic dinner menu dominated by straight-outta-Tenochtitlan tamales, tacos, nachos, and gorditas. An order of stone-ground corn chips and salsa ($2.50) kicks off Cinco de Mayo's 24-hour fiesta with a little edible confetti. You can also indulge your inner wizard with an order of queso fundido molcajete ($7.69), a bubbling stone cauldron filled with asadero cheese to drizzle atop your tacos (add chunks of chorizo, chipotle, habanero, or ham to the mix for $0.35 each). And if the burrito original (filled with your guisado choice or carne asada, beans, rice, lettuce, and cheese, $7.50) isn't big enough, the burro gigante ($13.99)—a two-foot behemoth stuffed with beans, rice, lettuce, tomato, two meat choices, and (it's rumored) a burro—will give you the mind-bending thrill of eating something larger than your own head. Vegetarians can abide by their uneasy peace treaty with chickens by dining on roasted chile poblanos stuffed with cilantro rice and white cheese ($8.79) or vegetable fajitas ($9.25) filled with cactus, onions, bell peppers, and zucchini. By this point, your piñata might be dangerously close to popping, in which case a spoonful of flan ($3.99) or refreshing gelatina ($2.99) make for safe dessert options. But if you don't want to disappoint the blindfolded birthday boys gathering around your bulging stomach with bats, go with the heavenly tres leches cake ($4.25).
El Burrito Mercado also offers a respectable range of wine and beer so that you can celebrate General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín's victory over the French at Puebla in traditional Mexican fashion—soberly and with great solemnity while wearing muted colors. No reservations are required, though having a mariachi band herald your arrival to El Burrito Mercado is always appreciated.
Valid in restaurant only.
Reviews
In addition to a positive review from Gayot and being listed as an editor's choice in Mpls St. Paul magazine, El Burrito Mercado was honored by CityPages as Minneapolis's Best Mexican Restaurant 2010 and Best Burrito 2009 and 2007.
- The first sign that El Burrito Mercado on St. Paul's west side is going to deliver a worthy burrito is the fact that you can smell it before you see it. From the bright yellow market/gift shop/restaurant waft the dueling scents of refried beans and spicy rice, which bodes well for the first bite of their monstrous burritos. – CityPages
- A feast for the senses awaits at this colorful market-deli-restaurant on St. Paul's West Side…This is the best place for authentic (and cheap) Mexican meal deals in the Twin Cities. – Gayot
Groupon Says
Those Darn Hands
Tacos are one of the most delicious foods you can eat with your hands, those normally useless appendages that dangle repulsively from the ends of your arms. Scientists and beauty experts remain puzzled at the evolutionary basis for hands, since they completely lack utility and are so freakish and unattractive that they are best covered by gloves, novelty oven mitts, or long cardboard tubes.
Most of the world's historical kings recognized the unimportance and unsightliness of hands, undergoing elective surgeries to remove the offensive appendages every time they grew back. Charlemagne was famously born without hands (but with cloven hoofs), winning him the respect of his countrymen—which he wisely used to reform Europe's writing system and buy everyone in France hand-removal surgery once every four months.
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