Last year, on a chilly Friday night in November, my girlfriend and I were perusing Walker’s Point for a place to eat. Still new to the city, we were excited to try any of the many great restaurants that part of town had to offer.
However, it was a busy night, and the places we tried to get into had at least a half hour wait for a table. We were already starving and wanted food fast. Luckily, we stumbled upon a small, no-frills Mexican restaurant at the corner of Florida and 2nd Street called La Chinampa.
I had heard of the place before. I read about it in Rachel Bernhard’s Best Bites series for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and she raved about their torta al pastor.
We ordered one each, and it blew us away. It was one of the single best sandwiches I had ever eaten in my life and is still one of my favorite meals I have had in Milwaukee.
Since then, I have gone there a few more times, and while the other dishes I have had were spectacular, I keep coming back for that torta al pastor.
The sandwich is piled with their juicy marinated pork. It includes toppings like shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, avocado, tangy pickled jalapeños, deliciously savory refried beans, gooey cheese and the perfect amount of mayo for an extra pop of flavor.
It is held together on a pillowy soft and subtly sweet telera roll that soaks up all the greasy goodness of the al pastor. The sandwich is packed with flavor, but I was even more blown away by perfect textural sensation of each bite.
Each piece of meat was astonishingly tender, the beans were perfectly soft and the lettuce, tomatoes and jalapeños provided just the right amount of fresh contrast from the other ingredients.
When I went to La Chinampa again last Thursday for this review, I got a chance to talk to the owner’s son who was working that day. I asked him his favorite dish on the menu, and he said he loves the tripe tacos.
Tripe, or beef stomach, is something I had never tried before. It never seemed appetizing to me, but I was willing to take his word for it. It was lucky I did, because they were amazing.
The tripe had a delicious beefy flavor and was perfectly soft with a satisfying chew, nothing like the unpleasant texture I would have expected from cow stomach.
The tacos were served simply with onion and cilantro on a double-stacked corn tortilla that was the perfect vessel for the fattiness of the meat. Regardless of your misgivings about tripe, you need to try these tacos.
Every single dish I try from this restaurant is consistently amazing, and it I think more people ought to know about it. They have been in business for 7 years, but their current location has only been around since February of 2022
You can find La Chinampa at 405 S. 2nd St. in Walker’s Point, just down the street from other Milwaukee favorites like Toast and Black Sheep MKE. It is a quaint little spot, and you can tell they put a lot of love into the food they serve. Do yourself a favor and pay La Chinampa a visit, you will not regret it.
This story was written by Joey Schamber. He can be reached at [email protected].
