catalinas

It's been just over a year and we've been to 30+ Latin eateries...amazing. There are still more than 20 eateries on our list and more opening every day...it seems unreal. This could go on forever and yet, it is time to hang up our hats (sombreros?) for now and present our palates with a new spectrum of flavors. But don't worry! We are determined to continue to keep our eyes open for the next terrific tamal and you, dear reader, will be the first to know. For now, though, we wish to present our favorites for you as a last hurrah -- a celebration of sorts of our favorite and most memorable moments of mole, molcajete, and menudo. And so, without further ado or bombast, it gives me great honor to present:

Latin Tongue 2012/2013: Our Top Ten Most Memorable Eats...

Or, in our humble opinions, The Best of Latin Food in the Twin Cities

We've come to a point in our eating of Latin foods, that I thought it only proper to post a status update and let you know how we see things in this process. As you may know from our intro article, we set out to try and answer a few questions. First, we wanted to see if we could shed any light on our American obsession with Latin eateries, specifically Mexican food. Second, we were curious about why we so seldom stop at any of the small and somewhat anonymous Latin eateries. When we finally did start settling our curiosity, what would we find. Third, we were really wondering about quality and diversity. With more than 50 small restaurants on our list, how many would actually be good and worth going back to?...and how long would we last? Fourth, does anyone really even care?

I wanted to avoid rankings and ratings in this challenge to eat and talk about Latin foods. It seems grossly unfair to give our taste buds credence over anyone else's. It also seemed a bit pretentious to claim that we were in any way experts. We are certainly not. The people from Mexico, Ecuador and Honduras who serve us their heart's labors...these are the experts. With that said, I have a hard time not gushing over our latest find, wanting to give it some sort of top-of-the-list, upper class status. Catalina's was just that good to us.