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| - Long ago, when I lived in Monroeville, my father and I would frequent El Campesino's first location. It was before their big dreams of total Mexican dominance of the Pittsburgh restaurant market, and we felt like we were in on a secret that we only told friends and family about. The food was delicious, authentic, and the waitstaff barely spoke English, thus adding to the genuine ambiance despite the fact that except for a few sombreros and maps of Mexico on the walls, it looked like a hole in the wall diner.
Then one day, we went there to eat and a big sign on the door said they were temporarily closed. Oh no, where would I get my chile rellenos fix?? What happened??? The urban legend goes that a van was pulled over in Texas, and upon searching the van, the authorities found it full of illegal immigrants who said they were going to Pittsburgh for El Campesino's. While I don't know if this story is true, it only added to the mystique of the restaurant when it reopened two weeks later.
Flash-forward to 2012, and in my opinion, El Campesino's is Pittsburgh's best Mexican restaurant. Despite having 7 locations, each restaurant seems pretty consistent when it comes to food taste and quality. At the Robinson location, the restaurant is a bright rainbow dream of turquoise, greens, and earth tones with large wood booths, Mexican chotskys on the wall, and a bar area with TVs. The food is still genuine Mexican, and the menu is filled with burritos, enchiladas, tacos, nachos, chile rellenos, chile poblanos, fajitas, and lots more. My personal favorite item on the menu is their chile rellenos, which unlike the battered and fried version you normally see, is a stuffed pepper with ground beef and creamy cheese sauce. In fact, their cheese is so good, that they could put it on anything and I'd eat it- yum.
If you're really hungry, go for the Special Combination, which for $13 will comes with four plates of food- tacos, burritos, enchiladas, beans, rice, and more. I like the price point of their combination platters- I think there's like 20 different versions. If you're looking for meals, I like the Chicken Mole- you can get it in an enchilada or just chicken with Mole sauce, My new favorite is the Cincho de Mayo, which is chicken and beef on a sizzling plate with spring onions and peppers. It comes with rice and beans, tortilla, and a fired taco shell bowl filled with guacamole. At $13, it tastes awesome, is a ton of food, and I like to think of it as sticking it to the man since it's basically a fajita plate without the $17 price.
After all these years, El Campesino's is still my favorite Mexican restaurant in Pittsburgh, and it's very cool to how far they've come from their first small location to a restaurant empire.
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