I’ve been wanting to try Pilar’s Tamales for a long time and now I’ve had it three times. I finally had my camera with me, but the picture isn’t that great. We got takeout and had it at the house hence the paper plate and the camping plasticware. The first time I tried a tamale from Pilar’s was at the Ann Arbor farmers market, she also has a year round location on Liberty near Stadium. Pilar’s tamales are Salvadoran. They are a lot larger than the Mexican tamales I’ve tried in the past. They are very moist as well. So far, I’ve had three different flavors:

• Jalapeño & Cheese: Homemade vegetable stock and jalapeño peppers are incorporated into the masa and then filled with a special blend of cheeses. Not too spicy.
• Chicken and Cheese: Filled with all-natural chicken, cheese, and red sauce.
• Chorizo: Filled with chorizo sausage, organic eggs, green peppers, onions, and potatoes.

Both Dave and I agreed that the chorizo was our favorite with the jalapeno and cheese coming in a close second. The chicken and cheese tamale was good, it just wasn’t as flavorful as the other two. When you order your tamale, it includes Curtido, a cabbage slaw with onions, carrots, oregano, and apple cider vinegar. Neither Dave and I are a fan of it so we ordered a side of Casamiento which is made up of black beans and white rice, and fried plantains. The plantains were fabulous, sweet and full of flavor. The red sauce that comes with all of the tamales is really good with a nice kick, but not too spicy.

Pilar also offers papusas, another Salvadoran specialty, but I haven’t tried them yet. I’d also like to try some of her desserts (sweet empanadas!) sometime. Her restaurant is about 10 minutes away from the new house so I see lots of tamale dinners in our future!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under eating, Michigan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.