Changarro Cocina

A Mexican and a Brazilian walk into a restaurant....

Well, actually, there's no joke here. This is about the marriage of two great flavors! I grew up eating Mexican food. But I haven't had much occasion to sample the flavors of Brazilian food until now. And believe me, this fusion of food will have me coming back for more.

A friend had been raving about the food at Changarro and invited me to join her for dinner one evening. I ordered Enchiladas Verdes, the standard entree I order to compare with other Mexican restaurants. They only offer chicken filling, which was fine by me. Overall, they were pretty good and had a decent amount of heat. The dinner plate came with four enchiladas, rice and beans.

Now, I don't typically eat a lot of red meat. I do like ground beef in my enchiladas on occasion, but there's no ground beef at Changarro. Instead, they have Brazilian chopped beef and, seriously, you have got to try it!

My friend ordered Memelitas, something I had never heard of. Memelitas are homemade corn flat breads with your choice of topping. When my friend ordered hers with Brazilian beef, I immediately assumed the meat would be tough, chewy and hard to swallow like some steak tacos I've had at other Mexican restaurants and taquerias. But, WOW, this was some awesome beef! Full of flavor, tender and definitely something I will order in the future.

By the way, we tried three of their Margaritas too. The Mangorita was probably the favorite. They had one with guava which was a good second choice. The Fresa Fresca had  strawberries which were a bit chunky, but still good. Not too overpowering with the alcohol and not your "fishbowl" size either. These seemed more classy. There were a handful of other creative drink concoctions to try too.

I stopped back in for lunch on another day and tried their Chicken Enchilada Soup and a chicken taco with avocado. The soup was hearty, full of chicken and large enough to suffice for lunch. Maybe a bit too much salt in the soup for my taste preferences, but still good nonetheless. The chicken in the taco was juicy and tender, the perfect compliment to my soup.

Decent guacamole too, in addition to their complimentary chips with avocado-cilantro sauce and another red sauce to which they add a bit of honey.

On their menu, I'm already eyeing their Ensalada de Jicama, which is a salad with Jicama, pear, cress, lettuce, hearts of palm, pine nuts and cilantro vinaigrette. You won't find that in a typical Mex restaurant, let alone in West Chicago.

Changarro has united the flavors of Mexico and Brazil and brought them to a suburb that needed a unique twist on good food and flavors. Here's to a long and happy union!

Only got 3 stars because husband raved but I was disappointed. I came wanting beef tacos and only beef option was steak. So I got the chorizo taco dinner, disappointed. Husband got the chimichurra? (pardon the spelling?) burrito and really liked it. I tasted it and wasn't impressed. Poor service, not many customers here and when the customers leave they take their time cleaning the table (the one next to us left 30 minutes ago and it's still not cleared off). I'll go here if I'm craving a burrito but not regularly. Coke bottles are $2 so we spent $8 just in drinks. Asked for a container 3 times, can't stress enough how bad service is.

Let me begin by saying that the restaurant is no longer located at 1400 Nelnor.. it has moved and is located at the corner of Rt59 and Rt 38 next to a big liquor store.  

The food here is as authentic as it gets.  We bought a groupon so decided to check it out.  They brought out chips right away along with guacamole that was included with our groupon.  The salsas had some kick to them which I enjoyed.  The green salsa was by far the best.  The guacamole tasted fresh but was not spicy at all.  We ordered the burrito dinner, chicken fajitas, taco dinner, milanesa dinner and quesadilla with fries.  Food didnt take quite as long as other yelpers mentioned. At least I didnt think so.  Everything had lots of flavor and perfectly seasoned.  The only complaint we all had were with the beans.  I dont know what burned beans taste like, but I would say the beans that came with our dinners were burned.  I didnt bother to mention it to the waitress because everything else was delicious.  The Mexican rice was very good as well.

I always like to try chorizo and steak tacos on the side so I ordered one of each.  Both were flavorful but the size of the tacos were small.  There was definitely plenty of meat which made up for the small taco.

The waitress talked us in to ordering dessert.  Our kids split the churros and ice cream dessert.  I had a bite of one and had I not been so full I wouldve fought the kids for the dessert!  Yes! It was THAT good!

I will def make the 40 minute drive to come back and fill my belly!