Wednesday, July 20, 2011

El Milagro: The Miracle Palace of Tortas

Greensboro's Best Torta Place?

So the other day I mentioned this place El Milagro that Adam told me about. I didn't have time to fill you in on all the details because I was nose deep in school at the time, (I also didn't plan on writing about it- so that tells you how impressed I was) but I feel this deserves my full attention. I shall explain all, so hold on to your paper napkin hat, here we go. For my whitey demographic, Torta's are a Mexican sandwich. El Milagro translates to "The Miracle", and indeed this place is. Officially it's called El Milagro: El Palacio de los Tortas or in other words: The Miracle Palace of Tortas. With a name like that you'll probably have high expectations and El Milagro doesn't let you down. In fact they're right next door to a tire and wheel store where while you eat you can get 20" chrome dubs, and a booming car stereo installed.

So the food? Unbelievable!!! There's definitely some immigrant grandmother in the back kitchen chained to the table hand making this food. Hand baked bread, freshly cooked meats, and one the hottest and best salsas I've found locally. It's definitely one of my new favorites.

As a primer, you may have heard someone who admires a sandwich called the Cubano. You may have not realized that this is a torta. Here's how a El Milagro's Cubano stacks up:

Beans, two types of sausage, cured pork, two types of cheese, ham, & milamesa (breaded beef steak) [Image credit: Adam Arney]

These are 1/4 foot tall sandwiches, that you can lather on some of the most amazing salsas in town. What's more is these aren't just great for lunch. I was Jonesing for a breakfast burrito the other day, or something different here in Greensboro. Even googled "best breakfast in Greensboro", and ended up at my own website faced with the repetitive biscuits, hash-browns and egg style southern restaurants. It was about 10:30am, (I believe they open at 10am) and that's when I remembered Adam's picture of El Milagro's tortas. Luckily they were open, and I was able to order their Olimpica, a torta with eggs and cheese, smoked ham and breaded steak. To say the least, Livvy was one happy camper.

Shan got a platillo a flat bread version which translates to "flying saucer".

To make it extra authentico we ordered flavored water. It's like Kool-Aid for adults and is available in several fruit flavors. The taste is out of this world. Every nuance is spot on, and you can tell this is some quality stuff. This is the real deal when it comes to real food, a palace in a city of run down food choices which I highly recommend visiting.