Some of the best meals in Illinois hide behind plain storefronts, tucked between neighborhood corners you might drive past a hundred times. Mofongo is one of those dishes worth slowing down for, with green plantains mashed fresh, packed with garlic, and piled high with pork, steak, or shrimp.
Once you taste a bowl made the right way, you understand why families keep coming back for generations. Here are seven spots across the state where that garlicky magic happens fresh, one order at a time.
1. Delicia Tropical Cafe, Elgin, IL
Tucked onto Villa Street in Elgin, this homey little cafe cooks the kind of Puerto Rican food that tastes like someone’s mother is back in the kitchen. Maps sums it up as a casual neighborhood cafe serving classic Puerto Rican cooking, and that description fits the moment you walk in.
The mofongo here arrives shaped like a bowl, ready to cradle shrimp swimming in a garlic sauce that gets talked about long after the plate is cleared. Fried pork, jibaritos, and alcapurrias de yuca round out a menu that locals swear by, with the yuca fritters earning a reputation as some of the finest in the state…