Rocky's Tacos - Misleading Name, Great Tortas

I have often wondered how this place, when mentioned at all on this forum, has usually been cast in a negative light. I personally think it serves the best tortas in the city and, as a completely unconvincing data point, so does a friend that lived in Mexico for a year. Maybe the name is fooling people because you should definitely not get tacos here. Instead the real star is the massive selection of tortas.

Now, don't go in expecting those crusty breaded and refined tortas from Xoco or its ilk. These are of the rich, over-the-top "street" torta category served on high quality soft teleras rolls and piled high with greasy meats of any types (or all types for the big eaters), melty cheese and slathered with mayo and beans and then finally some fresh avocado, lettuce and tomatoes. They offer a gigantes version that will feed two people for like $11, but even the normal is a hefty meal.

So I am not a fan of the huge selection of tortas names after soccer players that just mix up the toppings, but I have actually seen this theme for tortas in multiple places. At this point they should just let you choose your toppings. However, here are my picks:

Maradonna - al pastor and hot pineapple, basically a high quality version of my favorite of the Mexican meat standbys in a torta. Ordered every time. Get the Palencia to replace the pastor with their usually quite good chorizo.
Maza Rodriguez - A huge helping of guacamole with greasy, delicious chorizo and breaded steak.
Carlos Vela - Smoked pork chop with chorizo and eggs. Not much else needs to be said.

Honorable Mentions - If I can tear myself away from the tortas the lengua in salsa verde is actually very good (I wish they had it on a torta!) The mole (red or green) tortas are pretty good too.

The other amazing innovation here is the ham pico de gallo. Yes, they put pork in their pico and it is glorious. Also I should mention that the red and green salsas are usually exemplary, though I think the red could use a touch of sugar for balance of the smoky chile flavor. Finally, the Clark location seems slightly more consistent.

Rocky's Tacos
7043 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60626
or
3111 W Montrose Ave, Chicago, IL 60618

(website seems to have gone kaput)

Good to know. I've had mixed results when stopping into one the many taquerias on Clark, so I had written them off. But now I'll definitely swing by Rocky's

good place, some other talk here
viewtopic.php?p=439339

Whoa. Here's another venue to which I have been, but did not get around to mentioning here on LTHF.
I've always named my cat(s) for soccer players, so why not name all your entrees after them too?
I can't remember which torta this was, but obviously, it was good enough to disassemble so you could see more easily. This is from the shop on W. Montrose, which is also recommended to be brought in to the Templestowe Pub just west of here.
I have also eaten from the shop on N. Clark St., but I did not take any photographs of the food.

I wanted to add an image of the gloriousness:

Rocky's Tacos. Lengua, tripas tacos a cut above standard. Chorizo house-made. Tasty rice and beans, all in all good to very good stop for lunch. Next time there I'll try lengua en salsa verde.

click to enlarge



Rocky's Tacos, count me a Fan!

The Montrose location (mentioned in first post) seems to have closed.

Anyone who's interested in trying Rocky's Tacos with a group is welcome to join the Evanston Lunch Group™ lunch there in a week and a half:

Evanston Lunch Group™ 3/14 @ Rocky's Tacos

Another location down. They long ago had one nearer the center of the city. The Maradona torta is still among my favorite, if not favorite when it is firing on all cylinders, sandwiches in the city. Their salsa quality has deteriorated though.

The Evanston Lunch Group™ had a very pleasant lunch today at Rocky's Tacos.

Here's the room:

The menu on their website is geared towards online ordering. Here's what the printed menus look like:




Several of us enjoyed the horchata to drink. What else did we have?

Botana Especial - Sincronizadas, taquitos (crispy tacos) y guacamole

Huevos a la Mexicana - scrambled eggs with diced tomato, onion & jalapeno peppers

Atlas Torta - Chicken in green mole sauce

Poblana - Chicken in red mole sauce

I thought everything was very good!

I knew I was there. But I did not buy any sandwiches there.
On a Friday when I was riding back from Waukegan on the UP-North line, the Rogers Park Metra train station will let you off one block away from it.
I was transferring from Metra to the CTA route #22 Clark southbound bus.
As these photographs were mostly uninteresting, I did not see any reason to pull up an old thread just to stick them in. But since there are new images which are popular, I can slug them in now.