Oft-forgotten pit stop

Taqueria Los Amigos. Most likely you know exactly the place I’m talking about even if the name’s not familiar.

It’s the Mexican restaurant on Highway 32 that looks like it used to be a hamburger stand. You’ve passed it a million times on your way to Hamilton City (it’s been there since 1980). The one with the red-and-white sign out front that says, “If you can’t stop: HONK.”

Yep, that one.

After being encouraged to check out Los Amigos, I stopped there with my 8-year-old daughter, Lydia, after school one day recently for a late lunch.

There are eight tables outside, but on this crisp fall day we sat at one of five indoor booths in the unadorned dining room (there’s not even any overhead music). Fresh chips and salsa were brought to our table by our friendly waiter shortly after we sat down. The salsa was a tasty mixture in a small bowl that looked like pico de gallo mixed with a thin, pureed salsa verde, and there was a squeeze bottle of a considerably hotter green sauce.

I ordered a chile relleno with rice and refried beans ($6) from the plentiful lunch/dinner menu that also includes house specials such as chicken or beef taquitos with rice and beans ($7.75) and chicken mole or carnitas with rice, beans and flour or corn tortillas ($9). My daughter opted for the kids’ chicken enchilada with rice and beans ($4).

My chile relleno, rice and beans arrived just as described on the menu, without any added shredded lettuce or salad that often appears on plates at Mexican restaurants. My food was enjoyable—the beans and rice tasted hearty and fresh, but the batter of my chile relleno inexplicably had the faintest taste of what seemed like fried fish. There is no fish on the menu, however; the only seafood served at Los Amigos is in the form of shrimp cocktail ($7.95) and campechana—or seafood cocktail ($12.95). Lydia wolfed down her meal before I could even think about having a taste, and wanted more.

We got more a couple days later on a return visit for an early dinner when Lydia ordered the No. 10—an adult-sized plate of two chicken enchiladas, beans and rice ($7.75). I asked if it was possible to get a vegetarian version of the “super burrito” (beans, rice, sour cream, cheese, guacamole and lettuce, and normally a choice of meat, $6.75) with an addition of a green sauce over the top.

Yes, answered the same friendly waiter (who was apparently the son of the woman reading a newspaper at a nearby table at this family-owned and -run eatery, as the “mijo” she directed at him suggested) asking if I would like the ranchera sauce made with bell peppers, garlic and onions?

My burrito ($6.75, minus meat plus sauce) was delicious. The ranchera sauce—which added the red of tomatoes to the green bell peppers and white onion, calling to mind the colors of the Mexican flag—was a great, moist addition to my large, fork-and-knife burrito. My daughter ate about a third of my burrito, as well as most of her dinner, which I got to taste this time (also delicious—the chicken was tender, the enchilada sauce satisfying).

Taqueria Los Amigos also serves breakfast all day long—including breakfast burritos ($4.50), huevos rancheros, huevos a la mexicana and eggs with chili verde (all $7.95, with a choice of two sides of either rice, beans or country potatoes, and tortillas).

It’s a safe bet that Los Amigos’ food, on any visit, will be hearty, home-cooked fare served in a friendly, simple atmosphere. And I will give that chile relleno another shot.