Lunch at Mexican Village

Mexican Village is a Fargo/Moorhead restaurant mainstay.  It’s been open since 1970 in downtown Fargo and has just nrecently opened a beautiful new restaurant in the south part of Fargo.  I remember being there as a child, as an adolescent, and as young adult.  It’s comforting to know that there are some things that are constant in life.

As the name implies, Mexican Village serves Mexican style food.  Which means there is plenty of refried beans and Spanish rice that surround various combinations of tortillas, meat, cheese, and sauce.  The standard enchiladas and tacos and chimichangas and fajitas are there.  There’s really no surprises on the menu and all of the dishes (even if they do sort of all taste and look the same) are solidly good, save one dish: the Pollo Fundido.  It is unquestionably the best thing Mexican Village serves.  It is a flour tortilla filled with shredded, seasoned chicken that is then deep fried.  It is then covered with a jalapeno cream cheese sauce.  Let’s just say it’s dynamite.  The chicken is nice and tender, the shell is pleasantly crisp, and the sauce is just spicy enough.  The richness of the cream cheese is not only comforting but is also brings all of the flavors together.  It’s really quite a perfect dish and a steal at around $10. 

It is rare for me to repeatedly order the same dish at a restaurant as I like to sample and try new things but the Pollo Fundido is so good that I nearly uniformly order it whilst at Mexican Village.  Others seem to agree.  At a recent birthday lunch of around 10 guys, 9 Pollo Fundidos were ordered.  Sounds likes a pretty ringing endorsement to me.  Here’s a picture of the dish: