Central Avenue Checklist: Loma Bonita to Yummy Bites
The Churn for Friday, September 6, 2024
In this week’s edition of The Heavy Table’s Churn newsletter, we continue our seemingly endless Checklist questing by returning to Central Avenue to dine at everywhere new since we last wrapped up our checklist there , nine years ago.
Also! If you haven't yet checked out the Heavy Table newsletter archive, it indexes about 300,000 words of content and photography from the past two years of publishing.
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CENTRAL AVENUE CHECKLIST UPDATE, PART ONE
We continue our update-it-all visit to Central Avenue and check out Supermercado Loma Bonita, Micholandia La Michoacana, Los Cactus, Central Pizza and Yummy Bites.
By M.C. Cronin, Becca Dilley, James Norton, and WACSO
Revisiting Central Ave has been unexpectedly rewarding. It feels as if there’s even more going on than our first time around, and there was a lot going on then. Los Cactus is in the former location of Asia Chow Mein (there’s even a photo of Asia Chow Mein in the entrance as an homage) and Supermercado Loma Bonita took over from Pooja Grocer/Jalsa Indian Fast Food. Central Ave just seems to defy categorization. Even as things change the diversity remains. Within a few blocks, or even just a few storefronts, you can get exposed to a shocking swath of global cuisines. – M.C. Cronin
Supermercado Loma Bonita | 855 45th Ave.
Hilltop, Minn. | 763.331.0470
If you visit on a Friday around 6pm, wear full football pads and leave any trace of agoraphobia at the door. Get anywhere in the vicinity of the deli counter, and you will be bumped, brushed against, or just generally have your personal space invaded.
When we arrived, there was no good place to be that wasn’t in the way—whether from people swarming the deli counter, or those entering the market, or folks trying to navigate the nearby checkout lines with packed grocery carts.
It’s a grocery deli, so we didn’t expect much in the way of ambiance in the small seating area. But the brightly colored walls and wooden chairs with Mexican art painted on their backrests added a nice touch of charm. Like the deli counter, the dining area was packed to the gills. Thankfully, by the time our food was ready, a table had opened. And when we were finished going beast-mode on our machete (see food notes) the place was virtually empty. So, rush hour seems to be over by 6:30. Noted.
Oh, and the condiment station isn’t just for decoration. It’s filled with colorful salsas and toppings as a reminder that this food is not meant to be eaten naked. Load up and try them all. You will not be disappointed. – M.C.
The Machete at Loma Bonita ($14) moves to the top of our list of Checklist Foods That We Can’t Stop Eating Even Though We Are Fully Aware That We Should Stop Eating Them. This crispy, chewy, richly melted cheese-laden, avocado-bedecked, lettuce sprinkled car crash of a dish comes on pretty heavy and strong in the best possible way, but then just a splash of spicy salsa woke it up with an explosion of joyful spicy vinegared flavor.
The sum total: ravishingly good. Absurdly appealing. You can get your machete with whatever meat you’d like - we tried the carnitas, which were simple but perfectly seasoned, and made a terrific basic building block atop which the rest of the dish balanced.
The restaurant’s Tacos al Pastor ($6 for 2) suffered a bit for comparison with the machete, but they were quite good nevertheless - fresh, delicate tortillas, surprisingly spicy, moist meat, and, with a hit of onions, cilantro, and lime juice from the DIY condiment station, a very happy balance of textures and flavors indeed.
We quite liked our Horchata ($3), which had some ricey depth of flavor and offered a sweet finish without being syrupy.
And we couldn’t resist getting one of the market’s many beautiful Paletas - the Fruit and Cream ($3) variety was just what we hoped, simple, light, not too sweet, and leaning into the fruit first, the dairy second, and the sugar a distant third. – James Norton
Micholandia La Michoacana | 861 45th Ave NE
Hilltop, Minn. | 763.205.6308
We were greeted on the way in by an adorable winking cartoon of a Mexican girl. This is Micholandia La Michoacana’s logo. And it’s just a prelude to the cutesy sweetness you’ll be confronted with inside.
The vast space is decked out in bright pinks and purples and blues. The walls are covered with stenciled images of ice cream treats and paletas and words like “cute” and “the best.” It’s like walking into a life-sized children’s book.
But what else do you want from an ice cream shop?
The place is clean, and bright, and the ice cream case is the star of the show. It was quiet when we were there, but on a hot day, you could easily imagine the case teeming with kids on their tippy toes pressing their faces against the glass dreaming of eating every last colorful dollop of ice cream displayed there. – M.C.
Should we have gotten the Piñaloca ($17) at Micholandia? Maybe we will next time, but the Crazy Pineapple - an entire pineapple decked out with various toppings and sweets - did seem like it could be more than we could handle. Possibly more than anyone can handle, to be honest.
Instead we played it relatively safe. The ChocoBanana ($4) is an extremely ripe banana frozen solid and enrobed in reasonably good chocolate. Normally with this sort of a thing, you worry about the banana’s flavor disappearing into the freezer, but when your banana is so ripe that it’s practically fermenting, you still get a big jolt of fruit with your chocolate.
Our Mini Sugar Cone of Tres Leches Ice Cream ($4) surprised the heck out of us.
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