'People can know the real Mexican food' at Taqueria Mexicana El Milagro
Local writer shares the stories behind Saskatoon's food scene, one bite at a time
Laura Lagos considers the ability to cook a gift from God.
It's one that a few women in her family have been blessed with: Her mother owned a restaurant and her grandmother had a market stall in Mexico.
Now, Lagos is continuing that legacy at Taqueria Mexicana El Milagro in Saskatoon, where the menu mainly features family recipes perfected over the years, including tacos, burritos, gringas and tamales.
"To introduce to Canadians our culture and our Mexican food and to see the people's faces — how every bite they take, they really enjoy it — I really like ... to show people the good taste of food," she said.
The menu features some of the most popular items from Mexico City, but Lagos says what sets it apart from other Mexican restaurants is its authenticity, especially given the widespread availability of "Tex-Mex" cuisine in Saskatchewan.
"If we try to compare Tex-Mex to Mexican food, Tex-Mex can be very simple. It's a tortilla and then you throw some ground beef in there, some tomatoes," said Verschiell Lagos, Laura's son and the manager of the restaurant. "But when you have a Mexican dish, you have marinating sauces that you have to prepare for the meat. The procedures that go into it are far more complex. With Mexican food there is definitely an insane type of flavour sometimes."
A start at the farmers' market
The Lagos family brought that flavour straight from Mexico City. They moved to Montreal in 2008, then on to Saskatoon a few years later in search of new job opportunities.
In 2014, they opened La Taqueria Mexicana as a market stall at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market.
"We decided that what we enjoy was serving people and my mom likes to cook … so we tried it here and people really enjoyed it," Verschiell Lagos said.
The family ran the market stall for five years until the River Landing location of the market closed down in 2019. They decided after that point that they would look for a more permanent home.
"We're really happy about this opportunity and this blessing that we have again," he said.
The brick-and-mortar restaurant opened in August 2023 at 632 Ave H S in the King George neighbourhood under the new name. With the permanent space, they now offer catering, a small Mexican grocery and an expanded menu.
Definitely not Tex-Mex
Laura makes clear the distinction between Tex-Mex and the Mexican dishes she creates. She also explained there are regional differences in Mexican food.
"Tex-Mex is more Texas — close to the border to Mexico — and they make a fusion of food," she said. "We come from Mexico City, and to the south our food is based on corn — 100 per cent corn almost in everything: tacos, tamales, all those things. [From] Mexico City up to the north has more flour."
Verschiell Lagos recommends trying the tacos as a starting point, because you can sample three different flavours in one order. They offer eight kinds of tacos, including pastor (pork), pescado (breaded fish), lengua (beef tongue) and suadero (slow cooked sirloin). They're all served in soft corn tortillas.
Verschiell says to expect complex flavours, largely thanks to a melange of spices, including cumin and chilies.
To accompany the meal, they stock popular Mexican sodas, including Jarritos — a fruit-flavoured soda — and Mexican Coca-Cola, which is made with cane sugar instead of the high-fructose corn syrup found in Coke in the United States and Canada.
Verschiell says people are excited to see Mexican Coke on offer.
"The sugar definitely makes it taste different," he said.
It's not just the food that Laura wants people to experience. The restaurant itself is a vibrant, inviting space, with flags in bright blues, pinks and yellows flying overhead — both inside and out — and Mexican music filling the space.
"You can come inside and feel a little bit part of Mexico," Laura said. "I can do cooking in Canada and people can know the real Mexican food."
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