Los Arcos – Saint Paul, MN

D.Rough and I were in the mood for some delicious Mexican food. OurManFlip had just told us about this amazing restaurant that was his favorite Mexican place in the Twin Cities, bar none – Los Arcos. Now that we live blocks away from it, we decided to check it out. We are glad we did.

It’s a pretty small unassuming place at the end of a strip mall (which, as we know, means good things in Minnesota). A couple of posters with food advertisements on them hang in the windows so you can see them from the parking lot.

The menu seems pretty standard in that we recognized just about everything on the menu, and of course it looked good. The waitress brought over chips and two salsas – a red and a green. D.Rough and I kept swapping the salsas trying to figure out which one we liked the best.


D.Rough ordered the Barbacoa and I got the Pozole, since it was the weekend (the only time they serve Pozole). Things were fine until the waitress came back and told me they were out of Pozole. Sigh… I went with my second choice which was Carnitas.

We hung out for a while waiting for our food, but since it was the weekend, there was a Karaoke DJ spinning the best Mexican hits and singing along, since no one else was doing it. I really think I’m going to work up some Mexican karaoke songs and bust some out the next time I go to Los Arcos. I think it would be a blast.

The food came out and looked great! The barbacoa was quite good and flavorful. It was a little smoky for my tastes, personally. I liked it just fine, but it just had a hint of too much smokiness for me.

The carnitas, on the other hand, were outstanding. I definitely won this contest with D.Rough in the ordering choice category. The pork was perfectly tender with just a bit of deep fried flavor and there was plenty to go on the tortillas they brought out. With all the fixings on the plate, I got really full and happily sat and enjoyed the guy spinning karaoke in the corner. He was having fun, and so were we.

Los Arcos does some pretty sweet happy hour deals and I think we’ll be back quite a bit now that we’re so close. We’re looking forward to it. Thanks again, OurManFlip. Excellent recommendation!

Top 5 things about Los Arcos
1. Carnitas
2. Barbacoa
3. Red salsa
4. It’s basically in our back yard
5. Super awesome waitress

Bottom 5 things
1. Still bummed about not getting Pozole
2. No one was singing karaoke besides the DJ
3. It’s pretty small inside
4. No margaritas, just beer and wine
5. OurManFlip didn’t get to eat lunch with us

www.losarcos-mn.com