Chicago Food Boys: 5411 Empanadas

Hello, today we will be reviewing 5411 Empanadas.

Ruben:
Now these are some good empanadas! when i say good, i mean probably the best in Chicago. So i have been here twice and ordered twice, and i have not had a bad experience. First of all i love the atmosphere of the place, very nice and little and felt very colonial on the outside of the building. kinda reminded me of when i went to Ecuador cause there is a part of Quito which is the capital of Ecuador that has a lot of colonial buildings and it was nice to have that feel since Argentina is another south American country and also where this style of empanadas came from. Also another interesting factoid: 5411 was the code that you had to dial to call Argentina, specifically Buenos Aires, which is a city in Argentina, and where the founders of 5411 are from. and even though the empanadas were made in Chicago they imported them from Argentina and thats why it's called 5411. I also liked that baby blue color that they have painted on they outside of the restaurant and their food truck, which i have never been to but i would like go to someday. Now enough talk about that! let's talk about the food 'cause thats what this blog is about. So let me just say that these empanadas are so flavorful they come nice and hot and when you bite into them BOOM your taste bud will go WILD. I got the BQQ Chicken and the beef. The BQQ Chicken i liked better then the beef, the Chicken was really good and had a amazing barbecue sauce there was also some grilled onions and there were possibly some other herbs but the dough is the real bomb, it's really soft and light kinda like a croissant. The beef was okay the meat was good and the veggies were too, but nothing to rave about. Also you might ask how do you tell the empanadas apart. well they all have different shapes or crusts. that's really cool and there is a little card on the table that tells you which shape represents each empanada. Overall 5411 is really good, so have an adventure and go check it out, try something new, and if you have never had empanadas before, you're in luck.

Max:
So I had never been here before, and i don't eat empanadas that often. but these are spectacularly delicious! i got the Malbec Beef and BBQ Chicken. The Malbec Beef was very good. it had beef and carrot inside. it had a little too much carrot in it, but i just took out a couple pieces of carrot, so it was more balanced with beef and carrot. the BBQ Chicken was SO DELICIOUS! it had cilantro and chicken inside. it was perfectly balanced with chicken and cilantro. and without the cilantro it probably wouldn't taste so good, to be honest. another empanada that i got was the Bacon Dates & Goat Cheese. that was very good too, but i didn't like the taste of the dates with the goat cheese, it made it taste too strong. i also tried a little of the sweet corn. that was also DELICIOUS! it had almost pure corn, but with a little sauce, that both took your taste buds on a journey! also the shell of the empanadas are really crispy, warm, and DELICIOUS! the way they serve you their empanadas feels very authentic Argentinian. they have a sign that tells you to eat with your hands. and that's authentic Argentinian. and i did in fact, eat my empanadas with my hands. there's another sign that shows you each shape of each empanada they serve. so you can know what all the other empanadas look like. the atmosphere is very nice. it basically feels like a argentinian empanadas place. but the overall restaurant was DELICIOUS! and i will go back. also, if you're ever in this neighborhood, i recommend to stop by here.

Otto:
I got the Ham & Cheese Empanada, and I tried the Malbec Beef, but it had too much carrot (as Max already mentioned). The Ham & Cheese was delicious. It was very cheesy, I would say it was like 3/4 cheese, 1/4 ham. But it was really good. I liked the atmosphere of it. It's small and simple, but I liked it. And the menu was simple too. Each empanada was $2.50, so it was not very expensive to eat here. Most people apparently eat 3 or 4, but I only needed 2.