Quesadilla La Reina Del Sur

This is a wonderful vegan/​vegetarian Mexican place! I can’t eat cheese and I can still have great tasting Mexican food, how awesome is that. They use fresh ingredients and make their own tortillas! And watch out for their massive smoothie/​juice list, so hard to decide, but always delicious!

We’ve loved the other location for years and to have one in our back yard now is too good to be true. Welcome, we love you! As a lifelong vegetarian I always used to wonder what real Mexican food was like. Turns out it’s delicious.

Looking for incredible vegetarian/​vegan Mexican cuisine?
That particular, ever-​elusive unicorn of ethnic food DOES EXIST right at the far northeastern edge of Rogers Park.
With 2 locations in the city, this place really brings the goods– delicious, fresh, and wholly satisfying. And you may even be able to fool your most stalwart meat-​eating friends with the vast selection of soy-​based substitutes available here. Fresh juices and smoothies of just about any variety you’d imagine will provide a healthy start to your meal. I can’t believe how many dishes are offered on the menu and can never decide in less than 15 minutes. Don’t forget to check out the daily specials and soups as well.
Service is fast and friendly and the prices are very reasonable for food of this quality. The dining room is bright and spacious and always kept spotless.
Home delivery is available but they are closed on Friday evenings after sunset and Saturdays before sunset, so call ahead to confirm. Also, please note that this is a ‘cash only’ business, but you can visit the atm at the gas station across the street.

I was pleasantly surprised by how delicious everything tasted. I ordered the homemade tamales, chicken fajitas, guacamole and the banana ice cream and everything was divine!

They ran out of regular cheese. Craziest thing I ever heard. Not to mention waiting almost 40 mins and then finding out no cheese for my food. Should call ahead to make sure there is cheese next time!

I have long loved the restaurant at Fullerton & Western, and was thinking of making the trek there from Rogers Park for lunch. I checked Unilocal to see if it had their Sunday hours and was absolutely delighted to find there was a new restaurant half a mile from where I was. I rounded up my sister and her gf, both carnivores, and told them if they were willing to eat at a vegetarian place I’d buy them lunch. They were in as long as it wasn’t vegan and had cheese, they said, and I knew it did — I’m not vegan myself and I dislike vegan cheeses.
We pulled up right in front and were dismayed to find a Cash Only sign on the door. Back into the car and to an ATM. Back to the restaurant, so excited and hungry…
We were greeted by a friendly server and told to sit wherever we wanted. We chose a big table and got ready to order. I had coached S and GF earlier that they should make sure to order dairy cheese because I knew they wouldn’t like the vegan cheese. We ordered guacamole and tried to order drinks. The girls were disappointed there was no soda available, but hey, it’s a juice bar and they did have horchata. I was hoping for some iced tea, but none of that either. We got water.
We ordered guacamole and once we added salt, it was really good. I was also disappointed that the chips seemed to be bagged — one of the best parts of eating Mexican is fresh-​made chips. The trio of salsas we were served with our chips was almost delicious enough to make up for this.
We asked for smoothies and I ordered a huarache (basically an open-​face quesadilla) with soy carne asada and dairy cheese. I’d had this twice at the Western location and it was perfect — not too greasy, perfect seasoning on the soy meat, lots of cheese, good sope base. S and GF both ordered flautas with dairy cheese. I also mentioned to the server that I would be ordering some beans and tamales to go — I do that regularly from the other location as I live in the distant suburbs now and I like to bring home Chicago food.
We waited for our food… and waited some more. We were the only people in the restaurant, so it didn’t make sense that we were waiting so long for smoothies, which we’d wanted to counteract the delicious heat from the salsa. We figured maybe they were bringing them out with our main dish — but after twenty minutes, we really didn’t see why we didn’t have ALL the food. Another table of people came in at that point and were followed in by a woman who didn’t seem to have all of her marbles and kept asking for money and hot sauce. While we had initially spotted only one person working in the restaurant — our server — several more suddenly came out to help oust the marbleless lady and threaten her with police. So that was fun.
Literally 50 minutes after we entered, we were finally served our smoothies and then our entrees. We were starving at this point and couldn’t wait to dig in. Then I noticed that my hurarache didn’t seem to have any cheese on it. Instead it had beans. I proceeded to have the following conversation with our server.
Me: I’m sorry, I don’t see any cheese on this.
Her: We don’t have any cheese.
Me: …I ordered cheese.
Her: Do you want vegan cheese?
Me: No. Why didn’t you tell me when I ordered cheese that you… didn’t have any?
Her: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The lady went out to get some cheese. She will be back in five minutes.
Me: And then you’ll put cheese on top of this?
Her: Yes, she will be back very soon. Five minutes.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me you were out of cheese when I ordered?
Her: I’m sorry. My English is not so good.
Me: It seems pretty good to me. We’re communicating right now.
Her: I will bring the flautas. They are okay without cheese, yes?
S and GF: Well, no, not really…
Me: No. We ordered them with cheese because that’s what we wanted.
Her: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You want to wait for the lady?
Me: No. You guys want to go?
They did and we left. She didn’t charge us anything, just told us to leave, so we got free salsa, chips, guac, and smoothies. Because of that and how sweet our server was, they’re getting the second star.
But seriously…
1. You don’t take credit cards, even though a vegetarian restaurant generally appeals to a slightly more upscale crowd accustomed to using them, oh, and it’s 2015?
2. You ran out of cheese? At 1pm on a Sunday? You’re a MEXICAN RESTAURANT. You can’t run out of cheese. It’s not reasonable.
3. Then we order food with cheese — and specify the kind of cheese we want, and on all three entrees… and you don’t tell us you’re out of cheese?
4. THEN, you attempt to serve us our entrees as if we somehow won’t notice the lack of cheese, and are surprised when we object?
5. Also, our food took 50 minutes when we were one of only two tables in the restaurant? With no explanation?
I have never typed the word «cheese» so many times in one sitting. But seriously. These guys have got to step up their game a LOT.

Great mexican vegetarian food. I had the entomatado de asada and lentil soup. Very tasty and well made. Not too spicy but did have good flavor. I had a fruit and veggie health drink and while good was a bit overpriced. The tortillas were the best part of the meal. They were excellent, wanted more than just one container!

I dined at this place based on the strength of its Unilocal reviews. My experience was so off base from the others that I felt the need to add some dissonance in here. To the owners — please take this feedback to heart, as we would like to see you succeed in the neighborhood.
We ordered nachos and a veggie burrito expecting healthy Mexican food, as advertised. After all, $ 20 usually goes a long way for Mexican in Chicago. The nachos were an oversized pile of bland chips with a thin layer of melted cheese, refried beans, and some fake meat. There were no vegetables present. The chips/​topping ratio was extremely imbalanced. The veggie burrito had more of an array of ingredients, and it was quite a large portion. However it was equally as flavorless and disappointing. We specially requested guacamole on both our items, however it was not included. They get a bonus star for not giving us a significant hassle when we asked our order be corrected. The guacamole tasted wholly unseasoned and relied too heavily on some thick slices of red onion.
In addition to serving better quality food, I think this restaurant should rewrite the menu to be more descriptive. Our main issue here is how expectations did not add up to reality. «Healthy» and «vegetarian» implies actual vegetables will be present. Instead all we noticed was what was left out. The prices also seem unfair for what we got.

Go on Sunday and get that pozole verde, tamales Oaxacan style and a taco to put those delicious fresh salsas on.

Very good vegetarian tacos! I’m your typical omnivore, and the vegan meats here taste just like the real thing. Also, the salsa here is nice and spicy, just how I like it. My husband and I got our order to go, but we definitely plan to return for a sit-​down meal since the atmosphere was laid-​back and they’re BYOB.

Authentic Mexican food, and it’s all vegetarian! I love Mexican food but hardly ever go to Mexican restaurants, because it’s so hard to find food that doesn’t have hidden meat or meat products in it, and when you do, the only veggie option is something boring like a cheese enchilada. Not here — there’s multiple soy meat options, combined with authentic Mexican ingredients, so I had the rare occasion of being able to enjoy some of the dishes I can never get. I got two enchiladas– one was huitlacoche, one was soy steak and nopales. These were huge — one would have been plenty, but I couldn’t make up my mind so I had to order two. The other people I was with got the steak tacos, tamales, and flautas. Everything was amazing, right down to the chips and quite spicy salsa roja and salsa verde. Can’t wait to go back and try more of their menu items… I’m really wondering what vegan chicharron would taste like.

This is my favorite place for vegan tacos, hands down. The fake meat selection is extensive and I’ve liked nearly everything I’ve tried. The tamales are soooo good and the guac is good quality. The soup was so so, but not everything about a place can be outstanding. Very reasonably priced and BYOB. Check it out.

I was about to give this place 4 stars, but there was nothing this place did wrong. The service was friendly, the food was good, the space inviting. So why was I hesitating to give it 5 stars? Probably because I’m not a vegan, and this place isn’t located in a trendy location. With that said, I encourage people to try some great food, and delicious smoothies, and leave any preconceived notions at home. It may not be for everyone, but definitely worth a try.

Love this place! Wish more people discovered it — it seems a little tucked away and doesn’t get a lot of business yet whenever I’m there, but the food is wonderful (I’m omnivore but like healthy food I can trust, and this is definitely both).
For vegans, Howard is becoming a great place to hang out — between this one and the Amazing Kale Burger a few blocks over, you definitely won’t have to go hungry.
I’ve been four times and always get random tacos and they’re all spectacular. It’s all fake meat in spicy sauce with veggies, how could you go wrong?

Great flavors, awesome selection, mostly vegan and best of all close to home, even though I love their original location some times it could be a bit of a drive

Just tried this place and the food was super tasty. I’m not vegetarian but I would come back here anytime.
Everything we ordered was delicious! Great addition to the neighborhood.
Only bad thing was the Laura Pausini CD playing. Need better music.

Had a great huarache with huitlacoche and a quesadilla with calabaza. Also got the salsa verde pozole with the soy meat and a fruit smoothie with papaya and guava.
A little pricier than Clark Street options and smaller portions, but it is one block from home. Smoothie options are something you would not find at your usual Mexican place.
Soy/​vegan options a plenty. The pozole bowl was a generous portion though and the heat and taste was good. We got it not so much for the soy but just to try something different from their menu.