Los Laureles — it’s still the one

Los Laureles
1518 E. Grand Ave., 515-265-2200
Monday – Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday – Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 a.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to midnight

In 1989, CITYVIEW predecessor Skywalker began publishing the column “Since I Quit Drinking.” It was a take on the Rip Van Winkle legend that used new sobriety as awakening to surprisingly new things for one who had been asleep for decades. One early column focused on a new store at East 15th and Grand called La Tienda Mexicana. It was the first Mexican grocery store in Iowa and the spark that ignited the firestorm of Iowa love for a new style of Mexican cuisine.

I met teenaged Rosa Martinez in the parking lot of that tienda. At the time, the overwhelming majority of the local Latino population was young and male. Guys in pickup trucks and cowboy hats would back up in a line that sometimes stretched two blocks west and half a block north as men waited to buy home-made tamales from “la bonita Rosa.” That store was the inspiration of the late visionary Eufracio Majorga. 

Four years later, Eufracio opened Los Laureles in the same parking lot. His restaurant was the OG of the Michoacan-Jalisco-Zacatecas style that has been emulated by so many other restaurants that Des Moines’ “Godfather of Comedy” Willie Farrell jokes about Little Italy becoming Mexican or wannabe Mexican. 

Before La Tienda Mexicana, aspiring restaurateurs like Martinez had to drive to Chicago to stock a week’s worth of masa and corn husks for tamales, or anything else that came from Mexico. She would fret about the irony that she drove past 350 miles of corn fields in each direction. 

This two-taco plate cost just $3 on a Tuesday.

Before Los Laureles, Mexican food was mostly Chihuahuan-Sonoran style, with wheat flour tortillas that deep fried into the addictive Tasty Tacos, or as something derivative of Glen Bell’s sprawling Taco Bell chain and the inventive machine that turned thin tortillas into U shaped hard shells for burger meat. 

Eufracio Majorga’s café was a Rip Van Winkle level awakening for Iowa taste buds long deprived of the excitement begat of fresh or dried chilies, tongue, ceviche, pozole, menudo, tamales, tomatillos, octopus, soft cornmeal tortillas and even cilantro and avocado. Los Laureles was the first place outside Mexico where I tasted multiple homemade hot sauces with chips. Decades later, it was the first place my grandson tried them.  

I visited recently at 2 a.m. because what else is open then? I also returned at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and happy hour. Taco Tuesday means two soft tortillas so stuffed with meats, lettuce, radish slices and onions that one tortilla would not hold it all — for $1.50 each. Those meats are mostly as I first remembered them 32 years ago. Carnitas are both braised and crisped to the crunch that is, in our opinion, the greatest application of pig meat in Iowa. So many restaurants that have followed Los Laureles have ceased the second step, serving carnitas with no crunch and no difference from their guisado. Pastor here is heavily marinated pork shoulder, not the gyros-imitations that predominate locally. 

The shredded beef is braised to the point where it rivals beef cheeks in tenderness. Chicken breast is prepared seven different ways. Steaks eight ways. Tongue six ways. Enchiladas can be ordered with red or green sauce, or Christmas style, which is half and half, or with cream sauce or an excellent mole.

Enchiladas a la Navidad, half red and half green.

Fajitas are somewhat new to the menu. Maybe because they came from the popularization of Tex Mex, which appeared after 1990 in Iowa. Margaritas are a house specialty and are served with six different flavors for just $2.99 or $3.99 for a large one. 

The restaurant now anchors an entire Latino business complex known as La Placita. Half of Los Laureles’ walls are painted a matching shade of gold. The restaurant now has a vibrant patio. Breakfast is served at any hour. It’s still in the Majorcas family, and it’s “still the one.” ♦

Jim Duncan is a food writer who has been covering the central Iowa scene for more than five decades.