WE are happy to serve you!
Please call us at 989-401-2033,
when you Are About To aRrive!
Our Specialty is Our Patitos
Patito Dinners $10
Inculdes 2 Patitos, rice, beans, a pop, a brownie and our special Salsa for $10
A single Patito is $4.00
***
TOSTADA Dinners $10
Includes 2 Tostadas with cilantro, rice, beans, a pop, a brownie and our special chile sauce
A SINGLE BEAN TOSTADA is $3.00
(with meat add $1.00)
***
PLEASE CALL 989-401-2033,
15 min before your arrival for pickup of your order. Please have patience for your food, as everything is homemade and we try to keep it nice and hot for you.
15 min before your arrival for pickup of your order. Please have patience for your food, as everything is homemade and we try to keep it nice and hot for you.
Patito Dinner
$10.00
Our specialty - includes 2 deep fried Tacos (with our special seasoning and delcious tortillas) Served with rice, beans, a brownie, a pop and our special salsa.
A Tostada with Cilantro and a great Avocado sauce
$3.00
A fried corn tortilla made by Saginaw Vargas Tortillas, covered with refried beans, cheese, topped with lettuce and tomatoes. Oh and cilantro makes it so good and our avocado sauce. If you do not want cilantro please let us know when you order.
If you add meat, please ad $1
Tostada Dinner
$10.00
2 fried tortillas, covered with beans cheese, lettuce, tomatoe and Cilantro to give it that good taste, served with avocado slices. We include rice, beans, a brownie, a pop and our special salsa. Includes Cilantro on tostadas and Avocado sauce. mmmmmmm
MENUDO
$10.00
Tripe cooked in our menudo sauce with added hominy, includes a side of rice, a lemon slice and onions. One pint is $10.00. It is delicious!
Posole
$10.00
Neck bones, and pork butt seasoned in a delcious red sauce that is a Mexican favorite. Hominy, a side of rice, lemon slices and onions included. Mmmmmmm Unique soup only sold here.
(Consuming raw or uncooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs
may increase your risk of foodborne illness.)
may increase your risk of foodborne illness.)
The Mighty Patito
BY LARRY J. RODARTE © MI Gente Magazine
As a fundraising effort, Saginaw’s Unión Cívica Mexicana has cooked up Friday lunches for the past 10 years. They have served different Mexican favorites such as tacos (hard and soft shell), nachos, burritos, tostadas and enchiladas to change up the menu from week to week. But nothing is as successful or popular like the “Mighty Patito.”
Most Mexican-Americans in Saginaw are familiar with the fried-up flour tortilla, but many outside of the community are unfamiliar with this “fluffy taco.” Saginaw native transplants who now live in Texas, have come to realize that they really can’t find the “patito” anywhere down south and have had to make their own— after salivating at their computer screens while looking at the Cívica pictures of patitos.
Take for instance Connie Medel, who posted the following recently on Facebook: “I really wish someone from Saginaw would move to San Antonio and open a restaurant that sold only PATITOS!!!!! Seriously!”
Medel’s comments incited a string of responses where people called them chalupas and empanadas. It also prompted the reason for this story.
So where did the patito originate? Throughout history, I’m sure it is impossible to pinpoint who first fried a homemade rolled-out flour tortilla, so Mi Gente Magazine went to a long-time culinary expert to hear her thoughts.
“I remember going to the El Gallito Restaurant on Hess Street, way back in the late 1960’s,” said Della Chantaca, whose daughter Rita married Frank Gallardo. “No one was allowed in the kitchen, but the owner Felix Gallardo was Frank’s brother — so he let us go back there to say hello to his mom Connie Gallardo. I observed her making the patitos, her little round masa balls and rolling them out, and tooth-picking them together. Mrs. Gallardo told me herself that she was going to patent the name patito, and Frank told me they eventually did.”
For over 40 years El Gallito Restaurant served their famous patitos until they closed in 2011. No other Mexican restaurant could call their fried-up flour tortilla that name; thus you had several similar concoctions such as the Ruiz Taco, the Puffy Taco, to name a few.
Earlier this year, Tino’s Tamale Hut opened at 228 W. Genesee, and they named their patito “Tino’s Taco.” It consisted of the usual — meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, but they also include beans.
The patito has sort of become a “Saginaw thing,” as James Belser III stated after seeing them on Facebook. He first questioned whether they were a “meatless taco.” Belser III is originally from Detroit, but now lives in Lansing.
As El Gallito first brought the patitos into prominence in Saginaw, it is the Unión Cívica Mexicana that has brought the “little ducks” back into the spotlight. Sales triple for their Friday lunches whenever the patitos are on the menu.
Lines of hungry patrons have stood waiting for the “Civica All-Stars” to fry up their specialties at festivals such as the recent Low4Life Car Slam and the Midwest Tejano Music Festival.
What is amazing is that so many non-Latinos are now ordering them and are becoming familiar with the name “patito,” said Civica President Angela Blanco. “My uncle Felix, I think, would be proud that we are keeping the ‘patito’ alive.”
If you would like to be on the list for notices as to when the Union Civica is making patitos call us at (989)-239-8961.
Most Mexican-Americans in Saginaw are familiar with the fried-up flour tortilla, but many outside of the community are unfamiliar with this “fluffy taco.” Saginaw native transplants who now live in Texas, have come to realize that they really can’t find the “patito” anywhere down south and have had to make their own— after salivating at their computer screens while looking at the Cívica pictures of patitos.
Take for instance Connie Medel, who posted the following recently on Facebook: “I really wish someone from Saginaw would move to San Antonio and open a restaurant that sold only PATITOS!!!!! Seriously!”
Medel’s comments incited a string of responses where people called them chalupas and empanadas. It also prompted the reason for this story.
So where did the patito originate? Throughout history, I’m sure it is impossible to pinpoint who first fried a homemade rolled-out flour tortilla, so Mi Gente Magazine went to a long-time culinary expert to hear her thoughts.
“I remember going to the El Gallito Restaurant on Hess Street, way back in the late 1960’s,” said Della Chantaca, whose daughter Rita married Frank Gallardo. “No one was allowed in the kitchen, but the owner Felix Gallardo was Frank’s brother — so he let us go back there to say hello to his mom Connie Gallardo. I observed her making the patitos, her little round masa balls and rolling them out, and tooth-picking them together. Mrs. Gallardo told me herself that she was going to patent the name patito, and Frank told me they eventually did.”
For over 40 years El Gallito Restaurant served their famous patitos until they closed in 2011. No other Mexican restaurant could call their fried-up flour tortilla that name; thus you had several similar concoctions such as the Ruiz Taco, the Puffy Taco, to name a few.
Earlier this year, Tino’s Tamale Hut opened at 228 W. Genesee, and they named their patito “Tino’s Taco.” It consisted of the usual — meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, but they also include beans.
The patito has sort of become a “Saginaw thing,” as James Belser III stated after seeing them on Facebook. He first questioned whether they were a “meatless taco.” Belser III is originally from Detroit, but now lives in Lansing.
As El Gallito first brought the patitos into prominence in Saginaw, it is the Unión Cívica Mexicana that has brought the “little ducks” back into the spotlight. Sales triple for their Friday lunches whenever the patitos are on the menu.
Lines of hungry patrons have stood waiting for the “Civica All-Stars” to fry up their specialties at festivals such as the recent Low4Life Car Slam and the Midwest Tejano Music Festival.
What is amazing is that so many non-Latinos are now ordering them and are becoming familiar with the name “patito,” said Civica President Angela Blanco. “My uncle Felix, I think, would be proud that we are keeping the ‘patito’ alive.”
If you would like to be on the list for notices as to when the Union Civica is making patitos call us at (989)-239-8961.
