Manny's Tortas

Manny's Tortas is one of those Minneapolis institutions that critics always rave about and newspapers award as one of the best sandwiches in the city year after year, but until today, I'd never actually tried it. Well, now it's my turn to rave about it. Manny's Tortas is the bomb.

I went to the Midtown Global Market this morning because I had to renew my driver's license and they have a DMV location in the basement. That's always the start to good story, right?

"I was at the DMV this morning..."

Actually, I do have a good story. I was in line to get my number, and the woman manning the front desk got into some kind of altercation or argument with her current customer. After a couple minutes, she threw up her hands, stormed off, and yelled, "I don't get paid enough to deal with this!" She came back a few minutes later with her supervisor who took care of things from there. It was pretty exciting.

Anyway, I was talking about Manny's Tortas. If you've never been to the Midtown Global Market, it's a really cool little plaza full of various shops and eateries from different regions and cuisines. It's a fun place to get lunch, and I've tried many places and never gotten anything bad yet. Today I decided to try Manny's because, even though I wasn't hungry at all. I had just had breakfast and biked over to the Market early to beat the lines at the DMV. But I can't go to the Market and not get something to eat. Originally I was just going to grab a sandwich to eat later, but after watching the girl behind the counter cook and assemble my order, I suddenly found myself hungry again.

I ordered the chicken torta, but they were out of chicken, so I switched to the steak. I wasn't heartbroken since I choose chicken at random from the huge list of options. To be honest, I don't know what a torta is, but I assumed it was some kind of sandwich since that's what was in all the pictures. I ate one, and I'm still not sure what a torta is. But I'm assuming it's a sandiwich, since that's what the thing I put in my mouth looked like.

It was grilled steak on a roll, and smothered in some kind of sauce, cheese, and various vegetables, that included but maybe not limited to lettuce, tomato, onion, and jalapenos. There may also have been some kind of refried bean sauce on there, or at least the sauce had a hint of bean flavor. Anyway, I didn't really care what was on it because it just looked and smelled great. And then I tried and it it tasted amazing. This was seriously a serious sandwich. It was kind of like a Mexican cheesesteak, if that makes any sense, and I honestly mean that as high praise. I love cheesesteaks. And now I guess I love tortas too.

It was $7.45, which was a bit pricey for lunch, in my opinion, especially since it wasn't exactly a huge sandwich. But the quality and flavor were super high, and it did come with a bag of potato chips. Not sure why it didn't come with tortilla chips, but whatever. Potato chips are good too. The sandwich could've been spicier, but they probably had hot sauce available at the counter, but I dunno since I took it to go.

Anyway... Many's Tortas. Check it out next time you have to get your drivers license renewed. Or anytime, I guess. It was damn good.