Seasoning Sturgeon Bay

“I cook the same things in my restaurant that I cook in my home,” Laura Silva Rodriguez said. “You can feel that you are in my home, eating the same things I cook for my husband and babies!”

El Sazon, which means “the seasoning,” is located in the West Marine Plaza on Highway 42 in Sturgeon Bay. The business began life as La Laguna, a Mexican grocery and restaurant owned by Rodriguez’s uncle Hector Sierra who sold the business to her.

After gaining experience cooking in a Mexican restaurant in Green Bay, she worked for her uncle at La Laguna. Now she runs the restaurant, renamed El Sazon, with the assistance of her husband Dagoberto Rodriguez and her brother Ricardo Sierra.

But Laura Rodriguez’s experience preparing food goes back to her girlhood in La Piedad, a town near Guadalajara, Mexico. “I always liked being in the kitchen with my mom and grandma,” Rodriguez said. “‘I can help you!’ I’d say. We had a big family and for special occasions, like Christmas and birthdays, we made a lot of food!

“My mother and my grandmother were my teachers,” she continued. “They were very good cooks.”

People who have only experienced Mexican cuisine from fast food restaurants will find familiar tacos and burritos at El Sazon, but they will have the opportunity to sample sit-down restaurant fare as well: enchiladas, chile rellenos, fajitas, quesadillas, and tamales, for example.

Rodriguez laughs when she recalls one customer who was so taken with her tamales, that he ate six of them for his dinner.

But the food served at El Sazon, it is not “fast food;” Rodriguez offers “my own food, my own family recipes.” She creates her own salsas, fixes her own mole sauce, prepares frijoles from dried pinto beans, and bakes her own flan (egg custard) – all from scratch.

Rodriguez, who is taking classes to improve her English, had never heard the colloquialism “cooking from scratch” but smiles and nods her head because the phrase describes her approach to food preparation.

She prides herself on the fact that her Mexican food is authentic. Purveyors operating out of Chicago are able to provide her with the same ingredients that she would use if she were back home in La Piedad, including fresh poblano, jalapeno, and serrano peppers.

Some of the genuine Mexican food she presents might challenge conventional Midwestern palates. Lengua, for example, is beef tongue. “When it is ground up,” Rodriguez said, “it tastes very good and people don’t think about tongues!”

The restaurant’s soups are homemade, too. But not every diner can order and enjoy the classic Mexican dish, menudo. This writer has made valiant attempts to eat the soup, but many of us North Americans have a different attitude toward beef tripe than do those living in Europe and Central America.

El Sazon offers an impressive menu, providing customers with an array of choices. Tacos and burritos, for example, may be filled with grilled steak, chicken, marinated pork, shredded beef, or sliced peppers with cheese.

And a shrimp soup is also available.

Tortas are sandwiches grilled in an electric panini-style press; sopes are similar to a small taco salad, except Rodriguez makes her corn tortilla shells from scratch; and gringas are flour tortillas stuffed with a mixture of spicy pork, mushrooms, and pineapple.

Seafood Mexican entrees are also available, featuring shrimp and tilapia.

As El Sazon serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rodriguez keeps busy in her restaurant kitchen. “I am the only cook,” she said, “but I enjoy it because I like cooking.”

Because the restaurant is open seven days a week, she has plenty of opportunities to cook. “I want people to come here and enjoy my food,” she added.

The illustrated menu is bilingual, providing a helpful introduction to Mexican cuisine.

Rodriguez in her quest to become more fluently bilingual enjoys talking with customers as a way to improve her English proficiency. And she laughs, noting that her eight-year-old son helpfully points out any of her mispronunciations.

The El Sazon Mexican Restaurant, which is open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 8 pm, and Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm, offers carry-outs in addition to restaurant seating. Call 920.743.6740 for more information.