Villa Victoria

UPDATE: Villa Victoria has closed its doors. Here is a re-post of Premuim-T´s comment that alerted me to the fact:

Naomi of Villa Victoria has closed her storefront, but she still does fantastic catering. Last fall I attended a wine-tasting dinner that she catered and it was fantastic. She has a blog: http://seattlemexicanfoodblog.typepad.com/

(Thanks T for sharing the unfortunate news!)
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Villa Victoria is a cute little tamale shop in Columbia City. It is tiny- just barely enough room to walk in and peruse the case and order, and possibly, if the shop is void of other customers, to sit along the window at a narrow bar. But in general the place is suited for taking your food away.

Delectable glass case

They have plenty of vegetarian options, starting with jalepeno cheese tamales. They are tasty, but heavy on the masa and light on the filling. And as I write this, I just realized that I don't know whether they use meat juice/lard in their masa. Hmm. Going to have to find out.

Another standard item in the case are little cheese and onion enchiladas. They are made from corn tortillas and smothered in an authentic pepper sauce.
One also has the option of ordering outside of the case, which includes giant delicious looking burritos. We saw many being made as we ate, and they were huge and succulent. They have a tofu adobe burrito that I am looking forward to trying one of these days.

The sides at Villa Victoria are excellent. Each of their homemade salsas are delicious, as is their guacamole (both of which can be purchased in larger containers to take home). They also make some super good greens.
For dessert, they have some Mexican wedding cookies, which look good, and Chocolate Truffle Cookies. I bought a chocolate truffle cookie, and was a bit dissapointed to find it to be dry and cake-y and neither rich nor particularly chocolatly. With a name like "truffle cookie," and a deep coco brown color like it had, I would expect a serious chocolate encounter. Oh well. I know some people would prefer it this way.

Villa Victoria

(206) 329-1717

3829 S Edmunds St
Seattle, WA 98118
http://www.villa-victoria.net/