The 5 best things our food writers ate this week

Guatemalan enchiladas at Mrs. Taco At Mrs. Taco, the menu spans Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Honduran fare, with the kitchen aiming to stay true to each country’s culinary traditions. That comes through in the Guatemalan enchiladas ($13), featuring an open-faced tortilla stacked with meat, a rainbow of vegetables, herbs, cheese and hard-boiled egg. At Mrs. Taco, the appeal is in the details. The restaurant makes its own tortillas, frying each one to a delicate golden crisp before topping it with seasoned beef, curtido, hard-boiled egg, diced carrots, capers and crema. From finely minced beef and tiny diced carrots to a beet slaw for acidity and capers for brininess, Mrs. Taco makes a delicious case for sweating the small stuff. (Nancy Ngo) 1574 154th Av. NW, Andover, mrstacomn.com Expanded image view The French onion cannelloni at Stelline Italian Kitchen in Minneapolis turns the classic crock of soup into a pasta dish. ( Sharyn Jackson/The Minnesota Star Tribune ) French onion cannelloni at Stelline Italian Kitchen It’s always soup season — to me, anyway. But fall is indisputably French onion soup season, when there’s nothing better than a cowl-neck sweater and a big, cheesy crock of melted onions in beefy broth. Which explains why I fell hard for the French onion cannelloni ($23) at Stelline Italian Kitchen, a pasta-forward reworking of the former Stargazer bar in northeast Minneapolis. Advertisement To capture the coziness of French onion soup in pasta form, Andy Goettsch, the culinary director for the Travail group’s three Italian-leaning restaurants, starts with “way too many onions, sliced thin and cooked down for hours to a dark caramel brown.” Folded with ricotta and Gruyère, the onions become the filling for four neat tubes of egg dough that get baked to order under yet more Gruyère. Breadcrumbs and hazelnuts give it crunch on top. But the flavor doesn’t stop there. The cannelloni are served in a broth “with umami as the main goal,” Goettsch said. They throw in about every umami-bomb ingredient you can think of: charred onion, fried shallot, miso, dried shiitake, shio koji and Parmesan rind, on top of the usual caramelized onions and Madeira. As Goettsch put it, “fermentation creates complexity.” I loved the meaty savoriness up against the richness of the pasta filling, turning a favorite fall soup into something entirely new. (Sharyn Jackson) 1304 NE. 2nd St., Mpls., stellineitaliankitchen.com Expanded image view The signature green papaya salad at Miss Laos Papaya in Falcon Heights. ( Joy Summers/The Minnesota Star Tribune ) Tam Lao at Miss Laos Papaya At the height of summer on a sticky evening as the sun dropped toward the horizon, my family and I were trooping through a lower-level parking lot outside Maplewood Mall when a singular perfume from a food vendor caught my attention: green papaya salad. The papaya salad was exceptional — juicy, crispy and an abundance of flavor. Shredded unripe fruit, little eggplants, sliced tomatoes with a funky dressing spiked with garlic, shallots, fish sauce, lime juice and a rapacious selection of chilis, it’s become one of my favorite summer moments.