A group of four tried out a few items at Mezcazlero on 14th St in Columbia Heights, DC.
Of special interest were the tacos de canasta, a street food of Mexico City. Meaning ‘basket tacos,’ they are tacos piled up in a huge basket that gets steamed.
They don’t reproduce the same technique here, but they try to get the same result. I have to say, the set of three tacos were superbly delicious. They serve one each of pork, potato with chorizo, and black bean. The tacos are dipped in a sauce, and they also give you a hearty salsa verde on the side which is very delicious. I could just drink it straight.
After the success of the tacos de canasta, it was downhill from there.
We ordered two sandwich on bread that was far too squishy. First a cemita, which is a seeded roll. It’s the wrong texture and the fillings are a bit lame. Overall not impressive. If you want a truly great cemita you might have to get to Baltimore and go to Cinco de Mayo Taqueria. Honestly worth the trip. I’m not sure if anywhere else in the DC area serves a cemita.
The second sandwich was a pambazo which gets gently dipped in a salsa, but again the bread starts off too squishy and the mashed potato filling was boring
We then had an assortment of happy hour tacos. BIzarrely, they were about 50% seasoned rice, and the fillings were either salty (albondgas) or ineffectual (chile relleno or pork).
