I want to start by thanking Steve for arranging this outing. The amount of effort he puts into scoping out interesting places is impressive and appreciated.
My apologies for my bad photos (which are in Steve’s review), but in my defense the table was so cluttered and cramped, I had to crop them mercilessly and take a lot of long distance photos.
Which brings me to my bottom line about this restaurant – it’s not best enjoyed in a “sharing” outing. They were kind of overwhelmed by a group of 11. I suspect it would be much better if you went with a smaller group and everyone just had their own entree. Some of the dishes were too small to share among 11 people and some dishes never made it to our end of the long table or arrived with only a small bite or two left (and I’m sure the same is true for the other end of the table). That’s on the restaurant, which should have made sure that for the smaller dishes we ordered two (which they did for the tlayuda and pancita, but mostly because Steve and Jim Z cross-examined the waiter to make sure).
I also was not able to taste many of the dishes because they were covered with goopy cheese (lactose intolerant). I seriously doubt that if you go to Oaxaca, you would get very many dishes covered with goopy cheese. I guess you could consider it an experiment in Tex-Mex/Oaxacan fusion, but if so I’d say that was an ill-advised experiment.
From what I did taste, the two clear winners were the pancita (cow foot soup), which had some real zing to it and a nice mix of textures with cow foot, tripe, and shinbone meat, and the bottle of morita chile sauce on the table. That was maybe the smokiest hot sauce I’ve ever had and I managed to consume about half a bottle all by myself.
I also enjoyed the chicken mole quite a bit. I thought it was complex and interesting, though, like a lot of moles, it was a bit too sweet for my Americanized tastes.
I did try to pick around the goopy cheese in the tlayuda and found that without the layer of liquified cheese the beef was pretty dry and stringy.
I passed on the alambre and sopes as being hopelessly cheesy. The tasajo and the enchilada de carne were enjoyable grilled dishes, but not all that distinguishable from fajitas at a Tex-Mex place with a good kitchen.
I don’t have even the vaguest memory of the camarones en salsa picilla and apparently did not even see it (thus, no photo).
I thought the place was interesting and had a lot of potential. I’m definitely planning to go back at some point with Toni for a two-person meal, which I suspect will show the restaurant in a better light.
And I’ve already starting researching how to make my own chile morita sauce at home.
Oh, and the hibiscus agua fresca was way too sweet, but again that’s my American taste buds.
