My local cheap Mexican restaurant, which made the best enchiladas con pollo I have EVER tasted, smothered in a spicy rich mole, was just closed for health violations.
I DON’T CARE! I WANT MY ENCHILADAS CON POLLO! I wonder if the citation includes an alternate address for the owners - they could maybe come over and cook some for me.
Sqrl, you ain’t kidding about D.C., although I love Salvadoran food and miss El Tamarindo fiercely. There is a restaurant on the corner of 18th and Columbia that purports to have good Mexican food, but it’s expensive and bad.
Reemul, I was going to nominate El Paso, too-- Casa Jurado in Kern Place supposedly has the best molé in El Paso. Mmmmmmm. Mexican food. Can’t get it where I am. Mmmmmm.
runs off to make a pathetic peanut butter and jelly burrito since she can’t get real Mexican food in this town
LOL, Peanut butter and jelly burrito. Some of my friends used to do that. (They are hispanic.) I always thought it was a rather disjunct crossing of cultures.
I think El Tamarindo is still around but for DC. I have eaten there once and it was ok. I pretend that The El Paso Cafe in Springfield is close enough to good Tex Mex to eat at regularly. (It is actually about as close as Taco Bell is to real mexican food but significantly better quality/flavor.) I mainly go to the latter to get some Leche Dulce’s as we used to call them in Texas. I wonder what they are made of. If anyone knows I would love to know… Hmmm… this sounds like a topic that I will post in MPSIMS.
Living in the Chicago area I have never seen mole on the menu anyplace, however I did have fantastic mole once. The brown kind.
It was in Florida.
Orlando.
Disney World, the Mexican restaurant in Epcot (at the Mexico pavillion, whoda thunk). They used to have crap Mexican, but I went in one day with my girlfriend (now wife) because she had never been there before. I got the chicken mole and practically licked the plate.
runs and hides known the inevitable anti-Disney flames will commmence**
I love molé! But yeah, it’s really, really hard to find good stuff.
Here in Seattle, Two Dagos from Texas has a pretty good brown-molé chicken dish (the chef grew up on the Texas-Mexican border), and the version at Rositas on Green Lake is passable.
However, I prefer to get these little pre-mixed spice packets from a tiny shop on Whidbey Island. Add a couple of ingredients, stir-fry with chicken, and you’re in business.
The strong syllable is the first; MOL-eh. Thus, technically no accent mark. Taquiera Tapatia is the best I have had in Houston. Still a bit sweet, but a spicy aftertaste. Of course, with homeade I would have a little sweat on my brow.
When i lived in Austin, there was this place on Oltorf, called El Jacalito which was pretty good. Me and my roommate would hit it sundays for lunch on occasion. We both grew up in El Paso, him being born in East L.A., his mom being from Monterrey, Mx. Now, SHE was a great cook. Every christmas she’d make tamales from scratch… they were to DIE FOR!!. Makes me tear up just thinking about them.
Anyway. That place had some decent chicken mole.
There is a place in Round Rock that has some decent stuff too. Ixtapa, up on highway 79. It’s kind of hit or miss, either it’s so-so, or it’s pretty good. maryliza, never been to the place you’re talking about in El Paso… but then mexican food is pretty plentiful there. The best i ever had? Some little dinky shack off of North Loop and Hawkins. Used to go there when i worked in a warehouse in the industrial park near there. Used to get mole, burritos, and carnitas.
Ooooh. Some may pine for their mole, and i’d sure like some too… but if i had to ask, it’d be for some awesome carnitas. Hot, with little bits of grease still on them… some good tortillas, some pico de gallo… pardon me while i gnaw on a pencil.
Just to point out that native isn’t necessarily better. I have a coworker who lived in a town in Mexico for five years as a teenager. He claims it was the worst Mexican food he has ever had. Can’t say if they had good mole, though.
Trust me. This is no “take me to Taco Bell” kind of guy. I have been able to experience some of the finest restaurants in the Bay Area by getting invited to his lunch meetings.
This guy can take one bite of food and not only tell you what spices are in the food, but what was next to the spice jar in the cupboard.
I love mole. I’ve had it several times when friends make it, but I have never made it myself. In fact, I was talking about it with my family and they had never even heard of it. I live in Houston and there are a gazillion Mexican food restaurants, but I have never seen mole on the menu. Too bad.
