Thursday, May 27, 2010

Eat the Menu: Tacodeli, Day 12

This is part of an ongoing series about my quest to try all of the yumminess at local restaurant Tacodeli. See my eat the menu tag for the other parts of the series.

After yesterday's result, I tried a new technique. Jessica loves Puerco Borracho and doesn't like Mole Chicken, so she told me she also didn't like Adobados. That, of course, immediately moved it to the top of the queue. I added in a simple favorite of another friend (with whom my tastes seem to better match), the Poblano.


The Adobados is "Scrumptious adobo marinated chicken with cilantro and onions. Our adobo is made from scratch using chipotle, ancho and guajillo peppers." Scrumptious is right. Even though it's pretty much purely pepper, there was something about this that makes me put it in the same "family" as mole, which, of course, means it's yummy. I give it 0.9 moles.

The Poblano is as simple and to-the-point as its description, "Mama's cheese stuffed poblano recipe." The flavor is much less complex than the Adobados, but still pretty good. I'm not sure that I'll get it again (unless I have a strong hankering for cheese), but that's just because there are so many amazing things. I'll go with 0.75 moles.

I logged my scores so far in a spreadsheet, because, well, you can see the name of the blog. I may need a slow trek back through the menu (probably more spread out) once I'm done, but for the most part my scores still seem about right in hindsight. Someday I'll at least have to break up that clump between 0.9 and 1.1, but I don't think that'll be too hard to convince myself to do.

I'm still wandering free tomorrow. These are the tacos I have left. Which should I try?

  • Mexico City Sirloin ("Grilled sirloin with diced onion & cilantro.")
  • Picadillo ("100% grass fed Burgundy Pasture ground beef in a spicy tomato & jalapeño sauce, garnished with lettuce & tomato.")
  • Thunder Heart Bison Picadillo ("Ground bison seasoned with roasted garlic, tomato, caramelized onion, melted jack cheese and jalapeño. Topped with fresh cilantro and onions.")
  • Mole Taco Pork ("Shredded pork smothered with a traditional, made-from-scratch mole. Garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco.")
  • Puerco Verde ("Tender pork shoulder simmered in a delicious tomatillo salsa and topped with queso fresco, cilantro and onion.")
  • Cochinita Pibil ("Yucatecan style roasted pork marinated and cooked in citrus and achiote. A unique tropical flavor garnished with pickled purple onions and serranos.")
  • Frontera Fundido Chicken ("Grilled chicken with sauteéd poblano pepper and onion strips glazed with melted monterrey jack cheese.")
  • Mexico City Chicken ("Grilled chicken with diced onion & cilantro.")
  • Happy Taco ("Seasoned shredded chicken with sauteéd mushrooms and melted jack cheese, garnished with cilantro & onion.")
  • Frontera Fundido Portabella ("Oven roasted portabellas with sauteed pepper & onion strips and glazed with melted monterrey jack cheese.")
  • Florentino ("Healthy fresh spinach taco sauteéd in olive oil & sherry with onion, mushroom and red bell peppers.")
  • Veggie Taco ("Our special veggie mix of carrots, onion, celery, red bell, poblano, zucchini, mushroom and cabbage sauteéd in olive oil & sherry.")
I technically have a bunch of other stuff to try, too, but the tacos will do for now, unless I'm extra hungry.

3 comments:

Nate Harrison said...

Adobados gets an "A" from me.

A good strategy I have previously discussed with Carl is to buy a Poblano and eat it first; the result is that the overflowing cheese populates your other tacos with an extra ingredient.

Jon Harmon said...

Yeah, Carl mentioned that strategy to me. For *this* tasting I carefully contained the Poblano's cheese to avoid cross-contamination... but that strategy would probably be good at some point in the future. Thanks for mentioning it, since I forgot to :)

Jessica said...

Oh, cochinita pibil is something that I really like at Fonda San Miguel, but found it disappointing at Tacodeli. Not sure if that helps with the "order opposite of Jessica" strategy.