Like clockwork, I usually order the same thing when I go to this restaurant, and I always have the same reaction (I don’t know what’s wrong with me). I order the chilaquiles verde, because I really like the sauce and I love how they serve scrambled eggs on top, but i can’t stand how soggy they are! I swear I’ve ordered them before and the chips were crunchier, or maybe my particular dish on this particular day sat under a heatlamp for too long, but really, they were very soggy and I could not finish them. This is consistent though, it’s nothing new – they are always like this, so just be warned!

I think in the back of my mind I have an inner ray of hope that they will arrive on the crunchier side, since I really like their regular tortilla chips, but perhaps the authentic way to serve them is soft and floppy? Please, someone tell me so I can manage my expectations and order something else next time I go there!

Above is the menu in all its glory! Below is my dish, as it looks after it arrived at my table.

Very beautiful placement and food styling… love the avocado and the layers. The tortilla chips (should I call them chips or just tortilla triangles?) are tossed in green verde sauce which is tangy and has a spicy bite (not too hot).  The eggs are fluffy and make this dish an awesome breakfast meal.

Oh no, my ultimate soggy nightmare. I can’t even… sorry. I love this place, I really do – they have bomb ass margaritas and drinks, the dinner entrees are fantastic – and this dish is delicious minus the sogginess of the tortillas. So please, for the love of gods, be warned if you order this dish because the tortillas are NOT crunchy and crispy – they are soggy and they will flop on your fork.

If you’re in Berkeley, I highly recommend a trip to Doña Tomás’ sister restaurant, Tacubaya, which is more in the style of a tacqueria. I always appreciate their awwesome crunchy salty homemade tortilla chips!

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Here’s the menu and place setting… you can see they serve a small bowl of fried spiced chickpeas which are very crunchy and tasty.

We started with an appetizer of the Totopos con Chile (tortilla chips, salsa de arbol, cotija cheese, onions, cilantro, crema and lime). The chips are coated in the salsa (which is extremely spicy) – it’s the closest equivalent to nachos meets chilaquiles.  I enjoyed the totopos very much, and couldn’t stop eating them despite being so spicy my eyes were watering and my face was red and hot and my mouth was on fire.

Here are the carnitas! I ordered this dish because it got amazing reviews and I wanted to see what all the hype was about.  As you can see it’s quite a large piece of meat, served with coleslaw and hot sauce.  This is the menu description: Braised pork, orange, bay leaf, milk, cinnamon, beer Cabbage salad, pickled jalapeño and salsa de tomatillo.  The dish is also served with a few hot tortillas.

Here’s a closeup!

The meat is tender and juicy with some charred bits that are super tasty.  I ended up making mini tacos with the meat, tortillas and slaw (“cabbage salad”)… I had to order a second order of tortillas and ate a total of about 5. Yummers!

When the check came they brought little mexican cookies – kind of nutty with powdered sugar on top.

That’s it!  Have you been to Nopalito? What did you think?

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Here’s the burrito bowl.  It is monstrous.  And I felt pretty sick after I ate the whole thing since I wasn’t so hungry to begin with…. but it was good.  …Not amazing like OMFG, but salty and tasty.

Chipotle
1050 Gilman St
(between 10th St & San Pablo Ave)
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 526-6047
www.chipotle.com

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I started off with the Chilaquiles. This is probably the best dish at this Tamarindo. The chips are homemade and the amazing thing about them is that they are thick enough so that the chili sauce softens the outside of the chip but the inside still remains crunchy, so when you eat the chip, it’s still crispy, which to me is very important. The sauce is a little more than mild in spice but it also has a hint of sweetness. The cheese also adds a mild touch – this dish is perfect.

The plantains and rice at Tamarindo are the bomb. The rice is unlike any other rice you’d have anywhere. I don’t know what it’s cooked in but it has a fresh essence and is salty. The combination of the salty rice and the sweet plantains is to die for.

Today’s aqua fresca was PINEAPPLE! I had 2, this drink was sweet, fresh, fruity and awesome!

The elote is the corn on the cob with the chili sauce and white cheese. It was good, but I dont know if I wuld get it again because I think it needed butter…

These are custom vegetarian sopacitas that were made for Havilah, since she is vegetarian. It had poblano peppers, corn and a tomatillo salsa on them. They were spicy hot but really good!

I don’t remember what this was called and it is not listed on the Tamarindo online menu. It is basically beef, cheese, guacamole, diced tomatoes inside 2 tortillas. It was very fresh tasting. I kind of wish it had more spices or the meat was marinated longer, it was good but not amazing.

Lastly we had the coconut custard (flan). It was AMAZING. I could have easily shoveled the entire thing in my little fryhole but I had to share it… there was toasted coconut on the top which gave it a little extra crunch, and the sauce was sweet and light. This was one of my favorite desserts I’ve ever had!

Tamarindo Antojeria
468 8th St
(between Broadway & Washington St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 444-1944
www.tamarindoantojeria.com

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I started off with Tamarindo’s daily aqua fresca – it was cucumber melon. The most amazing cucumber melon aqua fresca I’ve ever had… you could taste the freshness of the cucumbers and the sweetness of the melons… AMAZING…!! (I had 2)

Since “antojeria” means “place of little cravings” you can simply say it’s Mexican tapas. We ordered a bunch of different things, starting with (above) the sopecitos. OMG I’m freaking out right now, these aren’t on the online menu, I wonder if they took them off?! Anyhow, I can’t tell you offically what’s on them, but I can try to remember…. There were 3 different ones. the first one was vegetarian and had potatoes, spices, onion and cotija cheese, the second one had chicken asada and the third had carne asada, all topped with some onion and cotija. These little puppies were amazing!! The mini sopas are all warm, and the sopa itself is warm a little crispy on the bottom. The carne asade one was really really spicy…

Next we have the chilequiles. What are Chilequiles you ask? Well, at this place, they are heaven meets my last meal in jail. They are not nachos — basically they are tortilla chips, tossed in chipotle puree and topped with cotija (white cheese) and cilantro. At some other taquerias the chips come doused in red sauce, but not at Tamarindo. First of all, the chips are the thick, crunchy homemade kind. They are awesome because they’re the kind that stay crunchy through the meal… no sogginess here! And even though the chips are covered in sauce and cheese and the outsie might get a little soggy, the inside is still crunchy! If you go to Tamarindo, you HAVE to get this dish. In the time we were eating dinner, I think almost every table had a plate of them – they looked so good coming out of the kitchen that everyone started ordering it!!

This is the rice and plantains side dish. Now, words can’t really describe how delicious this side dish is. I could probably eat 2 or 3 of them as my meal. The rice was special. It wasn’t just a scoop of regular white rice. They definitely cook it with spices and maybe some coconut milk or something sweet, because it is a light, slightly salty sweet rice. The plantains were soft and warm, and very plantain-like… nothing over the top there… it was the rice that really sent this dish over the edge.

Here is the Sopa Azteca. This wasn’t one of my choices but I tasted it and took a pic anyway. This is one of the vegetarian options. It’s a chili puree soup and has chunks of cheese and avocado in it. It’s spicy and has a very rich and spicy flavor… spicy in the heavy, smokey way.

Lastly, some nachos and guacamole. I was still hungry so I ordered this, and boy was it good!! I think it’s the chips that finally did me in — after I ate half a plate of those chilequiles and then an order of nachos… The chips are the addictive kind, the kind that are buttery, salty and super crunchy – the kind when you eat one, you need to eat another and another and it snowballs until you’re left swiping the crumbs up with your finger to eat them too. The guacamole was really good – the mushy sweet kind with chunks of diced tomato and sprinkled with white cheese.

Tamarindo definitely gets a slam dunk for this meal, thanks to the chilequiles, the rice and plantains and the chips. Woo hoo!!

Tamarindo Antojeria
468 8th St
(between Broadway & Washington St)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 444-1944
www.tamarindoantojeria.com

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I got there around 10:30am and although there were alot of people waiting, it wasn’t nearly as busy as I had remembered or experienced before. When we got seated, I decided to go with a Stack’s repeat – the Chorizo Scram. Basically it is an egg scramble with chorizo, onions and olives, topped with cheese and served with salsa, guacamole and sour cream. It also comes with some home fries and a buttered bagel. The homefries are underneath the bagel and they are the shredded kind.

Here’s a closeup of the scram itself. The potatoes were bland and way too peppery and needed butter BAD (and also to be cooked a little more)… sorry I forgot to take a separate photo. The bagel was sourdough flavor which was good, but there wasn’t enough butter on it. The eggs were just OK… I think the strong olive taste kills the salty spicy chorizo flavor and it just didn’t have that WOW factor that I had remembered.

Bleehh.. brunch really didn’t satisfy me like I was hoping.

Stacks
501 Hayes St
(between Laguna St & Octavia St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 241-9011
www.stacksrestaurant.com

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I ordered 2 fish tacos. I’ve had them before and they’re just ok. The “fried” fish is cooked in batches, so they have a tub of “fried” fish under the heat with the rest of the beans and chicken and carnitas… so by the time you get it in your taco, it’s kind of soggy and not crispy at all and rarely warm. Also, they only give you 1 tortilla, not 2, like REAL Mexican places. The 1-tortilla/soggy cold fish is a turnoff but I guess not a big enough one for me to not order it… I get what I deserve!

One TWO really, REALLY great things though about Taco Del Mar are:

1. They nearly ALWAYS play 80s music inside – The Cure, Depeche Mode, Madonna, etc… don’t ask me why… it’s definitely no Baja Fresh!
2. They have 4 choices of iced tea. …I believe regular unsweetened, sweetened, raspberry, and green. It’s not part of the iced tea fountain, it’s separate, and they have RASPBERRY iced tea, my favorite!!
3. Nice people who work there, in my experience.

I give Taco del Mar 4 fries because even though the fish tacos aren’t the greatest, they aren’t the worst, and I always seem to have a pleasant time eating there, even if it’s by myself. The people who work there are also friendly.

Taco del Mar
163 2nd Street
(between Minna St & Natoma St)
San Francisco, CA 94105
www.tacodelmar.com

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