Friday, December 16, 2011

Tostada

Sides

asacado

ceviche

guacamole

mushroom tacos

mole tacos
Birmingham, MI - Barrio; It was promising to see that their tacos were served with corn tortilla and not flour, but the impressiveness stopped there.  Their plating is nice and presented well and clean, but if only I can just look at it instead of eating it.  Not sure if they fail on execution of the dish or in the conception of it.  We tried lots of food, so get ready.

Starting the meal with their guacamole and chips. It's served in a nice stone bowl, its nice and creamy and flavored well.  We thought we were in for a good dinner.

Since our first dish was successful, so why not the next.  Well, this one fell flat on it's face.  The tuna ceviche, well, it's not a ceviche at all.  It appeared and tasted just as though they took tuna sushi-grade, and mixed it with a watermelon lime juice.  I'm not sure how long it was marinated in the sauce, but the fish didn't take on any of the flavor.  Not a ceviche.

On to dinner.  We ordered a variety of tacos to try out as many as we can.  Starting with my least favorite were the tacos I picked, asacado, fish tacos.  To sum it up, too little fish, and too much cabbage.  I could barely taste any fish in it.  I think the cabbage was added for texture and feeling of freshness, but really it was a corn tortilla with a cabbage salad.  Not a winner.  Next were the mushroom tacos, a step up, a little.  The mushroom tacos were better with the choice of tomatoes giving it a freshness and the acidity needed with the mushrooms.  The mushrooms had a nice earthiness to it, but still not enough mushrooms and its flavor was also masked by the condiments.  Lastly, the mole tacos, the better of all the tacos.  I could have easily just ordered these and sent the rest back.  I made sure that I ended with one to have at least one good taco in the meal.  It was pulled pork, marinated well, still juicy, and served with a nice cheese on top to compliment it well.

On the side, we tried the green rice and beans, and grilled corn.  The green rice was a "lime" rice, but really lacked in flavor.  It was really only rice with a tint of green and didn't help to compliment the beans well.  The beans were only black beans.  It lacked in flavor and heartiness.  It was a sad representation of beans in a Mexican restaurant.  The corn was grilled well, a little over done, but the grated cheese on it gave it a little extra to make it better.

Our last dish was the tostada.  I probably would have given a rating of one star, but the tostada is worth one extra star by itself.  After mentioning how good it is to the server, she then mentioned that it's their most popular dish.  We should have heard that in the beginning.  It has a nice crispy shell on the bottom, served with pulled pork that was on the mole tacos, black beans, avacados, lettuce and cheese.  This was the saving grace of the whole dinner.  It was really really good, an exceptional dish.  I would have been sadly disappointed with the experience if we didn't end with the tostada.  Get it, you won't be disappointed.

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