first meal: chiles y chocolate
Chiles y Chocolate on 7th Ave in Park Slope is very adamant about one thing — it is NOT a Mexican restaurant. What they’re trying to get across is that you’re not going to find bean burritos and beef chimichangas on their menu (although they did bring us chips and salsa before the meal) – they serve what they call authentic Oaxacan cuisine. Since I’ve never been to Oaxaca I can’t say how authentic the food is, but it certainly doesn’t fall into the traditional tex-mex rut that so many ‘cutting edge’ Mexican restaurants do. Unfortunately, they do fall into another south-of-the-border stereotype – the spaghetti western. And so, with apologies to Sergio Leone, I’m going to discuss Chiles y Chocolate under the three main categories that presented themselves to me : the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good: At first glance the menu is extremely vegetarian friendly. Most of the main dishes can be prepared with a filling of Oaxacan cheese instead of meat, and the traditional moles all come with vegetarian options. Even better, they had some unusual stuff — for an appetizer I had to go for the quesadillas de huitlacoche. If you’ve never heard of huitlacoche, also referred to as a Mexican truffle, it’s basically a nasty fungus that lives on ears of corn. Another name given to it is corn smut, which should give you an idea about how it looks. It’s considered a delicacy, and though I had heard of it, isn’t something I’ve ever seen on a menu before.
It’s hard to describe the flavor of the huitlacoche – earthy, smoky, tangy, delicious. The texture is another aspect of it, slimy and firm at the same time. We were trying to put our finger on exactly what it tasted like, but could find nothing to compare it to (“It tastes like huitlacoche,” we decided). More delicate and subtle in flavor than truffles, the huitlacoche comes served in heaps on a messy quesadilla with fresh vegetables and melted Oaxacan cheese. Everything worked together perfectly.
The Bad: We found out pretty quickly that although the menu includes all of those vegetarian options, the rice and beans that come as sides for every dish are not vegetarian. I’m sure they keep a big pot of it boiling on the stove all day, but it seems to me that they could just as easily keep another pot of vegetarian beans as well. Our waiter (who informed us he was in the middle of finals) graciously agreed to see if the chefs ‘wouldn’t mind’ replacing the rice and beans with a side of vegetables. Luckily for us they didn’t mind, and I got a side of some pretty good spinach with garlic.
The Ugly: After having loved the huitlacoche, I was looking forward to another traditional dish, the mole negro with grilled vegetables. On the menu the mole negro is describes as “the most complex, flavorful, and traditional” of the moles, including ingredients like chocolate, sesame seeds, dried chiles, and dozens of other things. This sounds good, but it looks exactly like what you might think – a plate of dark brown, glistening muck. Forgoing the looks, I dived right in.
There were two different problems with the dish. First, the grilled vegetables themselves were flavorless and dull. Big chunks of zucchini were mushy and bland, and the portobello mushrooms were so undercooked they were almost inedible. On top of that was the mole – gritty and muddy in flavor. Altogether an thoroughly unpleasant dish, despite the tasty fresh corn tortillas served alongside it. I have to point out that my dining companion, also a vegetarian, loved it.
So overall I can’t really recommend Chiles y Chocolate, except for those of you who want to try the huitlacoche (it is definitely worth it). I would probably go back and try a non-mole dish, but I’m in no hurry. Sometimes I’d rather have a bean burrito.