Cinco or Swim

Before I begin today’s post, a quick aside: I apologize for my absence last week. Let’s just say several forces aligned (work, a cold, etc.) to prevent me from blogging and for that I’m terribly sorry. Can we just pretend that it never happened? Great, thanks!

Review- El Tesoro

Once upon a time, I discovered a little TexMex place in EAV (that’s East Atlanta Village for all you non-locals) that served up the cheapest, tastiest tacos, quesos and margaritas imaginable. Cantina La Casita is something of an institution around here—along with Taqueria Del Sol and Nuevo Laredo, La Casita is one of my most frequent south-of-the-border dining destinations.

Enter El Tesoro, a new spot from the same people that brought the city La Casita. I dined there for the first time yesterday evening and am pleased to report that many of my favorite features and menu items from LC have made the jump to the new spot.

We started with the requisite chips and salsa. El Tesoro’s two offerings are a mild, green tomatillo and a fire-roasted tomato. I prefer the acidic tomatillo, especially when accompanied by the not-overly-sweet house margarita blanco. Although it’s printed at the top of the menu, I’m sure many diners are surprised to see a charge for the chips and the salsa when the bill comes. If you don’t want them, speak up quickly. We also ordered our standard queso but, and it could have been my imagination, El Tesoro’s tasted thicker and less spicy than LC’s. I guess the only way I’ll know for sure is to visit the original again soon…

I was hoping to sample one tofu and one mushroom enchilada each in my order of two, but when I asked if that was possible, our server said that the kitchen “doesn’t like it” when people mix and match. “Doesn’t like it” and “won’t do it” are two different things to me and I don’t feel like servers should cater to the preferences of the kitchen if they are indeed just that—preferences. If no mixing and matching is a policy, then just say, politely, “no, I’m sorry, we can’t.” Anyway, my two mushroom enchiladas turned out to be delicious, laced with the flavor of cilantro and onions and topped with more of the tomatillo salsa—yum. The accompanying black beans were good, lightly spiced but nothing out of the ordinary.

My date ordered the “platillo grande”—four tacos, one each tofu, mushroom, fried tilapia and chorizo and potato. The tilapia gave Taqueria’s famous fish tacos a run for their money. Crispy and light, the fish was nicely set off by tender cabbage and smooth poblano cream. The mushroom was filled with what tasted like the same mushroom sauté as in my enchiladas and I confess to not tasting the chorizo. But the tofu was my favorite—a slightly crisped exterior with nice heat from the chipotle marinade and the bright crunch of radish and jicama. A well-rounded taco, and a vegetarian one at that!

Creative Loafing employs my favorite food reviewers in the city and, coincidentally, El Tesoro was reviewed last week by the paper as well (read their review here). I can’t say that I agree 100% with this one (I didn’t spot a single child), but they got one thing spot on—the fried plantains are to die for. As for the rest, if I find myself in Decatur I'd be happy to give El Tesoro another whirl, but I'm not saying adios to La Casita just yet, that's for sure.