[Pigging by Wilfrid: February 29, 2008]
The Toloache website sources the restaurant's name to a flowering plant used in love potions.
Wiktionary has it as a psychoactive hallucinogen. But I wasn't seeing things: those were bugs.
Okay, let's not jump around squealing and getting over-excited. I have a history of eating bugs. In fact you all do: I don't know what crabs and lobsters are, if not armored bugs. But I've had crickets or grasshoppers in the trough too.
My first time was in Thailand, where I was fed them by a charming hostess in a back-street Bangkok bar. I sometimes think she could have fed me anything. In Thailand, the critters are pale gold, salty, crunchy, and serve as beer snacks. I was told the wings are a particular delicacy.
In Mexico, judging only by the evidence of the Toloache version, they are dark and smoky, as well as crunchy. I thought they might have been marinated? Apparently not: they come dried in jars, and the chef here sautés them with onions. The dish boasts jalapeño too, but I found the heat mild. These are good: if the taste reminded me of anything, it was tobacco. Which is curious, because I don't smoke, and try eating tobacco - you can't. But I think you'd see what I mean.
Toloache, in the theater district, serves about a dozen taco options in the evening (the lunch menu is thinner) - small, served in pairs, and ranging from $7 to $14 for the foie.
I wasn't crazy about the foie. It's helped out with a sparky mango salsa, but the liver itself was just a little dried out. The treatment here - from this sample - sacrificed lusciousness of texture, one of the main reasons for eating foie in the first place.
These tiny corn-cakes were altogether tasty, though, sitting in a tangy ranchero sauce, each topped with a deftly fried soft quail's egg. A great plate to share: not that I did. Toloache structures itself as versatile. In addition to the downstairs and upstairs dining rooms, there's a regular bar to your right as you enter, and a specialist ceviche bar at the back.
The place is geared up to serve you dinner, serve you liquor, serve you tapas - in fact, to be whatever you want it to be. This is a nice concept of hospitality. I ran through small plates at the booze bar, accompanied first by a sweetish house margarita, with squidged blueberries and hibiscus, then by a more classic "Oro Blanco", featuring Grand Marnier.
Aside from the signature margaritas, other cocktails, and Mexican beers, there's a vast list of tequilas and mezcals. One day, when I have nothing better to do, I'll learn to tell the difference between a blanco and and a reposado. It's on my to-do list.
From the brick oven area of the menu, I chose a good quesadilla which made the natural, earthy pairing of huitlacoche and black truffles. I noticed at this point that it's best to order dishes one at a time - the quesadilla is best eaten hot, but I had tacos distracting me.
The braised veal "cheek", for example, described on the menu as de Cabeza. This struck me as more candid, as the diced flesh was more reminiscent of head meat than more unctuous buche. But I am not here to argue about where a cheek stops and a face begins, least of all on a cow.
Of my selections, this was the closest to the honest, unfussied street tacos of Roosevelt Avenue, and none the worse for that. A little cilantro: this kitchen has a restrained hand with garnishes - not least because there is no reason to mask the flavor of these ingredients.
A sophisticated touch is at work too in the side of "avocado fries". My first encounter with such a thing, I found the breaded surface sharply crunchy, the inside as soft as you'd expect. The dipping sauce matched ketchup with a chipotle mayo.
Toloache is most obviously compared with that other midtown fine Mexican option, Richard Sandoval's Pampano: and it's no surprise that Toloache's Julian Medina cooked for Sandoval at Maya and Pampano. It's been some years since I visited the Sandoval restaurant (although I use the tacqueria in the basement of the adjacent office building).
My current impression is that Medina has raised the stakes with this relative newcomer. Good ingredients, evident care and skill, and - scoring big with me - a genuinely interesting and inventive menu. Worth noting that the food is not fiercely spicy (no doubt the kitchen can adjust to requests).
Dinner entrées are in the twenties, but predictably, cruising through the small plates and ordering drinks by the glass causes check inflation. But you are all big enough to look after yourselves.
Get your potion here.
