Hedonia

The Great Guac Hunt: Colibri

What better way to celebrate Dia de los Muertos than to revisit the Great Guac Hunt? I suppose a good mole would be a more fitting Oaxacan tribute, but this will have to do.

For this installation, my guest judge is none other than my better half, DPaul Brown. We've been to Colibri once before, with our good friend Anita, who knows from good Mexican food. I've been looking forward to returning for some time, especially for the purposes of this project, but also because I just plain like the place.

I'm not exactly sure what makes Colibri a bistro as opposed to a restaurant, but I'm not splitting hairs. One thing is for sure -- while we have no shortage of Mexican food in San Francisco, we have a terrible dearth of quality places above the taqueria level. Colibri stands out as possibly the leader of the pack in this category. 

One important note about Colibri's guac: If you're seated for a meal, they make it tableside in one of those rustic stone pestles (molcajetes). At the bar, it just shows up already made. They also spice to order. Though DPaul and I are major pepperheads, we ordered it medium spicy so as not to overwhelm the guac experience itself. Let's get on with the evaluation.

The Great Guac Hunt: Tres Agaves

I know, I know. Mexican food is not exactly diet food. But there's work to be done, here. And as it turns out, guac is not that point-intensive in Weight Watchers, so a-guac-ing I will go.

This third installment of the Great Guac Hunt took us to a relative newcomer, the SOMA hipster magnet Tres Agaves. I came into this with a healthy dose of skepticism, having heard very little good about the food. But I'm an open-minded kind of guy, and am willing to subject my insides to all manner of punishment in the pursuit of culinary adventures. I'm doing this for the greater good, people!

My guest judge this week is our smart, charming and very lovely friend Leyla. Leyla and her other half eat out a lot (I'll demur to say why), so she's as canny a candidate for this venture as anyone I know. Let's get to it.

Size
Leyla: 6 -- $8 seems steep for guac, no matter how much you get.  But the bowl was good sized and plenty for 3 of us (although if we'd liked it more, that may not have been true).
Sean: 5 -- The serving was not insubstantial, and we didn't come close to finishing it (though I suspect there were other reasons for that). Still, yes, eight bucks is a lot for, what, two avocados and a spoonful of salsa.

Consistency
Leyla: 4 -- Oily.  Not sure how, but it seemed coated in oil somehow.  And it was super smooth except for the intermittent big chunks - which made the chips break.
Sean: 4 -- OK, I like the combination of smooth and chunky in my guacamole. As you may have noticed in the previous two reviews, it's the one thing I called out about the others. But I would prefer to have small chunks in a creamy base, not inch-square boulders of the stuff in a pasty base. Major eatability problem: You couldn't get it on the chip.

Whole Avocado
Leyla: 4 -- Meh.
Sean: 7 -- I actually like the space and the atmosphere (even if it is a tad loud). I also liked the beans, rice and tortillas that were brought with our entrees -- a nice touch. Plus, our waitress was really adorable and quite professional. I could see going back to the bar for a margarita. But the food was just good, not great, rather lacking in flavor except the refried beans, and that's because they had chorizo in them. And the chips were stale. What's up with that?

Overall Taste
Leyla: 4 -- Uninteresting. No real tang of citrus, no spice to speak of, no discernible garlic or cilantro.  Bland.
Sean: 5 -- The guac tasted like avo and nothing else. The barest hint of citrus, not enough salt, no garlic or onion. No crunch, no contrast. I found it most palatable in taco form on a tortilla with some of the condiments. It's a team player, not a star.

Final Rating
Leyla: 4.50
Sean: 5.25

The entire meal left us wishing we were in the Mission. Lesson learned.

Tres Agaves
130 Townsend St (at Second)

The Great Guac Hunt: Mijita

Damn that Aunt Beep for getting in her second installment of the Great Guac Hunt before I could! But I guess I can't be too bitter. She did start this, after all.

This week's guest judge is my friend Andy, an accomplished chef in her own right and one of the smartest people I have ever known. We both love the Ferry Building in spite of, or even perhaps because of, its self-important posturing, and of course because it's chock-full of good food. So we lunched at Mijita, Tracy des Jardin's Mexican outpost. With such a high-profile chef and location, expectations were high. Does Mijita's guac rock?

Size
Andy: 4 -- Not wowed.  Felt like tourist food at tourist prices in the overcrowded Ferry Building rather than a great guac for fair price in a cool place.
Sean: 6 -- The portion was on the small side of adequate, definitely smaller than Orale Orale's and at best a light appetizer to share. At $4.50, no bargain.

Consistency
Andy: 7 -- Pleasant texture light with small chunks.
Sean: 7 -- I liked the combination of smoothness and chunkiness, rather than having the avo completely whipped into a paste. But it was missing contrast -- no onion or tomato to provide crunch or body.

Whole Avocado
Andy: 5 -- Crazy cattle-call crowded feel to the place.  People were so anxious about getting a table they were hovering.  The staff was pleasant but rushed.  The lunch was tasty and fresh, both things that are essential to a good food experience for me.  That said, the thick chips felt unexciting thrown into their basket.  The guac was scooped into a dish without much delicacy as if it were a stepchild on an otherwise inventive menu.  Quite simply, other dishes were presented twith greater care.   The table was so hard to get that it was not clean when we sat down at it.
Sean: 7 -- It's the Ferry Building, so that's both good and bad. The restaurant is done up, unkitschily, in a pseudo-rustic Mexican motif. Despite the insane crowds -- and they are insane -- I felt they did a good job of managing the order taking, and the food arrived reasonably quickly. Didn't love the seats, those woven sling-type chairs that are impossible to get comfortable in, and make you feel like you're sitting in a bucket. And it's a tad loud.

Overall Taste 
Andy: 6 -- Guac had light citrus flavor and right amount of salt.  Texture and bright green color helped to deliver a fresh flavor.  Would have liked bit of onion and some heat from pepper.
Sean: 6 -- Pure, full avocado flavor ... and little else. The salt was just right and a citric note was present, but it needed onion, more cilantro and it utterly lacked heat.

Final Rating
Andy: 5.50
Sean: 6.50

Ouch. Sorry, Tracy!

Mijita
Ferry Building Marketplace

Previously: Orale Orale

Seafood tacos

We were feeling summery this weekend, having finally gotten our May weather fully halfway into June. As we've had Mexican food on the brain of late, we decided to pull out a light, nummy meal of seafood tacos. And because I never, ever do things the easy way, I simply had to make everything but the tortillas from scratch. So off we went to the Mission to stock up.

First things first. After roasting up some chiles, I whipped up a nice batch of salsa:

Plus a bit of guac (not judged in the Great Guac Hunt, as it's not restaurant guac. Gotta play by the rules!):

And then something struck me ... got limes, lots of limes ... big old batch of cilantro ... head of garlic. Sounds kind of like a Mexican gremolata! So I zested each lime before squeezing, chopped in the garlic and cilantro. In the end, I had to add some lime juice and even a bit of the pulp from a somewhat dry lime to reintroduce the bright citrus flavor as opposed to the intense and rather bitter lime zest. But in the end, an interesting and potent condiment:

We marinated the shrimp in some tequila with a wee bit of lime juice and some of the gremolata. Shred up some cabbage, grill up the shrimp and scallops, and voilà!

We bought some very thick, chunky handmade tortillas at the Mission Market, thinking they would be oh, so rustic and authentic. Perhaps that's so, but they really worked out to be too thick and inflexible -- as well as extremely filling! If I had it to do over again, I'd just buy the standard corn tortillas, which were fully half as thick, much more pliable and taste just fine. But no one was complaining too loudly.

The Great Guac Hunt: Orale Orale

I wasn't expecting to have the first installment of the Great Guacamole Hunt so soon, but why procrastinate? I spontaneously pinged my friend Hugh for lunch today, as I was downtown. He's been trying to get me to go to Orale Orale for some time now, and I finally capitulated. Provided we had guacamole, of course. Hugh knows from Mexican food, or at least he has a clear concept of what he likes. And he definitely likes guac, so he's a suitable judge, with the caveat that he admits a bias towards this place.

Size
Hugh: 6 --  To be honest, I didn't pay attention to the price, but I'm always sad when the bowl is empty, so I've gotta rate it low.  I always must. 
Sean: 9 -- We got a small side of guac, but it was definitely enough for the two of us as a complement to our entrees. And at two bucks, that's seriously poco dinero.

Consistency
Hugh: 9 -- Love it.  It would be a 10 but it had a few stringy bits.  But it was a creamy, smooth guac.
Sean: 7 -- The avo base was very smooth and not at all slimy or overwhipped, and there were a few pleasingly crisp flecks of red onion. But I like the occasional chunk of avocado to offset the creaminess a bit.

Whole Avocado
Hugh: 8 -- Not much to say.  I love Orale Orale.  It's a basic taqueria, so my expectations are low.  I wish they didn't come around with the salsa refill is a paper cup, but whatever.  The salsa's great. The line is long but folks are always happy to get a seat, so once you're on  your rear and amongst the lucky folks who are about to eat, all is good. It's crowded, but I don't mind.  Everyone's happy to be seated and eating/ready to chow.  I've been going here for years, so I really like the place.  It's become second nature to me to eat the food. Service is fast - you're in and out..but it's lunch. 
Sean: 8 -- It's not fancy, and that's OK by me. But it is clean, the service is efficient and even not surly (which can take some hunting in the FiDi). As Hugh notes, our salsa, um, gravyboat was plentifully replenished, the food came fast and hot, and we were out of there within a normal lunch break.

Overall Taste 
Hugh: 10 -- I love avocados and this guac had a slight spice. But it's basically a tongue cooler.  The avo comes through and that pleases me.  Guac is all about the taste of the alligator pear, so I love that it's not covered up. 
Sean: 9 -- I thought it was very balanced and fairly nuanced. The avocado flavor was clearly the star, with evenly distributed supporting players in the form of onion, cilantro and heat. Best of all, it was not oversalted, which is so common. But I cannot extricate the flavor of avocado from the texture, so I had to ding it a little.

Final Rating
Hugh: 8.25
Sean: 8.25
It's unanimous: Solidly good guac easily accessible on a lunch hour.

Oh, the salsa is quite good too, and our enchiladas verdes were quite agreeable as well. The best Mexican in the city? No, not by a long shot. But the best in the Financial District? You bet.

Orale Orale
113 Sacramento St (at Davis)

The Great (SF) Guacamole Hunt 2006

I'm a little behind in discovering this, but the delightful Aunt Beep is on a mission (so to speak) to ferret out and quantify the best guac in LA. Oh girl, it's on!

Now, I'm not really one of those people who looks down his nose at LA's dining scene, and I'm certain there is exceptional Mexican fare down there. After all, it's closer. But I do know that San Francisco can at least give them a run for their money.

And so I propose to do the same, rating restaurant guac by the same criteria: Size (in terms of price-to-value ratio); Consistency (chunky? smooth? slimy?); Whole Avocado (i.e., the whole experience -- atmosphere, service, etc.); and Overall Taste (self-explanatory), culminating in a Final Score.

Right off the top of my head I know we need to hit up Maya and Colibri. Naturally this will also require some rummaging in the Mission (Papalote? El Castillito? Bueller?). Where else (other than at home)?

(Image stolen from found on Food Network's site.)