Las Palmas Taqueria
Where: 223 Florida Road, Morningside
Open: Monday to Thursday 10am-9pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-10.30pm, Sunday 10am-10pm.
Call: 087 151 4541
Ingrid Shevlin said she had heard of a new authentic Mexican restaurant in Florida Road. My ears pricked up. In South Africa, the words “authentic” and “Mexican” are rarely used in the same sentence.
After all, most of what constitutes Mexican food the world over has been pasteurised and homogenised in places like Texas or Southern California and shipped across the globe in plastic squeezy bottles to create any number of messy paint-by-numbers dishes wrapped or rolled in a tortilla.
I had visions of the famed pulled pork stew cooked slowly with bitter oranges in a clay pot in a hole in the ground, and served with a fiery habanero sauce. Or of the thick corn soup made with shredded chicken and cooked in a spicy broth topped with freshly sliced radishes. Or even a Mexican take on ceviche which is usually spicier than the Peruvian version. There’s what’s almost regarded as a national dish ‒ Chilies en Nogada ‒ chilli peppers stuffed with either chicken or pork in a walnut sauce garnished with pomegranate seeds. An authentic mole (chilli sauce) too can be a thing of great beauty or even simple corn on the cob, braaied over coals and tossed with salt and lime juice. Sounds delicious.
And so our little lunch group gathered on Sunday.
The first warning sign was when I saw the restaurant was in the Florida Exchange ‒ so it would be dry ‒ no celebratory tequilas even if our little group got up to such antics. And the pork dishes of Mexico would be off the menu. The restaurant is certified as halaal.
The second was the word “taqueria” ‒ so it would be tacos ‒ presumably overstuffed and dripping in sauces. Well, perhaps they would have some interesting fillings.
The restaurant is a sunny affair, painted a bright yellow with colourful murals, skulls, flowers and painted flower pots. But then the tables are horribly uncomfortable, with fixed benches too close to the table and tables so narrow you’re in the opposite side’s personal space. We pulled up another table so Ingrid could sit sideways against the wall with Jenny in the middle and Trevor and I at the long end of a slightly shorter table side on. Very odd.
There are cold drinks and some interesting looking home-made juices in four juice coolers on the counter. One we were told is like milk tart. We all grimaced at the milky-looking syrup in a jar. Jenny tried the hibiscus juice which was so sweet it had to be watered down with bottled water. I opted for lime and mint which was pleasant ‒ like a mojito without the kick. It could have been colder.
Then we tried to make out the menu, which was impossible. There are quesadillas and quesabirrias (tacos with cheese) and tacos which look remarkably like the quesabirrias. We’re told they can do burritos and nachos which are not on the menu, although no enchiladas. We order a plate of nachos while we ponder our meals.
Your proteins are beef, chicken, prawns or lamb and there are four sauces, although today, they are out of green sauce which we assume is guacamole. Then there's a consommé served with tacos as a dipping sauce. We ask to taste the sauces. The orange sauce tastes mostly of garlic, the red, after all that garlic, tasted like not much at all, and the hot sauce, of chilli.
The nachos (R130) were pleasant with some really tasty pulled beef on them and topped with cheese and pico de gallo, but they could have been hotter ‒ temperature hot, that is.
Ingrid opted for the chicken burrito (R150, which was half price if ordered with a chicken taco) and scored the pick of the meals. The chicken was tender and moist and had some flavour. It was stuffed with refried beans which have never been a favourite. Fortunately, she ordered hot sauce which at least gave it some oomph.
Jenny, Trevor and I shared the chicken tacos plate and prawn tacos plate (R200 each which we thought was expensive for two tacos). These were horrible. Nothing was hot enough. There was some kind of fried cheese disc that wrapped around the tacos, presumably to hold them together. This was chewy and tasted like cold Mozzarella ‒ yuk! The prawns were bullet-like shrimps fried in some sort of spicing that made them taste woody. You could see some hint of slaw in the tacos but it had no crunch. The pico de gallo was basically tomato and onion sambal, no taste of lime juice, chilli or coriander, and the consommé tasted of nothing but was vaguely salty. All it did was make everything wet and cold.
I’m not sure you can call this street food. You would need a bath and a change of clothes afterwards.
And Ingrid hated being served on plastic plates with plastic cutlery.
We gave up. I will get to Mexico one day and am sure I will experience many culinary adventures, but too many experiences like this mean outside Mexico I will give the cuisine a wide berth.
Food: 1
Service: 3
Ambience: 2
The Bill: R715
The Independent on Saturday