Impressions: Casa Oaxaca

Allegedly, Oaxacan cuisine is the most refined of the regional Mexican cuisines. So it was exciting to visit Casa Oaxaca to see what it was about. I was there largely to find out about their micheladas, but while a bunch of us were there for happy hour we tried a number of dishes.

It seems endemic to Mexican/Central American cuisines in the DC-area that the meat is cooked until it is dried out. This continued to be the case with most of the dishes we ordered that night. We had carnitas tacos, which were cooked to the point of being rather stringy. It also did not have the benefit of other sauces to help it out, and how to be dolloped with some sour cream to help it out. This was also true with the kekas – blue corn tortillas with various toppings like huitlecoche to at least help along the meat’s transition in the mouth to the gullet. What was okay was the tres moles with chicken. The chicken was moist and tender. I enjoyed the variety of the flavors of the moles, although I would say that they weren’t as rich and depth-filled as the kind that my parents have made. What was enjoyable was the plantanos with black beans. Made almost like an empanada they were sweet and crusty. In that case the dryness may have been helpful in adding a slight crunch. Grasshopper tacos were just bits of grasshopper sprinkled on top. Disappointing. Would I have wanted whole ones… I’m not sure, but I would have liked to see them.

Overall, I liked the flavor profiles. They were more clean and refined than Tex-Mex, but I think that the actual cooking could use some improvement. As I have said before, and will say again… California has spoiled me.