January 31, 2015: Babita Mexicuisine

Babita Mexicuisine is located on an unassuming street corner just off the 10 in San Gabriel. I forget how I heard about this place, but I have been wanting to try it for quite a while now and with all the incredible Asian food in the area I know my parents would much rather eat at one of those restaurants than a Mexican restaurant so Christal and I decided to try it out by ourselves.

When we first arrived chef Roberto was there to greet and seat us. He had an extremely enthusiastic personality that made us at ease immediately. The interior of the restaurant was cozy with Mexican art hung up all around and an impressive collection of empty tequila bottles on a shelf near the ceiling that ran around the room. After a few minutes chef Roberto brought out our waters and proceeded to tell us about the special for the night. In the same enthusiastic style that he greeted us with he went on to describe the chile en nogada, which is one of the national dishes of Mexico, and how it would only be on the menu through the weekend because it was the end of the pomegranate season. After we ordered they brought out chips and salsa. The chips were still warm from the fryer and the salsa had a great smokiness as well as a heat that built the more you ate it.

My first course was a huarache de nopal with shrimp, grilled cactus, beans, tomato, onion, chile, and crema. This huarache was not like the other huaraches I’ve had before. Typically the huaraches I’ve eaten consist of a griddled masa patty that is then covered with beans, meat, vegetables, cheese, salsa, sour cream/crema and sometimes guacamole. With this huarache the masa patty was replaced with a grilled nopal paddle that made the dish much healthier and more appropriate for an appetizer. The smokiness of the grilled nopal brought out the sweetness of the shrimp and the crema gave the dish the added richness that it needed. Overall it was a delicious twist on a classic Mexican dish.

 

For her entrée, Christal ordered the chile en nogada. The national dish of Mexico was a roasted poblano that was stuffed with roast pork and a mixture of fruits and then topped with a creamy walnut sauce and garnished with fresh pomegranate seeds. Chef Roberto told us that the dish is originally from Puebla and that it was created to celebrate Mexico’s independence and includes all the colors of the flag of Mexico. The dish itself was very good. The filling was sweet and savory and the walnut sauce helped to temper the sweetness of the fruit in the filling. The pomegranate seeds gave the dish some zing and kept it from feeling too heavy.

 

I ended up ordering the cochinita pibil with pickled cabbage and onion for my entrée. Cochinita pibil is a traditional slow cooked pork dish that is originally from the Yucatan peninsula. It is usually marinated in a mixture of citrus, garlic and achiote and then wrapped in banana leaves and roasted for a long time until it is tender. In chef Roberto’s cochinita pibil the meat was falling apart, but still plenty moist, and it was covered in the achiote-saturated jus from cooking the pork. The homemade tortillas that were served with it were excellent as well. They were tender, yet chewy and stood up to the moist pork. The pickled cabbage and onions were nice and acidic and helped cut through the richness of the pork. This version certainly did justice to the classic cochinita pibil in my opinion.

 

For dessert Christal and I shared the semifreddo with cajeta and sauces of strawberry, tamarind and tequila. The semifreddo was creamy, sweet and had some fruit that was mixed in with it. The cajeta, which is a caramel that is usually made from goat’s milk that has cooked for hours over a low heat until it becomes golden brown, was delicious and I wished that I could have just had a whole bowl if it. The sauces were interesting but in a good way. All three were a kind of progression from sweet to sour. The strawberry sauce was very sweet and packed with strawberry flavor. The tequila sauce was sweet and sour, kind of acting as the mediator between the other two sauces, and the tamarind sauce was very sour, but in a way that helped to accentuate the semifreddo itself. It was an excellent end to a very good meal.

 

Food 3.5/5

Service 4.5/5
Christal's Rating 3/5
http://www.babita-mexicuisine.com/index.html