This place is like twenty-seven stars, it is literally "Woohoo! As good as it gets!". We spent…read morethree days in Guadalajara, and I think it is safe to say this was the highlight. Modern mexican cuisine with interesting and complex favors, low prices, lots of Mexican microbrews, and friendly and unpretentious service.
The overall appearance is of a high-end cafe -- white walls, plants everywhere, mosaic-encrusted skateboards as art on the walls, indirect lighting, and a blurred line between indoors and outdoors. It's like something out of Apartment Therapy (except it's a restaurant).
It starts with what is perhaps the best part, which is the selection of salsas. There were three: a red roasted-chile salsa with a strong smoked flavor, a straight-ahead green serrano that was not very spicy, and an apple-based one that transitions from sweet into a slow burn of heat. The roasted and apple ones were particularly spectacular, and I kept spooning them onto everything that arrived.
We ordered pork tacos to start, which were rolled up and fried. The meat was high quality and had a wine-like flavor, a bit like a pork version of coq au vin.
My wife ordered flautas and I ordered a burro. The flautas in particular had excellent presentation, covered in shredded vegetables and drizzled crema. Both were very delicious.
If you want to learn about what is brewing around Mexico, Pachuco has put together a menu of a lot of good beers. We tried the Loba Sport witbier, which was really excellent, and the Lupulosa IPA was also top-quality. The only miss on the beers was the Tristan Blonde Ale, which was not terrible but had a bit of a cloying off-flavor.
We took the recommendation of the owner, Guillermo, for dessert and ordered his coconut gelatin. It really needs a better name, because "gelatin de coco" reminds me of a midwestern jello with bits of fruit in it, and it's nothing like that -- instead, think more like a coconut flan, a rich creamy roasted coconut flavor, with bits of actual roasted coconut on top and some berry jam at the bottom. It was good. We also ordered ice creams: basil-pear, roasted marshmallow, and beer-ferrero. The first two were real standouts. The third was fine but the flavors didn't come together as much for me. We also ordered an digestif, agave and coconut cream liquor; it was quite tasty and likeable; if it had any flaw it was that it resembled Baileys Irish Cream too much. But, if you like Bailey's (I do), that's also something of a positive quality.
Coming from Oakland, California, what was really a standout here was the service and the overall low-key atmosphere. It was a Monday, and only three or four tables were filled. The waitress was extremely patient -- not in a rush, happy to explain things to us slowly so we could understand with our mediocre Spanish. Guillermo packed up some of the roasted-chile salsa for us, and talked to us for a bit about how he started the restaurant. The restaurant has been open a little over a year, and you get the sense that they are still excited to be open and making food that is based on the flavors of Jalisco, but not really traditional Mexican. We might (maybe) be able to find food this good in Oakland, but never with such courteous and unpretentious service.
