Picante: The Real Taco

Damn, I wish Picante were closer to where I live. Stopped in again recently on one of my springtime pilgramages to DeBaggio Herbs, and goddamn was that pork adobo taco good. The portions are very, very generous (which is a pet peeve actually, but I can’t fault the quality).

1/22/04: Nuts. Last time I went, a few months ago, they’d stopped serving breakfast.

[original review 2003-01-07 follows] Picante: the Real Breakfast Taco. Yep, they now serve breakfast, Saturdays and Sundays 8am til noon. The menu is extensive, but mostly variations of eggs/chorizo/poblano/potato/cheese with a few choices of sauce. But it’s really really good. Especially if you like that sort of thing. Which I do. Oh, and they have yummy Mexican hot chocolate.

Located in an unassuming strip mall next to what sounds like a redneck bar (through the walls, anyway), the Real Fucking Taco is principally a lunch joint.

I’m beginning to suspect that “queso fundido con chorizo” translates to “devour happily while we trigger an infarction”. And the chicken mole enchilada is worth reckoning with...again, and again, and again.

The pork taco meats are all tidily diced, however, robbing them of any sort of pulled-pork texture. I still haven’t found carnitas in the style of my old dinner hangout in California, but the tacos al pastor have a nice flavor to them here.

-dave

Reasonably ok Mexican restaurant. Authentic, but handicapped by the lack of good ingredients on the east coast.

It’s the real fucking taco. Well, as real as yer gonna get in the Metro DC area. Go to San Diego already. [Or Mexico.]