Barrio Cafe

 

Barrio Cafe

Barrio Cafe is a place I have visited before and it was so good, I had to come back, this time with Ruth. The last time I was here was for Mother's day and I found the place based on several rave reviews of their food, specifically of their guacamole and their churros, which were fantastic, but more on those later.    Since my first visit, the award winning restaurant has been featured in the Food channel show, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.    The restaurant is colorfully painted in mexican style graffiti that features low-rider classic cars, Dia de los Muertos style skeletons and other colorful aspects of mexican pop-art.  We entered via the back entrance, which enters into the main dining room.  After being seated, I ordered a Dos Equis Amber beer from a beer list that has the typical selection of mexican brewed beer.  Sadly, they have no craft beers available.  Though they apparently have a fantastic selection of tequila available, but I wasn't in the mood for a headache.  Ruth ordered a Diet Coke.

Appetizers

 

For appetizers we ordered guacamole and were provided with bread that had an olive spread.  The bread was a french bread and the spread contained olives, tomatoes and other vegetables.  Overall the spread was very tasty, but was completely overshadowed by the guacamole.

The server came to a table with a cart that had a freshly cut avocado, bowls of tomatos, onions, jalepenos and cranberries.  He then proceeded to cut the avocado up in front of us, squirted in what I presume to be a lime/lemon juice mixture.  He then mixed in the rest of the ingredients and it was served with fresh made tortilla chips.  The flavor of the guacamole was fantastic.  It was a perfect mix of salty, spicy, sour and sweet and probably one of the best guacamoles that we have ever eaten.

 Mojarra San Augustine

I ordered the Mojarra San Augustine which is a fillet of talapia coated in achiote sauce, wrapped in a banana leaf and grilled with onion, garlic and blood orange.  The tilapia was tender and flakey and the citrus and achiote sauce gave it a sour and spicy flavor.  The Tilapia was served with mashed potatoes and zucchini.  Not being a huge fan of zucchini, they were as expected, but the mashed potatoes were quite good.  According to the menu the mashed potatoes had shallots mixed in and the seasoning was not described.  Whatever it was, it was good.

 

Carne Asada Tacos

Ruth ordered the Carne Asada Tacos.  They were tacos with carne asada (duh), queso fresco, pico de gallo, avocado and shredded cabbage. They were served with a side of French fries and two salsas.  The first salsa was reminiscent of chili or coctail sauce and the other was a thin salsa that had a vinegary and spicy flavor.

Churros Rellenos de Cajeta de Cabra

Churros!  The star of the evening!  These churros are amazing!  They are stuffed with goat's milk caramel, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, drizzled in caramel sauce, candied pecans, and served with vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberry wedges.   I could go to Barrio Cafe just for these churros.  I can't praise these churros enough.

Small side note:

I apologize for the pictures being of half eaten plates.  We were so excited to eat, we totally forgot to take pictures of the untouched dishes.  Sorry!