La Verdad

La Verdad
1 Lansdowne Street
Boston, MA 02215
http://laverdadtaqueria.com/

Char's View:
A few weeks ago, we went to a Red Sox game and passed by a little Mexican joint giving off a wonderful aroma and energy. I had been to Toro (in the South End) a few weeks prior and was pretty pleased so seeing as this little taqueria is also owned by Ken Oringer, I was intrigued. I pleaded with Vichu to go and we set up a cupcakes and Mexican night.

The restaurant is pretty cute, it has a section just for take-out orders and a surprisingly large dining room tucked away on the other side. The decor is colorful and makes you feel like you are actually at a Mexican cantina, but starts to feel a little hokey after awhile. The silverware they placed in front of us was dusty, but the service was super friendly and quick.

For the apps, my good friend Scott raved about the grilled corn so we ordered that along with a small order of guacamole and chips. The grilled corn was smeared with mayonnaise and then sprinkled with cotija cheese and chile spice. Scott was right to rave about it! I don't think I'll ever eat corn on the cob any other way from now on. It was juicy and sweet and the cheese and chile spice gave it a nice touch. It was grilled nicely and not so much so that the kernals become chewy. As for the guacamole and chips, you usually can't do wrong that and La Verdad didn't. The chips were defintely hand-made and sprinkled with more cotija cheese and chives which was a nice tough. The guacamole was fresh and fluffy, but not made tableside as the menu touts. It also came with a little trio of salsa verde, homemade salsa, and what looked like sauteed onions and a carrot slice for good measure? The homemade salsa was really good and the kind I like because it doesn't have any resemblance to ketchup. It was the kind where you could see the tomato puree separate from the juices and had just the right amount of heat. The only other place I've had salsa just as good was from Salsas in South Boston. I don't know what was up with the sauteed onions and carrot.

For my entree, I had the Loco Mundo. I only chose this because it was fun to say. No, truth be told, too many of the tacos looked good and ordering the Loco Mundo gave me a choice of three tacos. I chose carne asada, pescado, and Benny lengua. The carne asada was grilled skirt steak, caramelized onions, guacamole, and salsa arbol. This combination was a little to hot for me. My mouth was actually to hot to even taste the meat. The grilled skirt steak was a little overcooked and the caramelized onions were almost like a sweet onion jam and was just a tad too sweet. The pescado taco consisted of an Ensenada style fried fresh fish, avocado puree, cabbage, crema, salsa crudo and chipotle mayonesa. To be honest, I didn't taste any of this. The fried fish looked beautiful, the batter was fried up light and crispy, but there was no flavor. Perhaps on its own it would have been able to shine a bit more and the chipotle mayonnaise didn't make me have to reach for the beverage as fast as the carne asada did. Last but not least was the Benny lengua taco. This was a braised tongue taco with salsa Arbol, ciantro, and diced red onion. This was by far my favorite taco. The tongue was tender and flavorul and the salsa amount, cilantro, and red onion all complemented one another perfectly. The only thing that would have automatically kicked all three tacos into a tastier level was if the restaurant worked on its tortillas! How to describe these tortillas? Well, they're not chewy or soft, they're not crunchy, they're just flimsy and taste soggy. They taste like when you bring a Mexican food dinner home for leftovers and then you reheated them in the microwave. You know how they never taste the same as when you had them at the restaurant? That's how these tasted. I would have loved to have the tacos on a fluffy tortilla almost similar to Indian naan.

Vichu had the chile verde which I didn't have a taste of, but it was definitely a large portion and came with a dusty tortilla warmer filled with more icky tortillas. You'll have to read his review down below for his take of Oringer's little taqueria. Would I recommend this place? I'd recommend it for apps and margaritas when the Boston summer time sets in and the Fenway area is alive, but for a good Mexican meal, I'd still stick with Anna's Taqueria any day.

Vichu's View:
Okay… I’m not sure what to write for this blog… I went to La Verdad with the hopes of finding a good Mexican Place. What I found was a restaurant that strived to be Taco Bell and failed miserably! Should I have been surprised? Probably not since this is the second Ken Oringer restaurant I’ve eaten at that has just sucked and I don’t mean suck a little I mean SUCKED! The first one was KO Prime, I love steak and hated this place! I ordered a steak rare and they cooked it well done. Not medium well, when I say well done it was brown in the middle. When I brought this to my waiter’s attention instead of saying okay we’ll take care of this he told me he’d take it back into the kitchen and have the chef determine if the steak indeed was not rare… He came back later and said I was right the steak was over cooked, apologized and said they were cooking me another one ASAP. When I got the second steak… It was medium well and had a strange odor of gas and burnt meat, completely unpalatable. The manager came over at this point and asked if everything was alright I said “Well y’all overcooked both my steaks. I ordered rare and received a well done and a medium well; and the second one smells like gas.” He apologized and actually said “We apologize for everything but steak rare, is hard to hit.” I was just stunned and left vowing never to eat at a Ken Oringer restaurant again. With the passing of time I forgot this vow and Ken Oringer drifted away from my memories until La Verdad!!!

La Verdad is situated across the street from iconic Fenway Park, at the end of Lansdowne Street. When you first walk in you’ll see a take out counter and a couple signs that direct you either for takeout or for restaurant seating. Char and I took a left and walk into this odd replica of what I think is supposed to represent a Mexican cantina. A huge bar dominates the center and tables surround three quarters of the restaurant, outside seating is also available. The décor was about as well thought out as a tourist stop in Mexico. The clichés were in full swing! All this would have been alright had the food been good… but alas it just wasn’t.

For an appetizer we ordered the grilled corn and guacamole. The corn was an interesting mix of grilled corn, mayonnaise, cojita cheese, and chile spice. The presentation was pretty plain it was two corn split in half width wise slathered in Mayo covered with cheese and a light sprinkling of the chile spice. This was probably the best dish of the night and it was mediocre at best. Grilled corn should be sweet, smokey, and juicy with a concentrated corny essence! What I ate was a rubbery tired corn with a whole bunch of crap on it! There was too much tasteless mayo and it just made the corn greasy, the cojita cheese reminded me of Kraft’s Parmesan cheese in the green container and the almost non-existant chile seasoning didn’t add anything to the dish.

The Guacamole that was advertised as being prepared table side mysteriously appeared on a plate from somewhere in the kitchen. Tasted like someone took bad avocados mashed them up and just served them. Completely tasteless unless you consider the slightly acidic element which I think was fermentation as an acceptable flavouring agent. The guac was served with a side of Handmade Tortilla chips which were actually tasty. On top of the tortilla chips were small clumps of Cojita cheese sprinkled sparingly. The plating just screamed “I just don’t really care what the food looks like, people will eat anything.”

I thought the worse had passed but oh was I so wrong, the Chile Verde main was yet to come. When they drop the Chile Verde in front of me I seriously thought Oscar the Grouch threw up into a bowl and someone squeezed a layer of sour cream on top. To my chagrin… kinda tasted like it too… The Chile Verde was horrible with big chunks of unidentifiable stuff just kind of floating in a thick green ooze. After a couple spoonfuls I just couldn’t eat the green sludge anymore so I decided to go fishing for the pork. I found only 4 pieces floating in what must have been a quart of green goo. Meat stewed for any length of time you’d would expect to be melt in your mouth good, but this was not to be. The pork was tough, overcooked and completely tasteless. Getting pork to turn out like this takes a ton of misguided talent because most people can’t achieve this by accident. Meat cooked in a flavourful braising liquid or soup should absorb the flavour of the cooking medium and become meltingly soft. A Simple dish with simple cooking technique (put ingredients in pot simmer for long periods of time how hard is that!) should have never ever turned into dish that I ate. It was the perfect storm of crap!

Char’s choices for Tacos were, Carne Asada, Benny Lengua, and Pescado wasn’t as bad as the Chile Verde but it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination good. The Carne Asada was only mildly spiced and bland. What caught me off guard was the texture of the meat. How in the world did they get beef to have the consistency of Play Doh? Did they try really hard for this consistency or was the meat they used just crap meat? Meat should have some structure and should not be mistaken for a childhood toy. I was ready to order another Carne Asada to see if I could mold the meat into interesting sculptures just using my tongue and teeth. The Pescado, essentially a fish taco was about as bland as cardboard. A meal made from Gorton’s Fish Stick box would have been tastier and prepared with more care. The Benny Lengua wasn’t horrible, a lot bland and spiced poorly but the tongue was the consistency it should have been, and that’s the best thing I have to say about this particular taco… All three tacos were served on tortilla that was just horrible. The edges were dry and rubbery while the center was falling apart soggy. Oh good lord how the heck did they mess it up so badly… Taco bell doesn’t even get this part wrong.

Okay I’m coming to the end of my rant but I do have to bring up one more point, why the hell was everything in the restaurant dusty? The silverware was dusty, the table was dusty and the tortilla warmer was dusty and that came from the kitchen. The front of the restaurant was open to the street… but if you know that you take the appropriate measures to combat this. The part that flabbergasts me is stuff from the kitchen came out dusty. Makes me wonder if they bothered to wipe down the plates they used? Or is Boston dust part of their secret seasoning.

I’m going to now declare this in writing… I will never ever eat at a Ken Oringer restaurant again!!! Not even if a pretty girl like Char asks (for those of you who know me this is a big deal).