Cocina Mexicana - Pepinos, Flautas, Chorizo tacos

 

Cocina Mexicana. A tiny restaurant, very unassuming, and if you blink you miss it, on Prince street across from Stan's Records. I've been going there for years now, and I love it. The thing about Cocina is that its authentic Mexican food. Authentic to one region of Mexico, in particular, or so I am told, it seems like a legitimate claim, and regardless, their food is delicious, I can't wait to eat more of it.
Normally when I go, I get the same variation of things, pepinos, chorizo taco, the end. I've had some other things on the menu over the years, but nothing keeps me coming back like these two things. Let's talk about them...



Pepinos

Pepinos means cucumber... I guess, what do I know? I only took one year of French, and it didn't go well. I will say that in my case, Pepinos means "seasoned cucumbers that I could eat a million of" Its quite simple really, they take a cucumber, slice it up, sprinkle this salt/chili pepper powder mixture over top of it, squeeze some lime juice on it, and voila! (the only french word I know). They are great because they are just so refreshing, a perfect appetizer in my opinion, or if your food gets a little too spicy, I would recommend an order of these to cool things down. Be warned, they are salty, but the lime juice and the very mild hint of chili pepper livens things up and they are just a perfect light addition to anything else you are ordering that day.
8.7

Chorizo taco

Why break from tradition? my standard order now complete, I was ready to dig in to my second favorite thing on the menu and what is probably one of  my top 100 favorite things ever, the chorizo taco. It has been a while since I've been to Cocina (which means "kitchen" by the way, duh... right? thats what it means?) so I forgot that extras like - lettuce, cheese, sour cream, avocado, or pico de gallo - all need to be ordered additionally for each taco, so my chorizo taco that is usually accompanied by lettuce and cheese, was instead a little on the "plain jane" side, with only cilantro and onions backing up the meat. My initial disappointment at my stupid error was forgotten instantly however because even without add ons, this thing was still DAMN GOOD.
They don't overfill the tacos here, which I like, and they always give you an extra shell (all the shells are soft also) which is strange to me, but whatever, maybe thats how they do things in whatever part of mexico this restaurant is supposedly authentic to. The chorizo is amazing, cooked and seasoned perfectly, its just salty enough and not too spicy... here, the cilantro (who doesn't like cilantro? you're weird) helps the flavor of the meat pop, and provides a fresh undertone to the salty smoky spicy-ness of the sausage (oh yeah, chorizo is Mexican sausage- you are learning so much today), and the diced onions carry everything over the top, and  very simple "plain jane" taco is suddenly intense and complex.
9.0

I also ordered a platter, I decided to step outside my box and get the Flautas, which is three rolled and fried crispy potato tacos, topped with guacamole. I had never had this dish before today...
I was not sure what to expect, the guacamole looked inviting, and the tacos looked more like taquitos (which, are they even a thing really? or did taco bell and gas stations just make them up?) and they were very simply, potatoes, cooked, chopped and rolled into a shell, and then fried. No more, no less.
There wasn't much in the way of excitement here, until I added one of the three mystery sauces, that is.
The sauces were what I expected, and they are typical condiments for Mexican food, a red sauce, a green sauce and then a different color red sauce. The first two I knew about, salsa verde was the green guy, and old red was salsa roja, the verde had a bit more of a kick than the roja, but it was the third cowboy that packed the most punch. Blended from an assortment of dried hot peppers, one small squeeze was more than enough for me, for the rest of the meal, it had a great flavor, and it wasn't unbearably hot or anything, but I definitely felt it for a while after that bite. It had a smoky chipotle flavor to it, and if my mouth wasn't such a big baby, I probably would have chosen it as the perfect sauce for these simple potato tacos, but instead I switched between the red and the green. Each one did in fact add a new exciting level of enjoyment to each bite of the tacos, but I still felt like something was missing. Probably chorizo.
6.0

Each platter there comes with mexican rice, and beans. The rice was great. Kind of hard to screw up if you are anyone but me, I suck at rice, I would get voted off of Survivor as soon as I got off the plane. But they really know what they are doing with it here, some of the best Mexican rice I have ever had.
The beans, meh... were beans. Sorry, you are never going to dazzle me with beans.

So overall a delicious late lunch. Cocina Mexicana, you are forever in my rotation.