It seems I'm a little behind on the Mexican food wave that started sweeping through Cape Town since the end of last year. Judging by a spate of online reviews and comments, it would seem that the serendipitous opening of El Burro and San Julian Taco & Tequila has caused quite a buzz in the city's dining community, with one camp championing the authenticity of the restaurants' menus and the other questioning it.
I'm perhaps fortunate in the sense that I've never been to Mexico and therefore don't mind all that much whether my salsa verde is made with tomatillos or normal green tomatoes or whether my guacamole is mashed using a blender instead of a fork. Hell, I don't even mind that margaritas are strictly speaking a Tex-Mex invention. I'm tempted to say that being prescriptive about Mexican food takes all the fun out of eating it and, after chatting to Ricardo and Arturo Garcia-Aispuro, the chef and the waiter at
San Julian, they confirm that it's a bit of a futile exercise.
‘Classifying Mexican cuisine is extremely difficult, since Mexico is divided into 31 different states, each with up to 50 traditional specialities,’ explains Ricardo, who started making tortillas alongside his mom at the age of 10 and then qualified as a chef in Baha. ‘Mexican recipes don't just vary from region to region and city to city, they differ from grandmother to grandmother.’
San Julian, Arturo tells me, is what Mexicans refer to as a taquería, or taco shop. Tucked away in a corner of Bo-Kaap's Rose Street, it's not flashy by any means, with only a few artfully arranged crosses and mirrors tipping you off that you're in a Mexican establishment. Once you're there, though, it becomes blatantly apparent that aesthetics aren't what make this place, but the warm hospitality of the Garcia-Aispuro family, who relocated here from Sinaloa after dad, Arturo Sr, took a construction job in Johannesburg.
I first visit
San Julian on a Friday night, when Arturo Jr is skilfully bobbing and weaving through mostly filled tables, amicably chatting away and making recommendations. It's under his beguiling spell that I order a chilled glass of agua de horchata, a ground rice drink which, in a weirdly comforting way, tastes very much like baby porridge. He also bends my arm and convinces me to try a R50-a-pop shot of Sauza sipping tequila that is served with an identical shot glass, filled with what he tells me is tomato, lime and orange juice with a "seecret ingreedient" (that I strongly suspect to be Tabasco sauce).
Digestif out of the way, I move onto a plate of taco de carne asada, spicy pieces of steak on elastic, mealie-bursting tacos smeared with fresh guacamole and served with a bowl of soup beans and salsa. My appreciation of the tacos doubles when Ricardo later explains the laborious process of making the tortillas, simmering white maize in water, salt and lime (the mineral not the citrus fruit) for twelve hours before draining it, cleaning it, then grinding it and making it into masa, or dough.
On the completely other side of the spectrum, lies Green Point's answer to Mexican cuisine,
El Burro, which has also become known for its made-from-scratch tortillas. Headed up by the same masterminds behind
Royale, Sascha and Hugo Berolsky, Nic Haarhoff and René Jellis, this place absolutely oozes cool. Once inside, it's hard not to gush: focal walls that I'm unsure whether to classify as fuchsia or cerise complement exposed brick and wooden surfaces, a large geometric wall shelf is adorned with a miscellany of cacti and a smattering of tastefully placed donkeys do justice to the restaurant's name.
On my visit I opt for an outside seat on the airy balcony overlooking Green Point Stadium. A complimentary bowl of fresh, salty corn chips with a smoky tomato-chilli sauce eases the worst of my hunger pangs as I deliberate over the menu. It's considerably more comprehensive than San Julian's and includes several specialty dishes such as mole, the purported national dish of Mexico, as well as the raw, citrus-marinated fish dish called ceviche, which is a Peruvian signature.
I decide on the much hyped latter, which on that day is made with red snapper and sings with fresh lime juice, coriander and red onion. For my main I choose a combination of flour and maize tacos served alongside a braised beef salpicon salad with tomato chutney and feta on rocket. Doing my darndest to empty every accompanying bowl of salsa, guacamole, smoked chilli sauce and pickled onion, I fish out every last tender meaty morsel, ultimately stealing my date's remaining tacos for the job.
When I talk to Sascha, he tells me that the recipes for every menu item hail from the motherland itself. ‘I went to live with a very good friend in Mexico, whose family owns one of the top restaurants in Guadalajara, called La Tequila Cocina de Mexico,’ he explains. ‘I spent quite a lot of time in the kitchen with his mother and father, finding out as much as I could about the food from Guadalajara and Southern Mexico, and brought back their recipes.’
As I later sip on one of
El Burro's palomas (a deathly delicious cocktail of grapefruit juice and tequila), I can't help but wonder what the owners would make of a visit to San Julian, and conversely, what Arturo and Ricardo would think of
El Burro. At the time of this story going online, neither party had visited the other's establishment, which is quite a curious thing when you consider they're only five minutes' drive apart.
Maybe I should set them up on a date or something.
By Annette Klinger
