5th
xoco
I finally got to try it: xoco. It ended up mostly delivering, but was a tad underwhelming given all of the anticipation that had been bottled up inside of me. Xoco, which is Mexican sland for “little sister” is situated in River North just spitting distance from Rick Bayless’s other two restaurants Frontera and Topolobampo. Taking up the corner slot, this window-heavy restaurant’s beautifully-lit kitchen invites you off of the street for bite to eat.
Unfortunately, from outside it’s difficult to tell how long the line is. Luckily though the line didn’t move too slowly, and was only about 30 minutes long at 7PM on a Friday night.
On the plus side, I was in good company and had plenty to look at once the menu came into view. Numerous other signs talked about how the ingredients are locally sourced, and described the house-made Mexican sodas and soft serve:
Being inadequately read, we opted to order five dishes for the three of us, thinking that at $8-12 they couldn’t be that filling. We were sure wrong about the portion sizes. I ordered the Choriqueso - homemade chorizo sausage, roasted poblano, artisan jack cheese, tomatillo salsa and the Jamon - Quercia Prosciutto Picante, Otter Creek Organic cheddar, black beans, avocado, chipotle mustard as pictured here:
I was a bit surprised when the dishes came out — they were huge! Additionally, not being terribly well read on tortas, I was expecting something a bit more “ethnic” than what appeared to just be a roll or flatbread. Maybe even if it just would have had some spices in it? Despite that, they were well prepared, balanced and quite palatable. The table also ordered the Ahodaga - golden pork carnitas, black beans, tomato broth, spicy arbol chile sauce, pickled onion; the Pork Belly Vermicelli - crispy-tender pork belly, toasty-tender noodles, woodland mushrooms, zucchini, avocado, salsa negra; and one other Caldos that I can’t remember:
Out of the five, my favorites were the Jamon — a perfect Mexican “ham & cheese” play, and the Pork Belly Vermicelli. I rarely see pork belly in a soup (normally I tend to see lardons) so I appreciated the variety.
Aside, I must say it appears everyone is serving a pork belly dish these days; I’m wondering why this revival is coming back so strongly? It’s so amazingly tasty I can rarely avoid ordering it; but unfortunately I imagine its not the healthiest. Maybe I’ll worry about that next year? Or hope the hype will slowly fizzle out before I need to be concerned?
We finished off the meal, with the house-made churros with Mexican vanilla soft serve for dipping. These were definitely the highlight of the meal, and simply fantastic! At $1 a pop, they cost almost nothing as well which was surprising. Did I mention that they were delicious - delicate texture and mouth feel and perfect sweetness level.
The food was excellent but overshadowed by my experience the following evening at Belly Shack. I guess, I was a little disappointed and had hoped that Bayless could have gotten more original than what appeared to be Americanized French bread or Ciabatta — maybe some additional spices would have sufficed? On the plus side, the value was great, one sandwich should easily fill you, which we noticed once we had grossly over-ordered. Decor deserves the high marks for the LEED design as well as the “transparent kitchen” design which entertains from both outside and inside of the restaurant. Service was appropriate for the restaurant style.
Food - 24
Decor - 24
Service - 15
