Oaxaca must be one of Santa Feans’ favorite Mexican destinations. It seems like everyone I know is going there or has visited there, and many people make it a regular vacation spot. The southwestern state of our border neighbor is known for its colorful art, archaeological sites, indigenous cultures, Día de los Muertos celebrations, and — for gastronomes — its mole.
Although numerous Santa Fe restaurants offer mole (pronounced MOW-lay), at Fiesta Oaxaca — just a block off the Plaza — diners can choose from five different kinds of mole specials, five varieties of mole enchiladas, and even a mole soup. A selection of tacos, enchiladas, and quesadillas rounds out the menu.
On a recent visit, we tried the traditional Mole de Oaxaca ($18), shredded chicken chunks topped with a thick, dark, smoky mole sauce made with pasilla, ancho, guajillo, cascabel, and morita peppers, almonds, walnuts, and sesame seeds, plantains, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and spices, including epazote and cinnamon, and sprinkled with white sesame seeds. (Epazote, or “skunk weed,” is a leafy herb that some say tastes like a cross between basil and mint.)
The thing about mole is that the flavors intermingle, creating a complexity that defies distinguishing the ingredients; mole is, one could say, a thing unto itself. This mole was as good as any I’ve eaten, including in Mexico, and the mild chile flavor wasn’t so spicy it negated the lovely subtlety of the mix, a problem I’ve encountered in some Santa Fe restaurants.
Like most of the dishes, it was served with golden rice, flavored with saffron and the barest taste of chile, and black bean refritos. The rice was especially flavorful; this wasn’t the kind of boring rice you’d leave on the plate.
Later, Fiesta Oaxaca manager Adrian Martinez said that the restaurant’s mole is formulated with mole paste made by the niece of owner Alberto Lopez in Oaxaca and imported. The restaurant vivifies the paste by adding vegetable broth, tomato sauce, and a touch of piloncillo, similar to American brown sugar.
Making mole is a day-long process that truly is a labor of love, and Fiesta Oaxaca’s tastes like it.
We also tried the chile en nogada ($24), a roasted poblano pepper battered, fried, and filled with a picadillo of pork, beef, apple, plantain, pear, peach, and raisins. A white almond-walnut cream sauce (nogada) and bright red pomegranate seeds topped it off. The poblano was so mild as to be unnoticeable, but the picadillo was robust, with the taste of the meats dominating the flavor. If you didn’t read in the menu what was in the nogada, you might not guess, but once told, you’d have an “aha!” moment. This dish, too, was served with rice and beans.
My companion and I shared an Ensalada de nopalitos y jicama ($14), including chopped nopal cactus, crunchy jicama sticks, tomatoes, almonds, raisins, and avocado slices on mixed greens with a homemade mustard vinaigrette. Alas, the lettuces had not been sorted well, so we had to pick out some browning leaves, but the unusual combination of ingredients somewhat made up for the oversight. The nopalitos — opuntia cactus, also known as prickly pear — were small pieces resembling bites of green beans but were more tender and milder in flavor. The yellow vinaigrette was particularly yummy, adding a piquant touch.
After the salad and two such sumptuous, rich dishes, we might have stopped. But we had already spied an order of flan ($6) being delivered to a nearby table. We had to try it, so we settled on sharing one serving. It came floating on a pool of caramelized sugar with pretty swirls of chocolate sauce plus a bit of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top. The chocolate sauce tasted like Hershey’s, and we could have done without the cherry, but oh, that flan. The eggy custard was perfectly set, creamy but not overly sweet. Ambrosia for the tongue.
Fiesta Oaxaca doesn’t have a full bar but offers several varieties of margaritas, sangria, wine, and beer, along with soft drinks, including Mexican Coca-Cola. Mexican Coca-Cola is made with cane sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup, as is American Coca-Cola. (I have a Mexican American friend who brings back cases of the stuff in his car after a visit to family in Mexico. He drinks it himself but also sells it to Mexican natives who yearn for a taste of home.) We tried the margarita tamarindo ($11), made with tamarind pulp and juice, which impart a rusty orange color and a flavor more subtly citrus-y than the classic lime-juice-and-orange-liqueur version of the tequila drink. The rim of the glass was dipped in a mild chile-lime salt. The drink seemed almost dangerous, the kind of alcoholic drink that tastes so like juice that you could easily overdo it.
The restaurant also offers aguas frescas ($6), literally “fresh waters,” including horchata (a sweet, milky-white rice drink) and guanabana (a fruit juice made with guanabana, called soursop in English), for those who want a complete Oaxacan dining experience.
Good news for vegetarians and vegans: Fiesta Oaxaca will make many of its dishes without meat products. The mole, for example, includes no animal products, and can be served with seitan, tofu, or sweet potato seasoned with epazote, ground pasilla chile, and piloncillo. The menu includes 26 vegan options of dishes usually made with meat.
Fiesta Oaxaca offers a large variety of tempting dishes; surely only a native Oaxacan would have tasted them all. The region’s traditional mix of sweet and savory offers a welcome change from most New Mexican specialties (which I love) and lots of surprises, possibly even for those who have visited Oaxaca. Who could resist trying mole rosada de piñon ($18): chicken sautéed with piñon, almonds, walnuts, chipotle, hoja santa (a spice), white chocolate, and pomegranate.
The little café’s décor is a happy circus of color and artwork true to Oaxaca. The only oddity was a wall-mounted video screen playing something that sounded like Muzak. Thankfully, it was not loud. We would have found Mexican music more in tune with the restaurant’s theme.
Our server was attentive and friendly, and the manager stopped by to check on us several times. He said Fiesta Oaxaca is about to celebrate its fourth anniversary and may host a special event to celebrate it. If the fiesta includes mole, I won’t miss it.
