Ethnic food is enjoying a renaissance of refinement in big cities—Chinese food evolves beyond cheap take-out at famed Mission Chinese Food; noodles and steamed buns get the gourmet treatment at David Chang’s Momofuku empire; The Slanted Door takes Vietnamese street food to the next level in San Francisco. Of course you wouldn’t know how hot ethnic food is right now judging from the restaurant scene here on the Monterey Peninsula. We’re drowning in upscale French and Italian restaurants, but when it comes to nicer spots with Asian or Latin flavors, there’s nada.
One of my biggest grievances with our local culinary landscape is the lack of elevated ethnic eateries. Drive into Seaside or Marina, you’ll find great spots to grab a quick and cheap bite in a casual setting, but nothing that pairs those exotic flavors with a more refined dining experience worthy of date night with that special someone or taking your parents out to dinner.
This disconnect is probably most obvious with Mexican food. Plenty of taquerías offer tasty tacos and scrumptious sopes, but they’re not exactly the best when it comes to atmosphere. The flavors of Mexico are ripe for refinement for the elevated epicure. Chefs coast to coast are giving a gourmet facelift to Mexican food at the likes of Rick Bayless’ famed Chicago restaurants, Alex Stupak’s Greenwich Village hotspot Empellón, Berkeley’s Bauer-approved Comal or the flavor-forward Border Grill from the dynamic duo of Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger in LA. I’ve enjoyed excellent meals at these spots—the chefs stay true to the humble roots of Mexican food, but give a more sophisticated take with plating and presentation.
Despite a sizeable population with ties to Mexico, the Monterey Peninsula has surprisingly few Mexican restaurants. That handful of sit-down Mexican restaurants here caters to popular palates—you’ll find the usual checklist of dishes. Chile relleno? Yep. Enchiladas? Yep. Fajitas? Yep. Bored yet? Yep yep! Most eschew authentic dishes, ingredients and flavors for a more middle-of-the-road menu that caters to American palates. Only The Haute Enchilada in Moss Landing stands alone in a sea of mediocre Mexican around the Monterey Peninsula. Here, owner Kim Solano serves fresh, flavorful and refined Mexican fare—why can’t more local Mexican restaurants follow her lead? I’m not alone in clamoring for better Mexican food in town—several foodie friends have complained to me how they long for good Mexican food that’s more refined than the taquería stand in the back of Mi Tierra market.
The collective cries of local foodies were answered on Tuesday night when Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar hosted “Taquería Jeninni” this week as part of the restaurant’s popular “Tuesday Night Dinner Series.” Better known by its social media hashtag—#tnds—it’s a series of pop-up dinners at the PG hotspot. While the restaurant’s daily dinner menu draws from Spanish and Mediterranean flavors, on Tuesdays, the kitchen gets to stretch its culinary muscles. One Tuesday might see Tuscan fried chicken on the menu, followed by Moroccan fare the next week, followed by paella. Chef Jeffrey Weiss often draws from his considerable culinary connections to invite guest chefs to take over the kitchen. Matt Glazer brought the Cajun flair of the Big Sur Roadhouse closer to home at a #tnds dinner last spring and in November, Jeninni hosted a sold-out ramen dinner with Paras Shah, formerly of Momofuku Noodle Bar.
This week, chef Weiss turned the kitchen over to one of his own—putting one of his own cooks, Kristian Sencion, in charge to craft a menu centered on traditional Mexican food. The evening first came about after Sencion cooked up some Mexican comfort foods for family meal. Weiss—a big-city import who is like-minded in his disappointment with the lack of authentic Mexican food around town—saw the potential here. He and Sencion began toying with the idea of offering taquería classics for the restaurant’s “Tuesday Night Dinner” and so “Taquería Jeninni” was born.
I sat down to dinner with my partner in crime, Mike Hale, a fellow food writer with a deep love of authentic Mexican food. (Mike travels to Mexico at least once a year for culinary shenanigans.) The menu was mouthwatering—a $33 three-course prix fixe with three or four options to choose from for each course. We wanted to try everything and begged chef Weiss and owner Thamin Saleh to try a bite of every dish on the menu. After giving us a bewildered “really?!” look at the ambitious task ahead of us, they both obliged and Mike and I settled in for our feast—a test of gastronomic endurance as dishes arrived one after the other after the other.
The first bite was a delightful Dungeness crab and bay scallop ceviche. The seafood was light and bright, with a hint of acid from pink grapefruit. The aguachile underneath was full of heat—but not that lingering heat that overpowers the palate. It was a quick bath of chile and acid that left the crab and scallop barely touched. The delicate seafood snack melted in the mouth, more akin to raw sashimi than ceviche. A bit of yerba buena—a relative of mint—tamed the heat of the chile. Plating by chef Trevor Mathiak was impeccable—vibrant red aguachile with stark white lumps of crab and sliced scallops. Judging by flavor and presentation, this dish would fit perfectly on the menus of high-end Mexican restaurants I’ve dined at in San Francisco, Chicago or New York. Dinner was off to a very good start.
The vegetarian option for the first course actually proved to be one of my favorite bites of the entire meal—roasted carrots with piloncillo, jocoque and mesquite granola. The colorful carrots—orange, red and yellow—were complemented by clumps of creamy jocoque yogurt, another beautiful dish plated by Mathiak. The mesquite granola was a revelation—oats cooked with mesquite powder. Mesquite powder is a sugar substitute commonly used by bodybuilders hoping for something sweet while they bulk up muscle—Sencion was actually a bodybuilder prior to becoming a chef. Tossing oats with the mesquite added a lovely earthiness to the dish.
I was skeptical when I spotted a queso fundido on the menu—this dish so often devolves into nothing more than a big bowl of melted cheese that congeals at the table into an unappetizing mess. Sencion’s queso fundido shattered my preconceptions about this dish. Made with goat cheese, the flavor was far more complex. The green chorizo on top added some spice. My only complaint was the lack of proper tortilla chips for dipping. The dip was plated with limp wedges of tortilla. I wound up tossing these and using the spoon to eat the cheese on its own.
Tamales arrived next. Two preparations were on the menu for the evening—goat mole and rabbit tinga. The masa was handmade by Sencion and his mother, who got to the restaurant at 6 AM to prep for the day. Tamales are one of my favorite foods—but also a challenging one to get right. Too often, restaurants over-steam their tamales, making them gummy or chewy. I was pleased by the texture of the Sencions’ masa—light and fluffy.
I started with the goat mole. Full disclosure—I’m not the biggest fan of goat. I’ve tried goat (often marketed on menus as “birria”) several times, always with the same reaction—meh. It’s just not for me. The goat mole was good and got the thumbs up from my goat-guzzling dining companion. But I much preferred the rabbit tinga. The rabbit was tender, slowly simmered in a rich chile sauce.
One of the standout dishes for the evening was the pozole. Tender torn pork’s head and thinly sliced radish were swimming in a savory chile-pork broth. That broth was phenomenal—such rich flavor! But it was the crunchy hominy that stole the show. None of that canned hominy here—the corn was actually nixtamalized by hand by Sencion and his mother that morning, soaking the kernels in calcium hydroxide with a 3,000-year old recipe. Sencion used heirloom pozolero maíz, a corn variety that’s not available in the United States. The kernels are bigger, making them a good choice for pozole. The sprouted kernels made a meaty addition to the savory soup and spiced chicharrones gave a crunchy finish.
Next, our main courses began to arrive at the table, starting with the tacos. Diners could choose from four tacos—al pastor, cochinita pibil, lengua and mushroom.
The toppings were generally pretty tasty. The al pastor—spicy marinated pork with sweet pineapple—was the favorite by far. The lengua—tender beef tongue—was great. This unconventional cut is a staple of taquerías. The cochinita pibil—marinated pork belly—was succulent, with melts-in-your-mouth texture, but could have used a bit of heat, though I did appreciate the pickled hibiscus onions. The mushrooms didn’t quite work for me—they didn’t have enough “oomph” to compete with the other taco toppings.
It was the tortillas that threw this dish for me. I had high hopes when I heard the kitchen was skipping store-bought tortillas in favor of tortillas handmade that day by Sencion and his mother. A good tortilla makes or breaks a taco—unfortunately landing on the wrong side of that equation this time. The tortillas were made with nixtamalized masa and kneaded a tad too thick. The texture got gummy quickly, the thick tortilla overpowering the toppings. Sadly, these tacos simply missed the mark.
The other entrée options—chile verde and roasted salmon—put dinner back on course.
I’d sampled the chile verde before—tender nuggets of slow-cooked pork in a delicious green chile sauce unlike any other in town. Chef Weiss let me in on the secret—he and Sencion devised a new technique for preparing chile verde. Instead of throwing the sauce together to slowly cook with the pork, Weiss first seared the pork in manteca. Next, the pork was braised in a broth of tomatillos, garlic and poblano chilies. He separated and pureed this braising stock and thickened over heat, then finished with a puree of cilantro and parsley. This kept the herb notes fresh and livened up the color. The pork and green chile sauce were plated over a bed of fluffy arroz blanco—the simple white rice a good canvas for the complex chile flavors. To finish, Weiss added a fried egg. Releasing the runny yolk added a buttery touch. This dish was outstanding and a friend at another table eagerly packaged up her leftovers for breakfast/hangover helper the next morning.
The other entrée option was a beautiful piece of king salmon, roasted perfectly medium-rare in the middle. (So many restaurants are afraid to serve salmon that’s still red in the middle, but that’s really when it tastes best in my opinion!) I was starting to lose steam by this point, but the flavors were so tasty, I kept going, despite protests from my stomach. The salmon was served over a picada of roasted cauliflower and bacon. The bacon was crispy and candied, perfectly paired with pipian mole. Made with squash seeds, pipian mole had an earthy flavor, accented with just a touch of bitter chocolate and finished with a stroke of crema.
With our bellies nearly at the breaking point, chefs Weiss and Sencion brought out dessert. “Crap,” Mike and I both muttered under our breath. We had forgotten about dessert. I rolled up my sleeves and gave myself a mental pep rally to forge forward.
The desserts for the evening included tres leches cake and churros, both with a boozy twist.
Weiss took the traditional tres leches cake—made with cow, goat and sheep’s milks—and added a cheeky fourth “leche”: tequila. I generally don’t order tres leches cake because I find it too sweet. I was relieved when I took a bite and discovered how well the tequila tamed the sweetness of this dessert. Pomegranate seeds on top gave a literal pop of tartness too.
However, I much preferred the star anise churros. Two lightly fried churros arrived with a boozy mezcal-infused hot chocolate. Whoa. The churros were lightly dusted in sugar, their golden and crispy exterior lending way to a doughy center. The sweet churros went nicely with the hot chocolate. Spiked with mezcal, it was almost savory, with smoky notes from the booze.
Finally, Mike and I threw in the towel. We’d completed a full tasting of the menu. Were we stuffed? Absolutely. Did we have any regrets? None whatsoever. With only a couple minor missteps, Sencion’s “Taquería Jeninni” dinner easily bested our local Mexican restaurants in offering authentic flavors with a fine dining feel. The food was cooked from the heart, representing a rich culinary history that dated back generations. The recipes for the evening skipped shortcuts in favor of time-honored tradition. The end result was a hearty meal for the stomach—and the soul.
I’m consistently impressed with the “Tuesday Night Dinner Series” concept at Jeninni. It’s a fun opportunity to try flavors and concepts not found here on the Monterey Peninsula—and sorely missed by local foodies. It’s an ambitious effort for sure, but the sold-out crowds that attend these dinners prove the dining public in town is waking up and clamoring for new flavors and experiences. Several of us in attendance Tuesday evening urged Sencion to make an encore appearance at Jeninni. As he packs up his knives to return to regular dinner service at Jeninni, here’s hoping for a repeat appearance of his “Taquería Jeninni” menu in the future!
Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar is at 542 Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove. 831.920.2662. www.jeninni.com. “Tuesday Night Dinner Series” menu changes weekly. Closed Wednesdays.
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