El Santo - Dine Out Vancouver

We love Mexican food but admittedly our exposure to the tweaked creative type of cuisine served at El Santo is somewhat limited. So I was excited to see their DOV menu and made our reservations immediately. We arrived a few minutes early but were seated right away in this packed house on Saturday evening. This is a boisterous place and it was a little difficult to carry on a conversation (it was challenging also to take photos also owing to the low lights) but we tried to soak in the excitement. This dinner was a creative mix of many individual elements combined into very good dishes. I started with the Sopa de Garbanzo which was lovely to behold. The coffee roasted carrots were a little lost ( I would love to have tried a few on the side) but the roasted beet and lime crema

Sopa de Garbanzo

and Cojita cheese contributed greatly to a wonderful dish. I loathed ruining the picture but only when all the elements were stirred together did you get the point. Marie had the Cachete de Cochino which was a rich braised pork cheek with a brilliant achiote salsa with leeks apple and onion.Very Nice!

Cachete de Cochino

My partner loves Chile Relleno, preferring the deep fried to the roasted version.This however was something completely different. Not a deconstructed dish but an inside out version of a relleno!

Chile Relleno

The poblano and panela cheese formed the centre layer with the green rice on the outside sort of like a layer cake. This was the one dish that had a bit of spice to it so I assume that jalapeno was part of the "green" with maybe tomatillo in the mix. Along with a tasty salsa, this was excellent.

Carnita de Jabali

House made torillas

For my main course I tried the Carnitas de Jabali (wild boar). A little like pulled pork but more beefy than pork, served with house made tortillas, a very good guacamole and a burnt citrus salsa that made me weak in the knees. This made for some of the most memorable tacos I have ever had and honestly, they could bottle and sell the salsa. The acid of the citrus and slight char taste set each other off brilliantly!

For  desert, I had the Charred Corn Husk Flan. To be honest, I did not pick up where the charred corn husk entered the picture. It was a very good flan with a few candied walnuts scattered about for another very nice looking presentation.

Charred Corn Husk Flan

Churros

As far as my partner is concerned, the star of the evening, were the churros. I admit that while they were just churros, they were some amazing churros. With a pot of chocolate sauce on the side, and some coarse Ancho sugar, they were the perfect desert. In fact, I got talked into getting some more to go! And if you can imagine, they never made it all the way home! Despite how busy the restaurant was, our food came out relatively quickly. We were comfortable and service was very good. With one more DOV weekend left, I very much recommend El Santo.