Mexican in SoHo: RANJANI CHAKRABORTY’s 21st @ Dos Caminos

Cuisine: Mexican

Location: 475 West Broadway, New York, NY

Price: $$

Food: 2.5*

Service: ****

Overall: ***

Website: http://www.doscaminos.com/

Have you ever tried to make last minute reservations in New York? It is basically impossible. My dear friend Ranjani, who I visited in New York for her 21^st birthday (betcha didn’t figure that out from the title!) attempted this gargantuan task after realizing at 3 p.m. that her original dining plans were going to fall through. The original plans called for all-you-can-eat sushi and all-you-can-drink sake, which I am 97% sure would have led to an all-you-can-puke for myself.

Instead, after a mad scramble, we ended up with a 10 p.m. reservation at Dos Caminos in SoHo. When we finally show up, a couple of drinks in,¹
we’re attacked by the atmosphere and vibe of the place – at 10 at night, the restaurant is not only packed, the alcohol is clearly also free flowing. And rightly so – the place serves over 100 kinds of tequila.

I will say that, between pre-dinner drinks, margaritas during, and post-midnight birthday celebrations, my memories of the night are a little blurred. I think the same holds true for the rest of us who went out that night. Nonetheless, here’s what I thought of Dos Caminos.

Word on the street is (by that I mean Yelp – does that count?) that their tableside guacamole is excellent. Is there a single moderately upscale Mexican restaurant in a major city² that doesn’t make guacamole tableside anymore? I remembered being blown away the first time I ever saw it but it’s no longer that exciting to read about anymore. Anyway the point is we didn’t get the guacamole, but I’m sure it’s excellent – since you can’t fuck up guacamole. It’s not possible. I’m absolutely certain of it. You can’t turn avocados and pico de gallo into a disaster unless you really go out of your way to do it. I would have been interested to try their salsas though, but we didn’t. So, let’s move on.

My entrée was the smoked brisket “enchiladas”: - instead of regular rolled enchilada, they were layered (essentially two tortillas served on a skillet with the toppings between them) with smoked beef brisket, chihuahua cheese, chiltomate salsa, and crema mexicana. Let it be clear that this description was ripped off their menu, as looking back on it I do not have a good understanding of what three of the four listed components of the dish really are.

I thought the dish was beautifully plated – I enjoyed the skillet presentation, and the layers make it easy to get all the components into one bite. Of course, seeing a mound of melted cheese and fresh lettuce will generally make for an eye-catching plate. The dish itself was hit-and-miss – the brisket, while tender and flavorful, had the tendency to overpower the entire dish, including the salsa and the crema mexicana. So even though I would eat a bite with four different things, I would often taste only the brisket and melted cheese. On its own I enjoyed the salsa – it was spicy enough that it tingled the taste buds without being too strong so as to have me downing bucketfuls of water. I also got a piece of something in my brisket that was tough and chewy – cartilage? Can you get cartilage in your brisket? I have no idea, but it wasn’t a pleasant taste.

Overall, I thought the dish had some good things to it, but to eat a whole entrée of the smoked brisket was a little too much for my tastes. Good thing that the restaurant also had a much ballyhooed alcohol selection, because in my opinion the margarita I had saved the day.

The Calle Fresca margarita I had featured cazadores blanco tequila, mango, cucumber, and the kicker – an ancho salt rim. Dear Ranjani, who was determined to not drink until she turned 21 at the stroke of midnight,³ tried the salt rim and on the basis of that alone, decided that was going to be the very first legal drink she would order.

The mango flavor was predominant in the margarita, but there was still room for a noticeable kick of tequila at the end of each sip. It was sweet enough that I could drink it like a regular drink and not think twice about it – which I appreciate in a margarita, even though it might mean it’s slightly less alcoholic. The tequila didn’t leave any sort of burn in my throat, and the drink went down very well.

Bottom line? The food here is so-so, but between the drinks and the loud, festive atmosphere, the place is certainly worth visiting as an opener to a night out. But if you’re here to explore the best of New York’s Mexican cuisine, there are better options out there in the city.<⁴

Final thoughts: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the service here – while the service during the meal was as expected, when we explained to our server that Ranjani was turning 21 at midnight he told us that the bar would close at midnight and that he’d have to ask the manager if they could serve her alcohol before the bar closed. Even though it turned out they weren’t allowed to, he apologized profusely and went out of his way during the process to find a way to make it work. That’s the kind of service that makes you walk out feeling like they have the customer’s needs at heart, even if we didn’t get the outcome we wanted.⁵

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^{1. By drinks, I mean pounding shots of tequila out of Solo cups. Hey, we were keeping with the theme of the night. ↩}

^{2. Neither Taco Bell nor your friendly neighborhood taqueria selling $1.50 tacos el pastor qualify for this distinction.↩}

^{3. Ignoring, of course, not only the tequila shots we did earlier that night, but also the fact that like any sane college student, she was already well versed in the ability to get sloppy drunk and dance awkwardly in public.↩}

^{4. Namely, Rosa Mexicana. This is a Mexican restaurant I’ve been to multiple times in New York – ever since discovering it on a family trip several years back, it has become a family favorite. The best part of the restaurant? Their tableside guacamole, of course.↩}

^{5. Who are we kidding here? One of us just ordered an extra margarita and gave it to her at midnight. Please.↩}