Lav and I ended up here right before a torrential downpour, so for better or for worse we were going to be stuck at Cafe El Presidente for a while. It's from the same people as the Tacombi which is a cute fun Mexican place in Soho. The decor and set up here is fairly similar to Tacombi with a few adorable looking "stalls" - even though it is sit down service and you order with a waitress. The menu here mainly consists of a variety of tacos - they have fish, carne asada, carnitas, pollo, and a pork and pineapple taco platters. Plus they have a few "specialty" tacos and then a bunch of typical side dishes like guacamole and rice and beans.
We started with the guacamole ($11.49), I got the carnitas platter ($12.95) and Lav got a single swiss chard and poblano pepper taco ($2.95) and the esquites ($3.95). Price-wise, except for the guacamole, everything was priced fairly cheaply. The guacamole is served with homemade chips which were a bit thick and heavy for me. I tend to like lighter, thinner chips so that it doesn't weigh me down. The actual guacamole itself was pretty good - very smooth and creamy and it had a bit of heat and kick to it. It was a good starter dish and solid appetizer. The taco platter comes with 4 tacos to the plate and the tacos were piled high with slow roasted pork, onion and cilantro on it. It was a relatively authentic and clean taco with no sour cream or cheese in sight. The small corn tortillas held up the pork well and were nice and warm. 4 was the perfect number of tacos for me - I actually could have been perfectly happy with 3, so the 4th one kind of put me over the edge. Unfortunately the reason for the more lukewarm review was based on the fact that Lav did not like her swiss chard and poblano pepper taco at all. She said there was no flavor or taste to it and that it felt like the mixture was plopped on to the tortillas with no thought or love put into it. The saving grace was that she did enjoy the esquites (that's essentially grilled corn in a cup with cheese and chipotle mayo).
It's definitely not your typical cheesy sombrero wearing margarita drinking Mexican place with burritos and fajitas on the menu, but it was a cute enough place that it doesn't really matter. While my mind wasn't blown nor do I think it's necessarily a place I am clamoring to return to, I would stop in for a aqua fresca or grilled corn if I was in the hood. Total bill: $23/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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