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Bonnie wanted to taste Tito's mole, so we asked for a plate of moladas, too: warm, soft flour tortillas folded, dipped in the bittersweet, mahogany mole and sprinkled with bits of salty queso fresco. "It's not as sweet as poblano mole," Bonnie said, licking the sauce from her fingers. "Closer to mole negro, which is the richest version I've ever tasted."
Suddenly, Tito was at the table with a fistful of jagged green leaves: epazote, the tart herb that he uses in a number of his dishes. "Is it hallucinogenic?" I asked, somewhat hopefully. No, but the Aztecs believed that the herb had medicinal qualities. "It rids the body of worms," Tito said, "and gas from beans."
Well, there's something to be said for that.
Tito cooks his beans, by the way, in lard. "That's why they taste so good," Bonnie whispered. "Maybe not so good for you, but at least they're authentic."
Chef Tito takes great pride in authenticity. As at a couple of other traditional Mexican restaurants in the metro, Frida's and Ixtapa (Tito says he consulted on the menus for both of those places), there are no Tex-Mex dishes on Latin Bistro's menu. No crispy tacos, no Cheddar cheese. He prepares three different versions of a chile relleno, but the most popular is his roasted poblano served en nogada: stuffed with sauteed pork blended with dried fruits. It's divinely sweet, which is ideal if you crave a hint of sugar with your fiery peppers, along with pine nuts and a smooth, creamy pecan sauce.
"Where are the pomegranate seeds?" I asked.
"They're not in season," Tito said, fingering his mustache.
"Oh, yes, they are," Bonnie whispered.
Tito left us, epazote still in hand, to artfully open a glistening packet of tinfoil at another table, releasing a puff of spicy steam. Inside the foil cocoon was a heap of pink shrimp bubbling in a peppery red sauce. It looked so good, we ordered one, too. "This is an ancient Mayan sauce," Tito said when he brought out our foil purse. Who am I to argue? I thought, plucking up a shrimp with my fork. I was more impressed with his tender lamb chops, slathered with a gorgeous, supple concoction of tomato, onion and head-clearing epazote touched off with a hint of cream. We shared the chops, but I snagged the last one for myself, knowing that I'd never suffer worms or flatulence again. At least for that meal.
I had tasted Tito's slow-roasted marinated pork, conchinita pibil, before and I couldn't resist ordering it again. It's a visually beautiful, almost excessively delicious way to eat pig. The marinated meat is wrapped in a big, shiny, green banana leaf, carefully folded and roasted for more than eight hours until the meat is both tender and just barely crispy. I preferred mine plain, but Richard spooned Tito's deceptively kicky chipotle cream sauce over his.
Dessert? After all that? Tito swears that his house-made tres leches cake is the best in the city. It is very good and, yes, uniquely his own. Tito soaks a sheet cake, flavored with rum instead of Mexican vanilla, in whole milk, evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk; the cake then gets blanketed with a layer of meringue and is lightly scorched with a blowtorch. It's a white cake on a white plate, so Tito does a wild Jackson Pollock number with the sauces: jade-green kiwi and summer-red strawberry. Tito bakes a dense chocolate layer cake, too, dripping with chocolate sauce and served with two scoops of Mexican vanilla ice cream.
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