Sleety nights call for tacos and tacos call for elote. El Bebe’s elote dish comes with a huge bag of delicious chips–clearly homemade, with a strong masa flavor and dusted with plenty of tajín. The bowl of elote itself was mayonnaise soup. Delicious, delicious mayonnaise soup. It had a mild spice, plenty of onions, and a dusting of cilantro. We totally destroyed the bag of chips, too, which was an unprecedented move.
El Bebe unfortunately doesn’t do their tacos a la carte, so we [read: I] ordered two different platters: the chicken tinga and my personal all-time favorite, al pastor.
The two platters arrived in very fancy ridged boxes that were clearly specially designed to prevent grease from destroying your tacos on their long journey to your house. Unfortunately, in the case of the al pastor, this was mostly in vain.
Ooooomg. The pork was saucy and delicious and they were quite generous with the pineapple. Like I said, the sauce and oil soaked straight through the double-wrapped soft corn tortillas and they completely disintegrated, despite the advanced box technology. This is a very minor complaint, however, given the quality of everything else.
The chicken tinga tacos were slightly sturdier and generally held up to being picked up. They were juicy and flavorful. Pickled red onions are the way to my heart. Special shoutout to the black beans, which were the perfect level of mushy and surprisingly flavorful for what is typically a throwaway side dish.
Sadly for me, though El Bebe advertises tequila, they don’t deliver it. America, we need to fix this loophole. This will have to be something I try out again in person and speak to when it’s safe. No taco meal is complete without tequila.
Price: $25 per person.
Bottom line: I love tacos. El Bebe strikes a balance between authentic and fusion, healthy and greaseball, cheap meal and upscale.
Ward Five Foodie 