Over the weekend we ate at a lovely little restaurant in our neighborhood, Bonita. (The restaurant also has an outpost in Williamsburg). The inside looks like it has changed little in decor from the space’s assumed previous life as a diner, but is oddly charming. We chose to sit outside as we arrived at one of the few times over the last weekend when the weather was a bit better than bearable. There isn’t much of an outdoor seating area, but there were a few tables available.
The guacamole and chips were excellent. I love all sorts of guacamole, from the chunky type filled with pieces of onion, tomato, and cilantro, to the smoother type in which the individual components are difficult to discern. Bonita’s is the latter type, and it was perfectly flavored. The chips, though not warm, were either homemade or very high quality. The beet salad was beautifully and unusually presented: a big mound of shredded lettuce, cheese, dressing, and pepitas sat atop extremely thin slices of beet. Unfortunately, the dominant flavor was the astringent lime juice used in the dressing. More oil, and perhaps a tad more salt, was needed to really make the salad taste as special as it looked.
More on this later, but I have long lamented the lack of good Mexican food in New York. And been puzzled by it. Certainly there are enough expatriates here that one should be able to find good Mexican food somewhere. (P.S. Don’t trust a native New Yorker who tells you some place has great Mexican Food. It seems you have to have lived in California or Texas, or ok, I guess Mexico, to be a reliable judge of this cuisine.) There are plenty of pretenders out here, claiming to peddle Mission style burritos! Ha! They are not even close. First, they use whole beans, which you would be hard pressed to find at California Mexican restaurants. Also, they always want to put lettuce inside the burrito, which makes no sense, it just turns into a slimy, limp mess.
All of this was to say that I was not expecting much from the burrito I ordered from Bonita. It had vegetables in it, for one, which I think generally detracts from the beans that should in my mind be the focus of any tortilla-wrapped meal. But I was surprised at the wonderful flavors this burrito contained! It looks like a total wreck (see picture, above), but all the flavors melded together nicely. It was mostly vegetables, in fact, with some beans and rice and cheese, plus more delicious guacamole inside. The fish tacos were a simple and delicious entree as well. The fish was perfectly fried, and folded into soft corn tortillas with lettuce, red onions, radishes, and a chili and sour cream-based sauce.
I would recommend Bonita for an inexpensive-ish dinner when you are having a hankering for Mexican-ish food. But don’t go expecting Mexican food of the type you find in California or Texas. For that, my East Coast quest continues…
Bonita
243 DeKalb Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
718-622-5300
338 Bedford Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-384-9500
Entries (RSS)
July 10th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
[...] « Bonita, Fort Greene Jul 10 2008 [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Lettuce in a fish taco? That looks pretty nasty. It’s gotta be cabbage.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
It was lettuce (I actually called the restaurant to double check that I remembered correctly!). And I assure you, it was not at all nasty. Replace the “n” with a “t” and you are closer to the mark!
July 17th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
[...] to capture the tawny Brooklyn dusk through the lens of a great glass of wine. When I went to Bonita a while back I consumed the pictured glass of wine, which totally knocked my socks [...]
September 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
[...] might just be what I appreciate the most! I have bemoaned the lack of good Mexican food in New York before. One of my chief complaints is that not many places here get enchilada sauce right. Most places in [...]