Topolobampo!

I've either been really busy or busy relishing being NOT busy lately - we have a very busy month of September coming up, so I'm trying to drink in all the time I have at home with my puppy on my couch. I'm going to Australia for work from Sept 10-Sept 25 (we have a wicked awesome security system, Internet, don't get any ideas), so I'll be gone for most of September. Bossman wants to go kangaroo-boxing, so I'll be sure to post pics of that if we do it, hahaha...

So, anyways, when Michelle and I went to BlogHer and met Rick Bayless, we immediately made plans to dine at Frontera Grill. Those plans got messed up by the Australia trip, so we rescheduled for October. Then, Rick won Top Chef Masters, and Michelle learned that they were serving some of his winning dishes. She emailed me one day asking if I would like to accompany her and her husband to lunch at Topolobampo to sample some of the grub. OF COURSE I said yes! It worked out quite well because I wanted to try Topolo's cuisine, which is slightly different from Frontera, but Hubs is a picky eater and wouldn't have found anything there to be edible. Thus, we got our Topolo and will save our Frontera experience for a double date in October!
We got to Topolo right at our reservation time, and only had to wait for a few moments as they readied our table. We walked in, put Samantha's carseat on a stand (where she proceeded to snooze the entire hour and a half meal), and sat down. I noticed everyone around us had the guac and definitely wanted to try it too - they brought a bowl of it with some chips to the table, gratis. Excellent! The guac was perfect - mild but tasty, and the chips were the perfect combo of crispy crunchy but not too tough!

We quickly decided to order the black mole dish with mini tamales and seared tuna for an appetizer to share, then set about to decide what to each have for an entree. It was so hard, as the food ALL looked soooo good! Andy and I ended up getting a sort of sampler platter called Cuatro Cositas Oaxaqueas (descriptoin from the website: Oaxacan sampler: empanada with chicken and yellow mole; grilled Oaxacan chorizo; roasted chayote salad with lime and green chile; roasted Maple Creek Farm pork loin with red mole). Michelle got the fish tacos (description from website: Baja-style fish "tacos:" mahimahi two ways (poblano seared, beer-battered), with fresh-made tortillas, homemade lime mayo, Tracey's pea tendril salad, pickled vegetables, avocado-tomatillo salsa, lime-Corona "air.")

I was a little confused when Michelle's dish came and the fish was one big piece of mahi-mahi that she had to break up herself, but it was cooked perfectly and and looked very good. They brought a containter of fresh tortillas to the table and she made some tacos, and we also put some of our pork and other fixings into a taco shell to try that out. All the food was so tasty - the pork was cooked perfectly and had a perfect not-too-spicy but savory sauce.

The best part of the meal for me was far and away the tamales - we had a few tiny ones with our appetizer and a bigger one came on my plate. So amazing. The perfect consistency, not too dry and not too soggy, and the perfect ratio of filling to corn-type-crust-thingy (a very technical term). I will seriously dream about those tamales forever.

At the end we couldn't pass up the chocolate cake someone at the next table had gotten, so we ordered one to share for dessert. Also amazing - chocolate cake layered with chocolate mousse, layered with a shiny chocolate ganache and and a chocolate wafer on top. A scoop of mint ice cream on the side complemented it... it was all so tasty.

OK, now I'm making myself hungry. But seriously, awesome meal!