14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Coast Weekend’s local
restaurant review
MonteAlban connects Oaxacan heritage to the plate
Review and photos by MOUTH
OF THE COLUMBIA
MONTEALBAN
Rating:
2975 Marine Drive, Astoria
PHONE: 503-741-3013
HOURS: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Tuesday through Saturday; 10
a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday
PRICE: $ – Entrées range
from $10 to $16
VEGETARIAN/VEGAN
OPTIONS: A few vegetarian
pockets to be found
SERVICE: Adequate
DRINKS: Cocktails, Mexican
soda
MOUTH@COASTWEEKEND.COM
’ve squawked about menus
a lot lately — particularly
those at some Mexican
restaurants. You know the
ones: They’re pages long
and vastly overstuffed with
sometimes hundreds of
similar dishes.
It’s in that same vein
that I want to praise Mon-
teAlban — as much for
what the Mexican restaurant offers
as for what it doesn’t.
What the Astoria restaurant
mercifully avoids is that famil-
iar deluge. There are no combo
meals or hard-shell tacos. There
aren’t even burritos (save one for
breakfast).
The dinner menu carries just 14
entries, plus a handful of addi-
tions — like street-style tacos,
sopes and other starters, which are
available all day. And while just
about every Mexican restaurant
in the region plasters the word
“authentic” on signs and menus,
MonteAlban actually connects its
Oaxacan heritage to the table with
a handful of regional dishes.
Will any of them blow your
socks off? Maybe. Maybe not.
But we’re certainly moving in
the right direction. With so many
carbon-copied, Americanized
Mexican restaurants in the region,
trimming and connecting the
menu counts as a win. Resistance
is not futile.
Still, MonteAlban is not wholly
sui generis. With the pastel palette
and the fake plants, design famil-
iarity abounds. And, yeah, there
are hamburgers and, somewhat
more head-scratchingly, a Denver
omelette in the breakfast section.
Meals too begin with free chips
and salsa. Or, rather, a pair of
not-very-hot sauces. I preferred
the pointy, acidic, green, tomatil-
lo-based sauce to its black-hole-
dark, smoky red partner. Neither
were particularly spicy. The
Above: Delivering Pozole bedside
in lieu of chicken soup would be
welcome.
Right: The Cecina Plate’s pork was
good, though the Mouth found the
cactus salad wanting.
Margarita ($7), too, was routine
— syrupy, reasonably strong,
sloshing around in a hot-tub-sized
glass.
The first left turn was the
Picadita ($3), a cousin of the sope
with a few critical twists. Rather
than fried, the puffy corn tortilla
is grilled, affording a crisp crust
and pillowy center. Upon it rested
black beans, cotija cheese crum-
bles and meat. At the server’s
suggestion I chose pastor (pork),
which was juicy and fibrous. But
what bound the billowing, fluffy
pillow was a drizzle of olive oil, a
flavor I’ve found rarely in Mexi-
can food and one that added depth
and dimension.
I continued following the serv-
er’s advice. Without hesitation he
pointed toward the Mole Oaxque-
no and Cecina Plate as his favorite
entrées.
The Mole Oaxaqueno ($14)
boasted mole from Oaxaca and
white rice, though it arrived
with MonteAlban’s regular, very
lightly seasoned Spanish rice. The
mole sauce was dark, thick and
rich, a midnight storm of influ-
ences — fruity, nutty, chocolatey
with a creeping heat. The thick,
almost unmoving slick envel-
oped three wallet-sized hunks of
chicken and then some. Even with
the rice, the sauce overwhelmed
KEY TO STAR RATING SYSTEM
the plate. It was mysterious in its
bottomless depth, and I reveled
in playing archeologist, trying to
unearth the many components.
But for dinner it was too sweet
for my taste. I longed for some-
thing to stare down the mole, to
cut it. It could’ve been veggies
or hot sauce, which I wondered
about — ”Do you have any
special homemade hot sauce?”
I asked. My server pointed back
toward the two that came with the
chips, red and green. That was all
MonteAlban had to share. Later
that evening as I left, I noticed my
server in the kitchen having a shift
meal. On the table were bottles of
numerous grocery-store-bought
hot sauces — Cholula, Tapatio,
Tabasco. Indeed, they knew but
held out.
The Cecina Plate ($14) was
much more my speed. The thin,
wide pork slabs were salty,
slathered in the smoky, dark red
sauce that mixed better with meat
than with tortilla chips. Along for
the ride were more Spanish rice,
refried beans, as well as pinches
of bitter cactus, shredded lettuce,
tomato, cilantro and onion that
more embodied accoutrements
than the described “cactus salad.”
The helping of avocado was about
a tablespoon’s worth. Still, the
pork was dandy.
On another visit I tried the
Sope ($3). It was salty, savory and
creamy cool, a good deal more
food than a $2 taco. But it left me
pining for another Picadita.
I also had the Pozole ($10),
whose smudged writing on the “Spe-
cials” board suggested a near per-
manent availability. The salad-sized
bowl of tomato-and-onion-centric
broth was filled with chunks of
sinewy pork and chicken and kernels
of grainy hominy. On the side
were onions, cilantro, cabbage and
jalapeños, plus three flat, crunchy
corn tortillas you could crinkle into
the bowl as you pleased. A squeeze
of lime opened the thing up. Even
without the add-ons, what came in
the bowl was a substantial meal.
With a comfortable, hearty, warming
simplicity, delivering Pozole bedside
in lieu of chicken soup would be
quite welcome.
Finally I zagged back to one
of the menu’s handful of Oaxacan
offerings, the Tlayudas ($16). The
thin, white corn tortilla, which
came from the region, was baked
to a wafer-like crisp. It was enor-
mous — bigger than any I’ve ever
seen; the size of a platter, nearly
enough to wrap around a foot-
Poor
Below average
Good
Excellent
Best in region
ball twice. My server described
the dish as something akin to a
“tortilla pizza.” At first the size
seemed fun. But it made more
sense as a shared appetizer —
which it is, traditionally — than
one person’s dinner. There was
a spread of black bean paste that
was woefully thin, plus shredded
cabbage and an irresistible white
Oaxacan quesillo cheese. Melted,
it stretched cinematically like
something from a commercial.
Somewhat strangely, the wide,
thin flank steak — I chose beef —
was served whole in the center,
rather than sliced and spread
about the massive area.
Indeed, the Tlayudas wasn’t
the most successful or tantalizing
dish I had at MonteAlban — that
honor goes to the Picadita. But
the mere fact that there’s an actual
through-line connecting Oaxaca to
the table in Astoria — rather than
simply piling on more burritos
and enchiladas — is worthwhile
in itself.