Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Nido (Mexican)
444 Oak St., Oakland, CA
Yelp/Facebook (no menus)
Review date: April 2013

We love Pietisserie, which shares a corner of Nido's restaurant. As we had a pie to pick up, we decided to have lunch and try out Nido's upscale Mexican cooking. We had Inez with us which wasn't optimal, as she isn't that fond of Mexican food. Worse, it turned out that a lot of Nido's food is too spicy for her – not necessarily high on the Scoville chart, but spicy enough that she finds it unpleasant.

We also ran into the problem that Nido changes its menu daily, doesn't publish it anywhere, and has a very limited menu at lunchtime. It's possible that to get their current menu you need to be on their Facebook mailing list. But I don't like getting spammed by restaurants, so I didn't look any further into this through their limited website/Facebook pages. 

At lunchtime Nido offers three entrees, two soups, three salads, but the tacos and quesadillas are a la carte. There were three different meats and one vegetarian option offered that day. You can order as many or as few of those as you like. It's a flexibility that seems much appreciated by the decent number of Millennials and Gen Y/X customers who showed up with us on a Tuesday, despite Nido's out-of-the-way location.

We ordered quite a bit of food and ended up taking some home. We started with an order of the chips and guacamole. Nido makes all its own corn tortillas, using the leftover ones to deep-fry for their own chips. The frying is well-handled, the chips sturdy but not too hard, evenly browned and well-crisped. 

The guacamole had the kind of chile heat which catches at the side of your throat. It wasn't that spicy, but Inez couldn't eat any. Alongside it was a smooth puree of smoked and fresh red chiles, reminiscent of Dona Tomas' excellent cooked salsa (the one thing they still continue to do well, based on our last disappointing visit). I liked this; Carlos was so-so on this salsa.

The waiter said they had two soups, so I ordered the vegetable soup for Inez and the chicken pozole for myself. There are two sizes, so I was thinking this meant a cup size versus a bowl size serving. What it actually meant was a generous bowl-size for the smaller order versus an even larger bowl that must be entree sized!

The vegetable soup was good, not great. Like my pozole, the broth is real chicken but not quite strong enough. Inez didn't care for the wide shreds of fresh kale wilted in her soup; they're hard for her to chew as they aren't as tender as spinach.

The pozole had a nice deep chile flavor, with less smokiness than the salsa that accompanied the chips. The hominy looked somebody's homemade version, made from a couple of different types of field corn; starchy, a little chewy – not crunchy-raw, but firm in texture. There were big shreds of chicken breast, ending up a bit overdone by the very hot soup. Like the vegetable soup, it was a little too austere to be good comfort food, as a soup should be. 

If the broth were richer the soups would have been better balanced. Although the removal of fat is medically lauded, the fact is that even with sufficient gelatin (which this broth didn't have) it's not easy to get good depth of flavor in a defatted meat broth without a lot of roasted bones, which are expensive. Although good, neither offering was remarkable enough that I'd order soup here again.

Nido had a special of a chorizo-potato taco with avocado salsa. This is a very good chorizo, if surprisingly mild. It was a single taco, covered with the chorizo hash. The diner folds it in half to eat it, although it's so heavily filled some of it inevitably falls out. This was Carlos' order, but I liked it more than he did. I'm a hash lover, whereas he's fussier and most versions of hash he doesn't care for.

This held true for his other dish, a beef quesadilla (all the tortillas used were corn, in the small 8" size). Two tortillas were each pan-fried, but unfortunately so lightly the cheese didn't melt – something he strongly objects to. The beef was marinated but plain, so the quesadillas were not only small but just meat and cheese. They come with a tiny side of whole refried pinto beans, and a small bowl of tart, smooth spicy red salsa. 

The beef tasted buttery and tender, not spicy. I thought this was excellent, but Carlos doesn't care for red sauce and beef, unless it's Italian. He's tried to like Chile Colorado, but no matter what meat is used, he is unable to become a fan. He infinitely prefers chile verde sauces, but Nido wasn't offering any that day, in any form.

Inez, like Carlos, doesn't care for this type of quesadilla. The chicken meat was tasty enough, but corn tortillas are not her favorite. Unable to add any guacamole really disappointed her, so she only ate one and left the other, despite their small size.

I decided to try the pollo mole plate, chicken in mole sauce with a side of rice and beans. The beans are good, although both Carlos and I prefer mashed to whole, but it's the rice that's really excellent. This is high quality long grain, seasoned just right. 

The serving of mole was large, a surprise compared to the modest quesadilla plates. There must have been an entire half of a poached chicken breast roughly chunked up in a generous swath of spicy red mole. We aren't big fans of mole, but I thought this was a very good version. It was like a good smoky adobo with the undertone of a flavorful bitter chocolate. 

However, I was so full after that unexpectedly generous bowl of soup and all those chips Carlos and I nibbled on with the guacamole, I ended up taking home half my plate as leftovers.  

The waiter was very good, guiding us through the menu to the least spicy dish for Inez. I ordered a strawberry lemonade for Inez, and a horchata for myself. Both are housemade but a little too sweet. The quality of the drinks is high, like the quality of the food. The lemonade had a true fresh strawberry taste. My horchata was creamier than Las Fuentes/Pleasanton gave me last week. Even better, it had the softer, smoother aroma and taste of true Ceylon cinnamon, not inferior Vietnamese cassia. 

Carlos ordered coffee at the end, which was a blend from Highwire Coffee in Oakland. Nido alternates different blends from Highwire, and this one was much better than the coffee (with Pietisserie pies) we tried here last month. It was rich, strong, smooth, with just the right hint of acidity and mid-notes.

We liked Nido, but didn't love it. It's high quality food with skillful execution and far more "authentic" than the usual Cal-Mex. Part of our disappointment is due to the limited choices we had that day and time. Yelp reviewers talk of much more interesting dishes, such as octopus and ceviche, but without an on-line menu you have no idea what's going to be available until you walk in the door. That just doesn't work for us.

Carlos confessed he infinitely prefers the old-fashioned Cal-Mex cantina/taqueria-style cooking: chile verde, lots of melted cheese, chunky fresh salsas with unsmoked chiles. As he points out, he never had Mexican food until he came to the U.S., so for him, La Calaca Loca/Oakland and Las Fuentes/Pleasanton are as authentic as he cares to go. 

I enjoy Mexican regional cuisine more than he does. But unless Nido starts making its menu available to peruse beforehand, we probably won't be coming back. 

Three people, lunch: one taco, two quesadillas, one main plate, and three beverages with tip, $76.