CORRECTION 6/27/2005: Palmar has been open for 2 years, not 1 month as stated in my review, please take note.
UPDATES available, see end of post. 6/29/2005
Tuesday afternoon I was driving to get something to eat after going home to water my new ‘mater plants (thanks Chilebrown!). I’d pulled close to Potrero Avenue and was going to visit Rick’s Quality Meats and get a dumb sammich. The closer I got the madder I got and decided I just couldn’t eat another sandwich. This is when I made my turn, away. And I’m glad I did because yesterday’s lunch was just as good as today’s. Read on if you care …

This is clearly a Mexican taqueria, but it NOT the old place. This restaurant is bright, clean and has customers in it. I find it interesting that so many Mexican or Salvadorian restaurants don’t take the time to set up shop. By that I mean, homey touches.

I’m never surprised to come to lunch and find white walls, stark mismatched old tables and the kitchen all set up pel mel. But I was pleasantly surprised to see someone had taken the time to make things look nice. Check out those cool blankets under the glass on the tables.
Alright, I placed my order and waited for the obligatory chips & salsa. I had high hopes, but one learns. “okay, show me.” I said to myself. The chips showed up in short order and looking like this:

My heart jumped, those aren’t bagged chips! And they were warm. And it tastes as though they were done with real lard too. They left a light & sweet coating in your mouth just like really good ice cream. The salsa was okay, but they have outstanding bottles of hot sauce available. In went some Habanero sauce quick like a bunny. Remember, don’t stretch that N, it’s a hard one. Biggle’s Law #14-A is that your food should arrive within the time it takes you to eat a basket of chips. If I have to ask for another basket of chips due to time? You lose, unless it’s terribly busy. Two days in a row the food showed up right on time.

My wife ordered the chicken enchilada plate. Beans were rich, rice good too. Clearly both had been treated with care (touch of lard). The enchiladas looked as though they’d really seen some kind of oven or salamander. As you can see, the color tells me there’s real chiles in there! We don’t want to see some Stop Sign red sauce.
I ordered the Taco plate, Al Pastor. Al Pastor was traditionally lamb, but now is usually pork. Either way this Al Pastor was more than good. I was able to taste ingredients, garlic, cloves, chiles. On both days the limes were fresh and not all spongy and had been cut days before. These suckers glistened, citrus rules. Especially when coupled with rich & spicy foods.
Yesterday I had the Chile Verde plate and from ten feet away I could see it was a winner. Huge chunks of clearly long simmered pork in a beautiful green sauce. Their sauce was at least 3 dimensional and the pork was nearly perfect. I haven’t had Chile Verde this good since Pepito’s closed in Berkeley years ago, I used to buy pints of it. I’ve never had the famous Denver Chile Verde, but I would have to think this is at least close.

All in all this was an oustanding meal that deserves your direct attention. I now feel I don’t have to travel to the Mission in San Francisco to get edible Mexican food. No, don’t go there. Don’t even try to tell me some Berkeley hippy Mexican restaurant is worth trying. I’ve been there and you simply cannot make good Mexican food without lard, it isn’t possible. Sure it’s good food, but it isn’t Mexican. And I don’t even want to open up a dialog about it.
UPDATE 6/29/2005:
That was last week. Over the past week many of us have made repeated returns to Palmar. Emil has gone 6 times in 6 days, twice on Saturday. However, it hasn’t all been a bed of roses. Big D and I had lunch on Monday and his Chile Colorado has a considerable amount of water in it. Really odd, he said the meat was okay, but the ‘sauce’ was clearly water. I should have said something, but didn’t. Emil mentioned he saw someone having their Fajitas, it was a spectacular event to say the least. Huge amounts of steam and jumping spazzles of yummy fat exploding off a severly hot cast iron serving platter. This was accompanied by another platter with beans and rice along with a warmer filled with grilled corn tortillas. But when I ordered it, the platter was barely warm, no salad with guoc and the tortillas were old and chewy. Today, Meathead tried the fajitas and they were hot and jumpin’ and perfect! Emil tried the Carne Asada burrito and was very thrilled to find it was better than expected, one of the best burritos he’s had in years. Plenty of good steak, rice, beans, fresh lettuce, maters, onions, and guoc. The cool items were nice and cool, yet the warm items were toasty good. AND the burrito has been seared a bit, so the tortilla was all toasty !!!! Still a decent place to have lunch.
Taqueria Del Palmar
11252 San Pablo Avenue
El Cerrito, CA 94530
510-307-4312
Monday – Saturday
10am / 9pm (good for Dr. Five Pints)
Sunday 10am / 8pm