Mexican on the Main

With its authentic and affordable
flavours, Los Clásicos is a nice
addition to the neighbourhood

by MARK SLUTSKY

Montreal isn’t entirely out of options when it comes to authentic Mexican food. There’s the homey, cozy Coin du Mexique, out on Jean-Talon, and the tapas-style charm of Maria Bonita, for example. But sometimes I think of what you can eat just walking down the street and into a local tacqueria in San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or even New York, and I shed a single, pastor-flavoured tear.

So the opening of Los Clásicos is definitely a good thing. Just north of Mont-Royal on St-Laurent, in between a weird junk store and an apparently extremely popular nightclub, Los Clásicos occupies two store fronts, and although it’s kind of big, it still feels relaxed and airy. It’s clearly a family-run enterprise, with friendly servers eager to inquire after your happiness.

They’re certainly eager to show off their Oaxacan-tinted Mexican cooking, with a menu that runs to something like five pages of fine print (a few less dishes might have been easier to deal with, actually). We shared a few starters, a decision that led me to ingest more nacho chips in one sitting that night than I ever had before.

Well, for one, we were handed a couple of generous baskets of chips along with a spicy salsa verde and a piquant but milder red salsa, just to get the ball rolling. When the guacamole ($6.95) finally arrived, we’d already downed dozens of crispy corn triangles, but the creamy, lime-tinged avocado dish was still a welcome sight. It tasted pretty good too.

We’d wanted to order some sopes, those savoury snacks made of a circle of corn dough topped with refried beans, cheese and shredded lettuce. While they’re available as a main course, ordering the plate of smaller sopecitos ($6.95) was the smart move. Each was a crisp, satisfying biteful. Despite a homonymic name, the sopa azteca ($6.95) was a different thing entirely: a tortilla soup with a tomato base, lots of still-crispy corn tortillas, and, wouldn’t you know it, pork rinds.

As fans of all things pork and marinated, it was a foregone conclusion that we would try the cochinita pibil, citrus-marinated pork cooked in a banana leaf. At its best, the meat is deep red in colour and deep and smoky in flavour. The pibil at Los Clásicos ($9.95) didn’t knock my socks off, but, wrapped in tortillas and topped with a little salsa, it did just fine.

We also tried the beef tacos with cheese ($12.95), served with a small side of rice and some soft nopales (cactus). These were big, beefy things, and they definitely need a little help from the nopales and salsa to get the tastebuds going. Also satisfying but not exceptionally flavourful were the veggie quesadillas ($11.95), stuffed with mushrooms and cheese.

One item on the menu I’d never seen before were molletes, which seemed to be described as pieces of bread baked with beans, cheese, and various meats; I assumed they were something like Salvadorean pupusas. As it turned out, the molletes (around $7.95) were basically slices of baguette topped with beans and melted cheese, with a little chunky salsa on the side… and not much else. Like bruschetta, or garlic bread, almost. They seemed more like entrées and it was anyone’s guess what they were doing in the middle of the mains.

Along with the various tacos, quesadillas, gringas, tartas and milanesas (steaks), Los Clásicos serves breakfast every day, which means you can get your huevos rancheros or chilaquiles fix. There’s also a variety of homemade juices ($3.95 for a glass, $11 or so for a pitcher), of which I enjoyed the watermelon, so pink and sweet and refreshing, and the horchata (rice juice).

I can’t say the flavours were absolutely bursting at Los Clásicos, but it’s an affordable and honest place with a good vibe, and for a meal of guacamole, tacos and sopes, it’s pretty hard to beat, especially in the neighbourhood.

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