MYSTERY DINER: The mortar and pestle of my dreams

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Some time between childhood and adulthood, avocados stopped looking like monster food and started looking like green gold. And they started tasting like creamy, nutty butter that’s best paired with cilantro, lime and lots of salt.

So when the guacamole cart came rolling along at Taxco the other night, I actually breathed a sigh of joy. The giant mortar and pestle of my dreams had finally arrived. And it was making fresh guacamole to order. Yes, jalapeno, salt, lime, tomatoes, onions. Stick a chip in it and divert eyes while we devour it.

We settled in to our booth inside Sycamore’s favorite Mexican restaurant ready to indulge. How nice that one of the first things a diner is greeted with is the sight of someone making fresh tortillas near the front entrance. The alphabet wall of tequila isn’t too bad, either.

Salt-studded margarita for me, mojito stuffed with mint for my dining companion. A bracing, smoky, sinus-clearing bowl of salsa and fresh chips. And we were lost in conversation. So lost, in fact, that we didn’t coordinate menu choices very well. We apparently were of the same mind. So there were a lot of enchiladas on the table for dinner.

Mole is a mystery and a choose-your-own adventure experience. Taxco’s is proudly advertised as containing 24 ingredients. Guaranteed that smoked chiles and chocolate are two. But I tasted coffee, too, in the nice bitter edge at the end of a bite of ground beef enchilada. My dining companion raved about the salsa verde on one of her enchiladas – at least she had enough sense to order three sauces. My dish was a tour of protein: beef, cheese, chicken. Mole can be too easily too chocolate, or too cinnamon, but the one at Taxco teetered nicely between sweet and savory.

The slight dryness of the chicken was forgiven by the mole and the better-than-usual rice and beans. These ubiquitous sides are throwaways at too many restaurants. But they play the crucial role of sopping up all that good sauce your fork can’t capture on its own.

On a weeknight, Taxco doesn’t bustle and clatter and clink like it does on a weekend, but the dining room was still full of smiling, munching people, and a few kids who were free to be their well-behaved selves. We sat near the kitchen, which isn’t closed off from the dining room, and got a little dose of the heat the cooks were feeling. The day had been blazing hot; it wasn’t surprising that the kitchen was, too, but we felt a little humid by the end of the meal. The hubbub from the kitchen (some music, some pots and pans knocked together) seemed to go unnoticed at tables, which were preoccupied with their own conversations. This isn’t a place, probably, for a quiet romantic meal. A fun one, though, yes.

An hour or so after sitting down, there was no room for dessert. And there was very little mole left on the plate (the rice did its job well). We waddled on home, with no regrets about those last scraping scoops of guacamole. Can’t let the good stuff go to waste, can we?

• The Mystery Diner is an employee in the newsroom at the Daily Chronicle. The diner’s identity is not revealed to the restaurant before or during the meal. The diner visits a different restaurant in DeKalb County each week.

Taxco

What: Mexican restaurant

Where: 223 W. State St., Sycamore

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, closed Sunday-Monday

Kids OK? Yes

Phone: 815-895-2545

Web: www.taxcorestaurant.com

Other: Taxco caters parties in and out of the restaurant and has banquet space. Reservations are probably not necessary for week days and for lunch, but they are available.