Tacos and booze

On the sidewalk outside La Venadita, Bart Simpson says “Eat my gentrification.”

Call it street art, vandalism or whatever you want—the cartoon character’s sentiments rang clear among many in Oak Park when La Venadita, a Mexican restaurant from a prominent Bay Area restaurateur, opened in May.

Though it’s upscale for a place that specializes in tacos, the space feels casual overall. There’s counter service. You fetch your own water and napkins. The patio tables feature colorful floral prints, which match the interior’s hip, bright pink-and-brick-and-art aesthetic. It all adds up to $3.50 tacos, which some people will inevitably think is too much money to pay for a taco no matter the taco’s level of deliciousness.

Most of the prices at La Venadita feel steep, but not because the food appears to be the same sort of stuff you can buy for much less at one of Sacramento’s many taquerias. A $3.50 taco can and should be in an entirely different category than a $1.75 street taco.

It feels unique for Sacramento, but already, competition is brewing for La Venadita’s subgenre of Mexican food, which falls somewhere in between La Fiesta and Zocalo with the added benefit of a full bar. Nixtaco in Roseville is earning tons of praise and also charges $3.50 for a taco, and El Rey, another gourmet taco spot, is expected to open near the arena soon.

And that’s a problem for La Venadita, because the food is not yet strong enough to make the excitement over its perceived uniqueness last. It already doesn’t measure up to similar iterations in the Bay Area—including those by La Venadita’s owner, Tom Schnetz. The Sacramento native operates Berkeley’s Tacubaya and Oakland’s Xolo, among other hotspots.

At less than four months old, La Venadita could certainly turn things around. For now, most dishes are too ho-hum.

Take the enchilada dinner plate ($12), with two small, chicken- and cheese-stuffed enchiladas under a veneer of mole coloradita. The sauce was tasty, but lacked the deep complexity most moles provide. On the side? Underseasoned beans and bland, dry, green-tinted rice.

Those same sides take up most of the chile relleno plate ($12), which offers one poblano chile stuffed with zucchini, corn, cheese and salsa. It’s an excellent chile relleno, but feels expensive when you’re still hungry after. A side of silky corn and zucchini pudding ($3) holds similar appeal flavorwise.

Perhaps, La Venadita’s strength is vegetables. It’s certainly not seafood. The shrimp taco ($3.50) tasted purely of jalapenos. The tuna ceviche ($9.50) tasted purely of tomato and lime. With both dishes, I couldn’t taste the reason for ordering them.

Bland proteins haunt much of La Venadita’s menu, actually. The chicken tostada ($5) revealed no detectable chicken flavor. Same with the crispy carnitas taco ($3.50), which held a bounty of stretchy cheese, brilliantly red tomatoes and, apparently, pork.

The albondigas taco ($3.50) sounded exciting: two small meatballs on a layer of cheesy refried beans, in a taco? Unfortunately, the meatballs were a bit dry and, again, bland.

Among those I tried, the vampiro taco ($3.50) was by far the most successful, with juicy, flavor-packed al pastor and a fried cheese skirt. It proved—along with some vegetarian dishes—that La Venadita has potential. With Schnetz’s proven track record, it should be much more than a hipster haven with pricey tacos, mediocre horchata and craft cocktails.