Mesa: Bringing Veracruz to Oak Cliff

Despite a room filled with hard surfaces, dining here is relatively quiet, even when the space is full. Mesa seats at most 40 patrons, including the stools that line the bar. Each group retains its intimacy; a table of eight younger women celebrating nearby isn't the slightest nuisance. And if demand grows for the family's Veracruz imports, there's plenty of room for more tables, and for the wait staff to shuttle out oxtail and handmade tortillas or Mesa's quietly flavored mole tinged with spice and chocolate.

The Rabo de Res al Acuyo is an oxtail dish risen from the ashes of La Palampa Veracruzana. I use my fork to pull the meat from the bone, mix it with a little sauce on the plate and eat it with my hands using tortillas. The earthy and oxidized green sauce, based on the herb hoja santa, is rich but missing ... something. I grab the lime from the side of my water glass, hover it over my plate and give it a hearty squeeze.

Alex Scott

Mesa brings Veracruz's milder Mexican to Oak Cliff.

Location Info

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Mesa

118 W. Jefferson Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75208

Category: Restaurant > Mexican

Region: Oak Cliff & South Dallas

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Details

Mesa
Surtido Veracruzano $13.50
Picadas de Veracruz $6.75
Ceviche $8.50
Chilpachole de Jaiba y Camaron $16.50
Rabo de Res al Acuyo $16.50
Flan de Naranja $5

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More About

• Veracruz
• Olga Reyes
• Palapa Veracruzana
• Main Dish Recipes
• Food and Cooking

There we go. That brightens things.

You can get similar results by requesting a cream-colored habanero hot sauce. It's not on the menu, but it's available if you ask, served in a small white bowl and ready to awaken anything you find too sleepy for your taste.

If you're craving sweet, the flan is a vanilla-tinged and dense custard, more like a cheesecake than softer silky versions. But it's the arroz con leche that sets me on end, not because it's the best rice pudding I've had but because it's a near carbon copy of a dessert from my past. The soupy pudding, heavy with that sweet condensed-milk flavor, lacks only that funky brown skin that graced my mom's casserole.

For better or worse, that dish closed most special meals I ate growing up on the East Coast. It's sweet and topped with swollen raisins macerated in rum, and it invokes one of those strange food memories that transports you somewhere else. Not Veracruz this time, but, in this dish anyway, the Reyeses do my home as well as they do their own.