Mole sauce. I dooooo love it. At first when I heard what mole was, that it uses chocolate/cocoa, I thought “that’s pretty gross” – who wants chocolate covered chicken? But cocoa on it’s own is not sweet and lends a great depth of flavor when used in combination with spices. The resulting sauce has a deliciously complex taste that’s a blend of savory, bittersweet, spicy, and earthy notes. Hard to describe, but once you’ve tasted it, you’ll know what I mean.

The best mole I’ve had was from one of my co-workers, a Mexican mom. You know how “mom” food is…when you eat it, everything is perfectly spiced, has the perfect balance and it’s soooo perfectly good going down. You immediately know this is how it’s “supposed” to taste, and that’s the best way to describe how I felt once I had Martha’s version of mole. I haven’t had much else that even came close to Martha’s mole except for one place – La Oaxaquena on Milwaukee and Karlov (Yelp review here – ignore that first one!). Wongthip had suggested meeting here for a mini ChemE get together and I was introduced to their Enchiladas Oaxaquenas. Now that was some good -ish! I’ve been back for this dish many times and have not looked back.

Which leads me to why this post was written – can you tell I was at La Oaxaquena tonite??? And yup I had the Enchiladas Oaxaquenas again. Alright, I think the mole is officially out of my system now. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.