Jimenez does get creative elsewhere, but a number of dishes still need some extra tweaks to sing. The guajillo soup with rabbit and snails has the right flavors (and who'd have thought, quipped one guest, that those two would ever end up in the same pot?) But it would work better in a more intensely reduced sauce than a brothy stew. I'd love the gordita pockets stuffed with huitlacoche - if only the masa dough were more delicate so as not to overwhelm the delicate dark bubbles of corn "mushroom" inside.
Xochitl
The Aztec name means "flower," and the chef's talent has blossomed since his arrival, penniless, from Mexico nine years ago. At their best, his creations are vivid and stunningly original.
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Xochitl features some excellent ingredients, like the gargantuan head-on Mayan shrimp baked beneath a mountainous crust of tequila-moistened salt. Once those shrimps were removed from their shells in the kitchen and plated, though, they were surprisingly bland (a sauce might help) and slightly undercooked. A big rib eye in pasilla chile gravy was not as fine a piece of meat as I had hoped for $28.
For the most part, however, Xochitl's entree prices, hovering in the low $20s, are reasonable for the quality of cooking. Jimenez even delivers a dessert list with real distinction.
His churros with chocolate and dulce de leche are among the best in town - those sugar-crisped batons of fried dough still puddinglike inside. Delicate, tuilelike tubes of tacos dulces come wrapped around a tangy froth of tequila mousse. My favorite, though, was the surprising tartaleta, an elegant round crust topped with pastry cream, tangy mango, buttery ribbons of avocado and the sparkling crunch of kiwi.
With more startling and vibrant flavors like that, the "Dionicio business" should be booming soon.
Contact restaurant critic Craig LaBan at 215-854-2682 or claban@phillynews.com.
Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/craiglaban.
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