Palo Alto Sol (mole, olé!)

If you spend enough time with me, you’ll sooner or later come to realize that I have an obsession with mole sauce.  Not just any mole, though – the mole poblano at Palo Alto Sol.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, mole is a sauce made of unsweetened chocolate, chilis, spices, tomato, and a number of other ingredients.  (Or as the Palo Alto Sol menu says, “sun dried chiles, spices & a dash of chocolate.”)  While the addition of chocolate might seem odd, it’s critical to the richness and complexity of the sauce.

My first experience with Palo Alto Sol’s mole was over ten years ago when I was a freshman in college.  I’d never had real Mexican food before (since I figured that Chili’s didn’t count) and was rather wary as I looked over the menu trying to decide what looked familiar enough to order.  My advisor, who had picked the restaurant, encouraged me to order the Enchiladas Al Sol –  two enchiladas, one mole and one guajillo, so that I could have more variety (and mitigate some risk).  While the guajillo sauce, made of sour cream and chilis, was good, the mole sauce was incredible – a totally novel flavor combination of spicy, sweet, and savory, with a hint of cocoa.

Over the years I lived in California. I tried mole at a number of other restaurants, and none of them could compare – they often seemed to have a vaguely smoky flavor that masked the other flavors.  To add insult to injury, most of these inferior moles also featured gristly chicken pieces in the enchiladas, unlike the fork-tender white meat that is the norm at Palo Alto Sol.

When I knew I’d be moving away, I started a concerted effort to eat so much mole that I’d get sick of it (and then hopefully, not miss it so much).  Unfortunately, this proved to be a complete failure – I never tired of eating mole.  So now, a visit to Palo Alto Sol is a must-do on every trip back to California.