Everyone needs a good arsenal of tasty tacos in their back pocket. In the interest of establishing such a thing for myself in Vancouver, we visited the West End’s Molli Cafe. Selected as Best of the Americas 2016 in Vancouver Magazine, they seemed like a safe bet for some authentic Mexican eats.

It’s a teeny tiny place with only a small handful of tables including a little bit of seating outside on the sidewalk. The white subway tile is offset by a few Mexican decor elements, and most notably a beautifully colourful mural that is simply eye-catching. We visited late on a Saturday afternoon and were excited to eat! (It’s good to note that they are only open until 7pm in the evenings.)

We approached the counter and looked over the chalk board menu which mainly featured tacos and tortas, and proceeded to place our order with one of the friendly staff members.

I felt somewhat underwhelmed by the beverage selection. Everything on the menu was very basic “coffee shop” fare and it didn’t seem to match the food all that well. (They claim that their coffee is from Mexico, so I guess that’s a thing.) For example, they have hot chocolate on the menu. Why not make it Mexican hot chocolate and then it would be that much more interesting? As for the cold drinks, there was nothing delicious like horchata in sight. They do offer a few flavours of Jarritos (but not Mexican Cola, the best flavour in my opinion) and a few fruit juices. I went ahead and chose a Pineapple Nectar Jumex... But only because there was nothing better.

I’m a very big fan of the torta, a delicious and giant Mexican sandwich. Dare I say it, I prefer them above tacos in most cases. So I was very excited to see them featured quite heavily here, with four different ones to choose from. Although the tacos sounded pretty good as well, also with four types. I noticed on their website that “lamb consomme is available Saturdays only” and they also show lamb tacos. However, either of these items seemed to be offered at all, at least not anywhere that we could see. And we were there on a Saturday. I went ahead and selected the Pollo Torta (Pulled chicken, cheddar cheese, avocado, tomato, chipolte onions, cilantro, mayo - $9.75). Normally I would lean toward the pork option, however the toppings on the chicken torta sounded way better. After a short wait, our food arrived. My sandwich was served with some pretty sad looking tortilla chips, maybe like five of them. No salsa. Although we were given a bottle of likely homemade spicy chipolte sauce. Thankfully, the torta itself was pretty good. The bread is an incredibly key component, and it was fresh-tasting, crusty and soft, with a bit of chew - exactly the way that it should be. I was most impressed by the massive chunks of juicy chicken! It tasted tender and delicious, and was most certainly abundant. The rest of the toppings worked very well; the cheese added a nice sharpness, the avocado and tomato were fresh and bright, and the stewy, smoky, spicy onions created a lot of flavour. It was a very good messy sandwich, like it should be.

While my sandwich was decent, I felt as if they could have done more. Nothing about my experience really stood out as exceptional. They offer a “soup of the day,” and I do love Mexican soups, so maybe that would be a worthwhile item to try. They didn’t really have very much available for desserts either. They serve breakfast, so I would be interested in going back to try that.