Gracias Madre, Mission, San Francisco

On our last day in San Francisco, we visited Gracias Madre for dinner with Grace. Gracias Madre is the sister restaurant of Cafe Gratitude and offers organic, vegan Mexican food. I’m surprised we’ve never been here before as we love Mexican food. I wanted to order everything on the menu! If you love Mexican food, you should give this place a try even if you’re a meat eater.

Unfortunately, they only take reservations for groups of six or more, and it was very busy for a Tuesday evening. However, we were initially told that there would be a 40 minute wait, then they texted us 10 minutes later saying we could seated immediately. Our lucky day!

The three of us shared the Quesadillas de Calabaza ($10) appetizer. Roasted sweet potatoes and caramelized onions folded into tortillas with cashew nacho cheese and pumpkin seed salsa. I’ve never had a quesadilla like this before. It was amazing! Loved the combo of the sweet potato and caramelized onion in the filling. The pumpkin salsa was yummy too.

Some restaurants in California only have a beer and wine license, but they’ll have soju cocktails on the menu since soju rice liquor is considered a wine. In my experience, soju cocktails tend to be lighter and more drinkable. As much as I love a classic tequila margarita, I really enjoyed the soju margarita, and it paired well with the food.

All three of us ordered the Tamal as an entree. I think it was our waiter’s description of “make it mojado” that won us over. The standard tamale ($14) is a stoneground heirloom masa steamed in the husk and filled with zucchini, onions, and garlic. If you “make it mojada” (extra $3), they’ll add a generous drizzle of vegan mole sauce and cashew cheese on top.

If you’re going to get the tamales, you must get it mojado as the tamales might be a bit dry without the yummy mole sauce. The drizzle of cashew cheese doesn’t hurt either, and I liked that the tamales were packed with veggies. The pickled veggies were okay. The beans were nicely done. Grace mentioned that she normally doesn’t like beans, but enjoyed the beans here.

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