Most Mexican restaurants serve three or four salsas alongside their tacos and other dishes. But one restaurant in Concord, California, takes things to an insane new level, serving 17 different salsa options.
These aren’t your run-of-the-mill pico de gallo and tomatillo salsa, either. The creative salsas include flavors like Baja Crema, stone fruit salsa, creamy jalapeño, and more.
The restaurant is Puesto, located at The Veranda in Concord. I recently ordered a taco feast, combined with a massive salsa tasting of eight different salsas to try the place out.
One of the coolest things about Puesto is that they deliver their salsas and other food straight to your door! That made it a perfect fit for our new “Cozy at Home” series, which highlights restaurants in the 925 that will deliver to your house on chilly winter nights. Puesto sent us this meal to test out–thanks guys!
Massive Bags of Salsa
When my Puesto bags arrived at the front door, I was struck by two things.
One thing was that they are exceptionally pink! The color is bold; they definitely aren’t the standard disposable plastic bags that you see for a lot of DoorDash places.
The second thing that struck me was the gigantic size of the bags. I had ordered a few tacos for the adults and my three kids, and a bunch of salsas. I was expecting a small takeout bag.
Instead, I got two massive bags. I couldn’t figure out why they would need so much space for such a simple order.
Then, I opened the bags and instantly understood! One entire bag was completely full of salsa and salsa accoutrements. Each $1.50 salsa order includes two small containers of the salsa.
But there were also massive containers filled with homemade chips, little ones with guacamole, a big container of pico de gallo, rice and beans, and much else.
The amount of salsa and the varieties were absolutely overwhelming. My kids immediately took them out and started to stack them into a salsa tower that ended up stretching several feet in the air.
Then, of course, we got down to the business at hand: tasting every single one of them. Puesto salsas run from basic, mild flavors like guacamole salsa all the way to creative, intensely spicy ones.
We dug into the delicious homemade chips and immediately started comparing different salsa options.
One that stood out immediately was the Baja Crema. It looks exactly like sour cream but has a delicious, creamy flavor that’s light and citrusy.
A chipotle cream had a similar texture but brought a bit more heat.
Puesto’s jalapeño salsa looked deceptively like guacamole. One bite, though, and it was clear that this was something far spicier!
Speaking of guacamole, the guac at Puesto is delicious. It made a nice item for my younger kids, who couldn’t handle the spice of the jalapeño salsa, to munch on.
One of my favorite salsas was the chili oil style salsa, which I had never seen before at a Mexican restaurant. It tastes a bit like the chili oil you might get at a dumpling place but with a black garlic flavor.
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The stone fruit salsa had a bit of sweetness to it, and the tomatillo salsa was far spicier than you might expect.
Puesto rotates its salsas, so there’s always something new on the menu. You can’t get all 17 at one time, but after trying eight, it felt like we got awfully close.
The Tacos
In addition to delicious and varied salsas, Puesto also has excellent tacos.
Puesto’s tacos are on the simpler side; other local places, like C Casa down in San Ramon, create taco masterpieces with multiple ingredients and fancy things like duck.
The tacos at Puesto are much more traditional. They’re smaller and look like some you might get out of a taco truck.
The flavor and quality of the ingredients, though, immediately give this away as a more upmarket taco option. After approximately a 45-minute trip in a DoorDash car, the carnitas taco was still succulent and delicious. The tortilla had gotten a little bit oily, but if anything, that just added to the experience.
My kids got chicken and carnitas tacos, and they were executed with a great deal of care for a kid’s meal. Again, the presentation is very simple, with meat, a slice of avocado, and not much else.
Of course, that just makes the tacos a perfect canvas on which to slather salsa!
The Verdict
I originally ordered from Puesto primarily for the somewhat gimmicky fact that they have such an incredible number of salsas. I didn’t know what the food itself would actually be like.
After our order, I can see that Puesto’s salsas aren’t just a marketing ploy; each is well-executed, homemade, and delicious. And although they’re simple, the tacos match that same quality.
Puesto does a good job creating a down-to-earth, authentic experience that still feels elevated and delicious. I’m sure eating in the restaurant provides even more opportunities for that.
I appreciate that even as a takeout order, Puesto provided a ton of food. Between our colossal number of salsas, two large containers of homemade chips, three containers of rice and beans, tacos for everyone, and little things of guac, there was no way we were going to eat all the food.
My only complaint with the delivery was that Puesto didn’t label the salsas. They arrived in little anonymous containers, which made it really hard to know which one you’re getting.
This takes away a bit from the experience of having so many salsa options. When you have to guess to determine what you’re getting, the excitement of the 17 salsas diminishes a bit.
It also makes it harder to eat the meal with kids. Some salsas that looked mild were actually extremely spicy, like the jalapeño salsa. It looked very much like the mild avocado one.
I’d like to see Puesto label their salsas, perhaps with a clever sticker that shows the name, spice level, and some kind of graphic illustrating what the salsa is made from.
Other than that, though, this was an excellent takeout experience, and I would definitely recommend it. I’ll have to head into the restaurant to see what that’s like, but for now, we’re staying cozy at home.
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