Tacos tu Madre was blowing up all over the social media a few months ago with amazing-looking burritos that seemed to represent a new level of delicious fusion. Thus, I had to give the place a try and had my best opportunity when out in West LA. They were out of a couple things, but this didn’t impact what I had in mind. There are a number of options and they are all available as a burrito, a taco or a bowl.

I went with the Fried Chicken Burrito, which was stuffed with buttermilk fried chicken, poblano ranch slaw, fermented chili, cilantro, honey sriracha and Spanish rice. It also came with a sort of spicy aioli for a kick. This was a great decision, as you can’t really go wrong with sticking fried chicken in anything and this burrito was no exception. Yet, while I ordered my burrito without the slaw, Tacos to Madre made the mistake of sneaking it in and for that they may never be forgiven.

I also ordered a Grilled Cheese taco, which is not at all like the traditional grilled cheese sandwich. It features queso panela, which is a cheese that can very literally be grilled. This, Tacos tu Madre did just that and topped it with red pepper aioli and avocado. It was essentially like a fancy pants quesadilla and it was fantastic. Plus, there was no slaw or any other such vegetables to ruin the experience.

Thus, Tacos tu Madre has garnered mixed reviews from yours truly. I want to believe that the slaw mistake was just a one-off, because this is a place that I want to get back to. After all, it’s not everywhere that you can get a fried chicken burrito and I’d like to believe such purity still exists in our world.

For lunch one day, I ordered from a little Asian place called Asia House. They claim to be “Fusion Thai Cuisine,” which in my mind means they are mostly Thai, but threw in some other assorted Asian dishes to please people afraid of food named Pad Kra Pao and Kang Mus Mun. On this day, I chose to be one of those people and ordered the Orange Chicken even though it is by no means an actual Thai dish.

They have a lunch special, which comes with soup, a fried wonton and steamed rice, so I made sure to take advantage of that. The delivery came pretty quickly and also brought some surprises. As a thank you for being awesome, Asia House also brought me some egg rolls and a Thai iced tea. These were great additions to the already cheap lunch I had.

I opened up my orange chicken and was almost blinded by the intensity of the orange color. In all my years of eating orange chicken, I had never seen a restaurant take the orange part so literally, at least color-wise. I started eating and found that they had really put more emphasis in the color than the flavor. The chicken was sweet, but not especially in a citric way.

Having never tried Thai iced tea before, I was amazed to find how orange it was. I assumed it would be sweet and milky, but was once again surprised by intense orange. The strange taste took some getting used to and the drink was especially heavy, but in the end I enjoyed my first Thai iced tea.

In the end, the food was enough to fill me up and keep me full til my next meal, but didn’t do anything mind-blowing other than with its crazy colors. If I need decent Asian food for cheap, I’ll order from them again.