‘Mexican’
About a year ago, a coworker of mine walked up to my desk, slapped a golden matchbook on it and told me I had to go to this restaurant. The restaurant he spoke of was called Gardens of Taxco in West Hollywood and despite the strange-sounding name, he told me it was amazing. One year later he is no longer a coworker of mine, but a Living Social deal popped up for the place and I took it as a sign from the tax gods that it was time for me to pay the Gardens a visit.
On a funky little corner in Culver City, there resides a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint called Tacomiendo. I originally read about them a long time ago because they served good food at cheap prices. Finally, after residing on my to-eat list for so long, I got around to taking a ride out to try them out. Not terribly hungry for this dinner hour, I skipped over the big ticket items like burritos and tortas. Instead, I went with their namesake, a taco.
After my first time at Grand Central Market in Downtown LA, I knew I had to go back. Fortune smiled on me over the weekend and brought me back to that special place that makes you feel like you just entered a market in Mexico. Honestly, I’ve never been to a market in Mexico, but in my mind, this is what it’s like. Although I enjoyed my food from Ana Maria’s, this time I once again went for a stall that looked crowded. I found Tacos…Tumbras a Tomas.
On a Saturday night the girlfriend and I were sitting around feeling lazy. Neither of us had eaten dinner, and we weren’t terribly hungry, but we knew that we needed some sort of food in our systems. It had to be light, and as I looked over my list of restaurants I wanted to try, only one seemed to tickle our fancies. This was a remotely new (8 months or so) restaurant called Tinga, in Mid-City.
The interior of Tinga has a nice wooden atmosphere that is almost like a bar except that it is BYO. In the middle of the small seating area is a long communal table and the walls are lined with stools. The ordering takes place at the counter and although the full menu is on the side wall, they also have paper menus for those who don’t want to stare awkwardly over the shoulders of fellow patrons.
In my continuing quest to find the greatest buffet in Las Vegas (and eventually the world!), I may have found one to stand toe to toe with Rio’s Carnival World Buffet. Situated in Planet Hollywood, the Spice Market Buffet doesn’t fit into the Hollywood theme, at least in name. It also doesn’t bear any resemblance to a Spice Market. Nonetheless, it does use spices and the walls are adorned with food-related movie posters like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (two very similar movies). The lunch buffet cost 25 bucks, but as soon as I looked around, I knew it was going to be well worth the price.
For a friend’s birthday, we headed out to Salsa and Beer in Lake Balboa to eat some birthday Mexican food. Having never really been to Lake Balboa and having mostly heard sketchy things about that part of town, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from Salsa and Beer. Yet, some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had has come from sketchy places, so my expectations were somewhat mixed.
As soon as I walked in, though, I had a feeling this was going to be a great meal. Looking around, I saw happy faces and giant platters of Mexican food. On top of that, my sense of smell was sending me strong messages. Once the rest of our group arrived, I finally got a chance to look at the menu and was floored. First I was floored by the sheer size of the menu. Figuring out what to eat wasn’t going to easy. Once I started looking around, I realized the prices weren’t going to make things any easier, because everything was damn cheap.
Over and over again, a friend of mine has told me that I just have to go to Sky’s Gourmet Tacos. Considering I live so close, it took me a long time to finally make it there, but when I did I was expecting something pretty special. Before fusion taco truck became the coolest thing in LA, Sky’s was already serving up their own kind of fusion. In their case, the fusion is Mexican “with a splash of soul.” Since I’m a big fan of soul food, Mexican food and general food creativity, I was sure I would love Sky’s.
When I found out we were heading out to Sharky’s in Burbank for lunch, I was first a little confused. You see, for me, “Sharkeez” is the name of a college-style bar down in the South Bay, and they aren’t known for their food so much as they are for their happy hours. Little did I realize the difference in spelling, but as soon as we arrived, I knew we weren’t in for some drinking. Instead, I found myself at a counter with a bunch of different Mexican food to order. Sharky’s calls itself a Woodfired Mexican Grill, which is kind of strange to me because I really only think of pizza as being woodfired. But hey, if it can work for pizza, I’m sure it can work for Mexican. In addition to the wood fires, they also attempt to distance themselves from other Mexican food chains by claiming completely natural meats, non-GMO veggies and everything else you can think of that is associated with good old-fashioned food.
The name Pink Taco is something of a shock. You’d think you were walking into a strip club or something, but lo and behold, you end up walking into a restaurant. The Pink Taco in LA is at the Century City mall and although it’s not part of their glorious food court, it was still a place worth checking out. As you would expect, once you realize Pink Taco is actually a restaurant, the place serves up Mexican food in a trendy way.
Out in Hollywood, there is a little taco stand on a corner called Cactus Taqueria. Having heard a lot about this place, I felt that I needed to stop there to have a Mexican dinner before the Belle and Sebastian concert. I showed up and found the little stand in the corner of a parking lot on Vine. There were a few people waiting for their orders and another few groups eating out in the outdoor, yet covered seating area. It looked like a great place to find a good taco.