‘Mexican’
Although Restaurant Week has just concluded, I once again took the opportunity to try out a couple new places that I wouldn’t ordinarily visit. The first was Malo in Silverlake, which is a Mexican Cantina. Their menu wasn’t exactly exciting for me, but I still thought the place could surprise me. The reason the menu wasn’t exciting was because there was really only one good unvegan option for both the appetizers and entrees.
In the mood for some authentic Los Angeles tacos, my buddies and I set off for King Taco near downtown in the MacArthur Park area. Although this wasn’t the original location, we figured they still served up some pretty good tacos. I could tell it was pretty authentic because it was mostly filled with Hispanic people and everyone seemed to speak Spanish at the counter. By the time I figured out what I wanted, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to order in English, but luckily the cashiers turned out to be bilingual.
Surprisingly close to Poquito Mas in North Hollywood, there is a restaurant called Mucho Mas. I’m not sure which came first or if there is some sort of rivalry between these two similarly, yet oppositely named restaurants. Whatever the case, a work lunch took me off to Mucho Mas and I was eager to see if mucho was better than poquito.
By the time I arrived, a good amount of my coworkers were seated at the outdoor patio are and an appetizer platter had already been ordered. Fortunately it was unvegan-friendly. It came with cheese quesadillas, beef flautas, beef taquitos, chips, beans, guacamole and sour cream. It was a delicious way to start out the meal and I could only hope that my main course would be as good.
On my way to see In the Heights (I’m cultured!) at LA’s Pantages Theater, I had no time to eat any food. I also had no idea what kind of food even existed on that part of town. The Hollywood Strip is quite the foreign territory for me. After parking at a failed meter (score), I whipped out my Urban Spoon to see what it would show me. After sifting through a couple of dead ends, I found Dos Burritos and walked in to see what it could offer me.
Every once in a blue moon, a restaurant comes along that you just can’t pass up. Sometimes it’s Taco Bell, and sometimes it’s a place called Bacon in Scottsdale. Although clearly capitalizing on the current bacon trend, the name sounded great to me when the girlfriend’s family suggested it. Since it was Father’s Day, we expected a long line, so we called in advance and a table was ready for us by the time we got there.
In my experience, most taco trucks aren’t worth blogging about. It’s not that I feel like I am too good for them or that they aren’t interesting, but in most cases I have found that they all taste pretty much the same. This is not true of Tacos El Gallito. I stopped by here one night with no plans to blog, but just hoping to get a decent taco. Instead, I had one of my most legendary LA nights and wound up befriending a couple of their Mexican patrons named Toast and Reuben. I also fell in love with the truck and vowed to return to give them a proper unvegan review.
I couldn’t really figure out whether Mexicali Cocina Cantina in Studio City was named after the city of Mexicali or because it is a blend of Mexican and Californian food. Whichever it was, I was pretty impressed with the creative creations on their menu. It seemed that nearly everything on their menu had undergone some sort of upgrade from 87 octane to at least 89. Rather than just beef burritos, they had Kobe Beef Burritos. Rather than just fish tacos, they had Ahi Tuna Tacos. Everywhere I looked on the menu, there was something that seemed inspiring, at least in name.
Just recently, West Hollywood’s Pinches Tacos branched out to Culver City and my buddy, Waldo, decided we had to try it out. I didn’t really know anything about the original place, but I figured it had to be good enough to build a second location. Since he was picking up, I checked out the menu online and found two tasty-looking tacos. The first was Pollo Mole and the second was Carne Asada. The menu was pretty vague about what came in each, so asked Waldo to order them without vegetables. He is a firm supporter of the unvegan way, so he was happy to get them ordered correctly.
On a pretty little Sunday afternoon in Culver City, my friends and I decided to try out a little place in Culver’s sketchville called J and J’s. After hearing tons of great meaty stories about this place, I knew it had to become an unvegan conquest. Alas, when we pulled up to the nondescript corner of West Adams and Spaulding, we found that the place didn’t do business on Sundays. A damn shame, but fortune wasn’t frowning upon us too much on that day. As we made our exit, we spotted an even more nondescript hole in the wall called Daddy’s Burritos. After a few moments of contemplation, we decided to try it out.
With some family in town, I headed to Santa Monica to eat breakfast at the Omelette Parlor. When we arrived, the line was out the door, but we were told there was only a 20-minute wait. Since it was so nice out, we took a walk up Main Street and came back just in time to be seated.
Now the usual thought would be that if you go to a place with omelette in the name, you order an omelette, but on this day, I was glad I didn’t follow that rule. Instead, I decided to order their Huevos Rancheros because they looked so good. It was a delicious mix of rice, beans, egg, cheese, tortilla and sauce. There wasn’t any meat involved, but there also weren’t any vegetables there to ruin the party.