A Tale of Two Tacos

By Massiel Bobadilla

The war for the city’s best Mexican food is currently being fought by literally dozens of restaurants throughout Baldwin Park, all vying for a place of honor among the mouths and bellies of locals. With so many options, it is all too easy for hungry diners to get overwhelmed and for many, the choice ends up being a showdown between two of the city’s most iconic eateries.

In one corner you have Guadalajara Grill, the recently renovated restaurant that is impossible to miss. Anyone who has ever driven along the stretch of the 10 Freeway knows its sign, and many more Baldwin Park natives have spent a Sunday or two enjoying brunch and a mariachi serenade.

In the other corner, you have El Taco Nazo No. 3. Drive too fast along Ramona Boulevard and you may just miss the unassuming façade and humble signage advertising their signature fish tacos.

Both of these restaurants are trying to bring in their fair share of customers, yet they are each going about doing it in decidedly different ways. Ambiance is one of these ways. For example, Guadalajara Grill, a sprawling building of bright yellow stucco and elaborately carved iron, prides itself on its rustic yet elegant décor. The walls are painted with detailed murals of scenic haciendas and the tables are all adorned with colorful tiles.

Across town, El Taco Nazo sits tucked away into the far back corner of a neon-clad strip mall, with a barber shop on its right and at least three other Mexican restaurants less than 500 feet away. The interior is awash in green and orange paint, with framed photos of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata lining one wall and dozens of miniature vintage cars lining the other.

Based on appearances alone, it would be all too easy to assume that the food at each of these restaurants matched their respective setting. That is where the average eater would be making a mistake.

At Guadalajara Grill, where the buffets are what they’re best known for, the food struggles to meet the standard of the surroundings. The very nature of a buffet makes it so that the various dishes suffer from having been prepared in advance. Sopes are more soggy than they should be and the fajitas don’t stay warm long enough for you to make it back to your table. The mole lacks that home-cooked taste, and instead is more watery than is to be desired. The two things that were memorable were the caldo de res and the tres leches cake, both of which warranted second servings where few other things did.

Meanwhile, at El Taco Nazo, delicious tacos were the order of the day. Claims from locals that these are the best fish tacos in the city were totally verified. The simple fact that their famed fish tacos arrive being too hot to eat is the best testament to food that was made fresh just for you. Fried to perfection and topped with a delectable cream sauce, the only thing that could make these things better was a sizable helping of the smoky salsa served at the condiment bar.

Not to be assumed as biased, this writer fully concedes that El Taco Nazo may not be the best place to take your abuelita to brunch, just like Guadalajara Grill may not be your first choice is you want finger-licking food. As it turns out, these Baldwin Park landmarks certainly have their work cut out for them.

(*Note: a version of this story appeared on Dec. 16, 2011 on Baldwin Park Patch)

Learning to Appreciate the Faux Marsala Monday

I won’t be excessively high-brow and say that I don’t find pleasure in an occasional trip to Olive Garden. Yes, on a one-to-ten scale of real Italian food, it’s probably around a 2.3. Yes, it is always packed with families and their loud-mouthed kids or tense teenage couples on cheap first dates. But there are just certain inevitable things about life that we have to learn to make our peace with, things we can never hope to change. And with Olive Garden, I’ve accepted the fact that I shouldn’t go there expecting great ambiance or top notch food. I go for the company.

So it came to pass that this past Monday, on a mixed whim of laziness and a general desire to get out of the apartment, Nick and I trolled down to Olive Garden for a late evening dinner. The place was bursting at the seams when we got there, so we had to bide our time at the bar. Two glasses of red wine for me, and one coke and rum for him later, we were at our table feeling good, smiling a lot, and happily tuning out the turmoil around us.

Stuffed Chicken Marsala

To a cynical eye, this is where the evening turned afoul. To me, this is where I came to fully appreciate the skill that Nick and I have managed to hone when it comes to cooking. He ordered the stuffed chicken marsala (Oven-roasted chicken breast stuffed with Italian cheeses and sun-dried tomatoes, topped with mushrooms and a creamy marsala sauce. Served with garlic parmesan mashed potatoes) while I opted for the good old regular chicken marsala (Sautéed chicken breasts in a savory sauce of mushrooms, garlic and marsala wine. Served with Tuscan potatoes and bell peppers).

Chicken Marsala

His dish came looking fairly good and smelling even better. Mine came looking good and smelling oddly like Teriyaki chicken. First bite proved that my Teriyaki assessment was spot-on. The poor cook at the Manhattan Beach Olive Garden is obviously laboring under the misapprehension that chicken marsala is supposed to be cooked with profuse amounts of ginger. To me and my taste buds, we know better.

Click to see other Dolcini flavors

If I were a more short-tempered person, my night would have gone to pot and there would have been no salvaging it. But my chicken, however gingery it may have been, was still edible. My potatoes (and you know I love my potatoes!) were particularly yum. A third glass of wine, a chocolate mousse with dark chocolate cookie crust dolcini (at left), and the increasingly pink-cheeked company of my Nicholas assured an all-around lovely time.

But I’ve learned my lesson. Olive Garden is good for stuffing your face with bread sticks, downing several glasses of wine, and feeling both in love and oddly cheap at the same time. But for good chicken marsala? I’m afraid I’ll just have to look to my own kitchen from now on. And next time I go to Olive Garden? I’ll just stick to some capellini.

Follow the jump to get our recipe for some tasty, tasty, tasty chicken marsala.

EXCLUSIVE: West Side Welcomes Foodie Paradise

By Massiel Bobadilla

Above: Sour Cream Hen House, $7; Below: Rock Yer Road, $5

LOS ANGELES–Roy Choi is almost indistinguishable from the bustle around him, although this is something that works in his favor. Choi is on the hunt, and he’d prefer to draw as little attention to himself as possible.

Hungry diners call out their orders. The scuffle of chairs melds with the clatter of cardboard cutlery. People laughing, talking, eating, shouting make Choi fade into the background. Yet in spite of the commotion, Choi remains focused.

Methodically, he stalks back and forth, looking for his prized quarry. He spots what he’s looking for. He smiles. He makes his way to the kitchen to get back to work, but only a few minutes later, he’s on the hunt again.

At Chego, the brick-and-mortar reinvention of the Kogi taco trucks, head chef Roy Choi likes to hunt for full forks, empty plates, and satisfied faces.

Yet in spite of being named one of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs of 2010, Choi monitors his own success via the most reliable source he knows: his customers’ bellies.

“I monitor [my] reception minute by minute, meal by meal,” said Choi. “It all comes down to the customers.”

Little more than a year ago, Choi burst onto the food scene, launching the Kogi food trucks into the stratosphere of L.A. eating, fusing the vibrant flavors of Korean barbecue with the sturdy backbone of Mexican cuisine, producing food so unique, patrons were willing to spend hours in line just to buy a messy taco they had to eat with their hands.

Follow the jump to read the rest of the story, preview the menu, and listen in on Chego’s opening night…

EXCLUSIVE: Cambodia Town’s Food Goes Beyond Fusion

By Massiel Bobadilla

LONG BEACH –“Cambodian New Year? I’m Vietnamese,” said 62-year-old manicurist Anh Thi Dinh before adding, with the subtlest bit of sass, “What do you know about that?”

For Dinh, as one of Cambodia Town’s non-Cambodian residents, the holiday represents little more than background noise to a busy day at work.

Cambodian New Year will fall on April 4 this year, and Long Beach’s Cambodian Coordinating Council will celebrate with their sixth consecutive festival and parade.

Photo courtesy of the Cambodian Coordinating Council

“When the parade comes by, the streets are full of people, so we get a lot of business,” said Dinh, who works at the Kinh Do Design Hair & Nail salon on Anaheim St., “but you know, we always have a lot of people. I don’t notice either way.”

Southern California is home to dozens of cultural enclaves –Little India in Artesia; Little Ethiopia in the Fairfax District; Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Little Tokyo in Downtown L.A.—all of which boast their fair share of kitschy architecture, delectable smells, and the feeling that you’ve just fallen out of your own world into a new, pleasantly surprising one.

Long Beach’s Cambodia Town is none of the above. It is an amalgam. Though Long Beach is home to the largest population of Cambodians outside Cambodia, the one-mile stretch along Anaheim Street is hardly one unbroken, homogenous block straight out of Phnom Penh.

Cambodian clothing stores sit next to Mexican meat markets. Thai jewelers are in the same strip malls as Vietnamese markets. The banners say ‘Cambodia Town,’ but the streets reflect a little extra.

It is a literal –and perhaps, metaphorical—fusion that works its way into all aspects of life in Cambodia Town. Take, for example, the case of the highest-rated Cambodian restaurant on Yelp: Siem Riep.

Situated next to a boisterous Mexican bar on the corner of Cherry Blvd., Siem Riep doesn’t even bill itself as exclusively Cambodian. “Cambodian! Thai! Chinese!” reads the mini marquee outside.

In theory, one could experience all three cuisines at once if they ordered the chicken and broccoli (Chinese) with the lemongrass chicken skewers (Cambodian) and washed it all down with a Singha beer (Thai).

However, the cultural fusions of Siem Riep stretched beyond their culinary masterpieces. While the televisions softly crooned Cambodian music videos and the walls of the restaurant were plastered with images of Angkor Wat, two giant, golden dragons hovered over the dance floor, encircling banners calling for a ‘Happy Chinese New Year,’ and a wide selection of Thailand’s best liquors were proudly displayed over the bar.

“Everyone comes here, not just Cambodians,” said owner Alex Be. “The neighborhood is really diverse, so when something like Cambodian New Year comes around, you see them all come out. Blacks, Mexicans, Anglos…they’re all out there with us.”

Though headlines about racial tensions in Cambodia Town crop up in the news from time to time –and Dinh herself may have even harbored a little silent resentment—Be maintains that, for the most part, Long Beach’s estimated 20,000 Cambodians should be able to peacefully celebrate the coming New Year with their neighbors.

“[The festival] means a lot to a lot of people,” said Be. “My parents loved seeing it. I love seeing all those people come together. But I really love that the parade route goes right in front of our restaurant. It’s great for business.”

———————————————————————–

The Sixth Annual Cambodian New Year Festival and Parade will take place on Sunday, April 4th. The parade will begin at 9:30 a.m. on the corner of Anaheim St. and Junipero Ave., and the festival will begin at noon at the El Dorado East Regional Park.

For more information, call 562-316-9099

Food is Love: A Guide to My Affair with L.A.

View Larger Map

I always have been -and likely will always be- and out and proud Angeleno. I was born in Hollywood and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, but life was not complete if I was not making routine treks into the city with my family (mostly for food, but always for love).

Over the years, I gradually began expanding and adding to that first culinary infatuation. Now, I can’t visit any of my favorite spots without calling to mind the things that first made me…a Massiel.

So browse through, and take my word for it: I wouldn’t recommend them if they weren’t good!