Author: Saltz

Hi, I’m Saltz, the writer at Bluebell Reviews! I am a rising eighth-grader and live in New England. I enjoy travelling and trying new foods, and I thought starting a blog would be a good way to share my opinions about restaurants with other people. I love feedback on my writing and would appreciate it if you leave comments!
California · Los Angeles

Plate 38

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2361 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena CA. Phone: 626.793.7100

Worth visiting in a 10 mile radius.

Across America’s suburbs, college towns, and downtown city districts, a certain type of restaurant is ubiquitous: the gastropub. These places serve the American standard of soups, salads, and sandwiches, but with a classy edge and significantly higher prices. Although I’ve been to quite a few gastropubs in my life, I’ve always found the idea off-putting; the food at these establishments tends to aspire to be fancy, but the caliber of chefs and ingredients doesn’t reach the level needed to make their variations worth the high prices.

Plate 38 is located in Pasadena, the city north of Los Angeles best known for hosting the Rose Bowl. The setting is nice but not anything special, with a comfortable wooden interior and a small porch complete with heat lamps for (semi) chilly California winter nights.

Plate 38 uses locally sourced ingredients to make all its dishes, which is not uncommon in high-end restaurants, but always appreciated. The menu is mostly typical of a gastropub, with interesting appetizers, salads, burgers, and a few entrees.

The interior is equipped with a full bar, so I took advantage of this to get a Shirley Temple, which was a bit watery but had two cherries instead of the usual one. The adults in my party who ordered alcohol all agreed that it was good.

For appetizers, we ordered a yellowtail crudo and a grilled octopus dish. The crudo was simply amazing. The fish was tender with little skin or gristle, and it was served with a soy-based sauce and big chunks of avocado, giving it a taste reminiscent of California rolls. I didn’t care much for the octopus at first, but as the meal went on, it grew on me. This was in large part due to the chorizo, which I did not expect to be served with octopus. The smoky flavors of both meats ended up clashing. However, the rest of this dish made up for the strange choice of chorizo. The octopus, while not super fresh like the octopus I’d had in Greece, still retained tenderness. The fruits and vegetables alongside the octopus were well-picked to bring out a sour flavor in the meat (lemon, radish, pickled carrots), and the presentation of the dish was pretty.

The fried chicken was the standout of the meal. If you want to order it, keep in mind that it is only served on Sunday and Monday nights. The chicken is served in a generous portion which includes a good amount of both white and dark meat. The white meat was a tad on the dry side, but this was hardly a problem because the chicken was served with an excellent rich gravy. The dark meat was adequately juicy and required no gravy. The skin held on to the chicken and didn’t fall apart, yet it remained crisp. The sides served with the chicken were a cheesy jalapeno cornbread (very fresh and warm, but could use a bit more spice), mashed potatoes (these were superb, I appreciated that they left in chunks of mashed potatoes instead of completely pureeing it like baby food), corn on the cob, and an assortment of vegetables. If you like fried chicken and you come to Plate 38, this should definitely be your entree.

The steak was perfectly cooked medium rare, with a rosy pink center, and came with gorgonzola cheese sauce. My only previous experience with any sort of cheese sauce was the sickening orange sludge served on ballpark nachos, but the sharp, tangy flavor of the sauce on this steak changed any preconceived notions I had. On the side were garlic fries that weren’t overly salty and crunchy asparagus, both delicious.

After visiting Plate 38, my opinion on gastropubs has changed. I no longer see them as establishments trying to bite off more than they can chew. I now know that a gastropub can create a fine dining experience, without abandoning the comfortable food that many Americans know and love. For anyone in the San Gabriel Valley, I would recommend going to Plate 38 to get a new take on American food.

Mid-Atlantic

Capofitto

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233 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106. Phone: 215.897.9999

Worth visiting in a 10 mile radius.

When it comes to taste in pizza, I used to hold true to my heritage. I loved the thick, bready crust of American pizza, and considered its airy, thinner Italian predecessor inferior. While visiting the Old City of Philadelphia though, I decided to try Neapolitan pizza at Capofitto, which the guidebook strongly recommended. It was still pizza, after all, and I was hungry enough to eat anything after a morning of walking all over Philly.

Capofitto is the second project of John and Stephanie Reitano who own a popular gelato chain called Capogiro. Before opening Capofitto, they traveled to Italy to train under a legendary pizza chef and learn to make authentic pizza. Capofitto also serves gelato and has a bar, but the main focus is the pizza, which is baked in a hand-crafted wood oven. It serves multiple variations of the classic wet-center pies, including ones with roasted mushrooms, goat cheese, salami, eggplants, and other traditional Italian pizza ingredients (more on that later). The rest of the menu contains a small selection of salads and appetizers.

There is much more to Italian cuisine than pasta and pizza, of course, so we ordered a salad, which turned out to be an unexpected delight. The base was arugula, accompanied by prosciutto, hazelnuts, croutons, figs, and balsamic vinaigrette. The arugula made a great green-salad base because it provided a tangier flavor than lettuce or spinach. The vinaigrette had an interesting bittersweet citrus flavor, the prosciutto was a dash of salt, the fig added some sweetness, and the hazelnuts and croutons contributed a nice crunchy texture. Often times, the ingredients in an overcomplicated dish conflict, but everything in this salad inexplicably fitted together beautifully.

We ordered three pizzas, which turned out to be a good amount for a party of three. The pizzas were medium sized, but since the crusts were very thin, one hungry person can devour a whole pie. The ingredients were fresh and top-notch, and that went to show in the flavor of the pizzas. The basil had an amazing fragrant aroma, the mushrooms were juicy and crunchy, the pepperoni was spicy, the cheese was rich and soft, and the crust was dripping wet with all the fresh ingredients. My one complaint would be that since the pizza was so thin, it could fall apart if you didn’t cram it into your mouth fast enough. Otherwise, the pizza was great.

After pizza, I treated myself to a helping of what made the Reitanos famous: the gelato. I ordered the burnt sugar, which had a smooth caramel flavor and came in a generous serving. It was creamier than any ice cream I’d ever had and was a sweet ending to a satisfying meal.

The decor in the dimly lit dining room (which used to be a paper factory) is classy but minimalistic, with well-polished wood tables, bright red chairs, and some scattered paintings on the walls. The service is very friendly and the staff don’t hesitate to explain the menu to unknowing patrons. Overall, everything about my trip to Capofitto was excellent. It does everything a restaurant should very well and doesn’t cut corners. If you’re anywhere in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, come here for a meal. I promise you’ll love it.

Mid-Atlantic

Cleavers

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Garlic Parmesan fries
Basic cheesesteak
Zinger steak
Chocolate milkshake
Cheesesteak hoagie

108 S 18th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Phone: 215.515.3828. Website: cleaversphilly.com

Worth visiting in a 2 mile radius.

In my opinion, the Philly cheesesteak is overrated. The recipe of unmarinated sliced steak, American cheese or Cheese Whiz, and hoagie bread seems fine for a quick lunch, but not something to laud as a city’s pride and joy. Nevertheless, on a recent visit to Philly, I felt obliged to have the city’s most famous dish at least once. Cleavers is a trendy cheesesteak joint near Rittenhouse Square which uses artisanal ingredients in its sandwiches, as well as offering some unusual sides such as zucchini sticks and cheesesteak eggrolls. The menu is rounded out with some salad and chicken options, and food is served with a milkshake, a beer from its impressive selection, or a “boozy shake.”

The cheesesteak is meant to be a casual dish, something served at a food cart or diner for a cheap price. Although Cleavers is casual, the prices are high, with a cheesesteak costing $10.95. The cheesesteaks were alright, but not worth the price. The meat was good quality with no gristle, but bland without toppings. I recommend getting a zinger steak (a cheesesteak with delicious hot peppers and provolone instead of American cheese) or a cheesesteak hoagie (with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and mayo) over a plain one because the extra ingredients add flavor to the otherwise bland steaks. The toppings are well proportioned and locally sourced, making you feel  good about what you’re eating. Usually I don’t like American cheese because it just tastes like melted fat, but I wish Cleavers had put more on its sandwiches. The small amount of cheese put in was buried below the beef so far down I couldn’t even see it until I took a bite. A cheesesteak should be dripping wet with hot melted cheese, not bone dry. The large proportion of beef hurt not only the cheese but the other ingredients, as the taste of beef drowned everything else out.

The garlic parmesan fries were much better than the cheesesteaks. The waffle fries were fresh out of the fryer and the garlic was abundant. The chocolate milkshake was also excellent, and it was a great drink to go with the hot and greasy fries and cheesesteak.

I really like the concept of Cleavers, and I think it has a great menu, location, and space. Its food is disappointing given the high hopes I had for it (and the high prices), but this place has potential and is worth a visit if you’re near Rittenhouse Square.

New England

Soc Trang

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113 Vermont Street, Springfield, MA 01008. Phone: 413.736.9999

Worth visiting in a 35 mile radius.

After the Vietnam War brought a mass immigration of Vietnamese people to the United States, they scattered all across the United States, bringing their dishes from home with them. Over time, Little Hanois began to pop up, and some areas were favored over others for their level of Vietnamese-food prestige, including Houston, Texas, Orange County, California, and… Springfield, Massachusetts?

Although Springfield is not widely recognized as a Mecca for Vietnamese food, it has a surprisingly large Vietnamese population. Back in the early 20th century, Springfield was an almost exclusively white city in its economic heyday. Large companies like Rolls-Royce and Indian Motorcycle had factories here. However, floods, the Great Depression, and the departure of companies for cheaper labor overseas sent the city into a downward spiral from which it hasn’t recovered. But for every cloud a silver lining, and the economic depression that hit Springfield diversified it, bringing Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and a substantial Vietnamese-American population to the city.

Soc Trang is a down-home, Vietnamese restaurant tucked away in one of Springfield’s residential neighborhoods, away from downtown’s small cluster of skyscrapers. The space is pleasant with a spacious dining room, but the atmosphere is pretty flat. The two times I’ve been, its crowd has been very thin. There’s no music playing overhead and the stage awkwardly placed on one side of the room has always been empty when I’ve been there (although I’ve never been for dinner).

The egg rolls for the appetizer were satisfactory and set the expectations pretty high for the meal. The skin was  hot and crispy, a good sign that they had been made fresh, and the peanut sauce on the side added a sweet touch.

When I took a sip of the limeade, I recoiled. Did they give me pure lime juice? I thought.  It wasn’t sweet at all.Then I realized my naiveté. I was so used to drinking pre-mixed juices that I had forgotten that the sugar was lying on the bottom of the glass, waiting to be stirred in with the spoon that was served in the glass. When the sugar dissolved, the limeade was just the right mix of sweet and sour.

The shrimp vermicelli was delicious. Just shrimp and vermicelli would have been rather bland, but the savory fish sauce and interesting addition of mint kept my taste buds satisfied. The shrimp was soft and tasty, although they did skimp on the serving. The vegetables were a well-chosen medley that included carrots, green onions, and lettuce.

It should go without saying that pho noodles are smooth rather than clumpy, but I’ve had some poor experiences with pho outside of major American cities. Having had some pretty bad pho, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn’t have to pry the noodles apart with my chopsticks. The beef was well marbled and plentiful. The broth, as usual with pho, was a tad bland, but that was easily remedied with a sprinkling of Sriracha sauce.

Fried rice is served in several variants at Soc Trang including shrimp, beef, pork, and chicken. Since we’d already had some of those meats in our meal, we went with pork. Although the meat was dry, the rice was fluffy and buttery. The tiny onion pieces added a nice tangy finish.

I have had all of these foods before at different Vietnamese restaurants, but it was my first time trying Vietnamese coffee. I had no idea what it was, and was imagining it as some sort of strong coffee. It turned out to be like an iced mocha (but you can also get it hot), very sweet and milky. It made for an excellent dessert.

Prices are cheap (the large bowls of pho are under $10) but the service quite disappointed me. Often times, at small, family-owned restaurants, the service is better than at bigger places because there are fewer customers and they can pay more attention to each party. Not at Soc Trang. It seemed as if the waitstaff were always trying to make each encounter as brief as possible, and although they were never rude, they were not exactly polite either. Soc Trang is a little hidden gem that will surprise you with the quality of its food, but by eating here you’ll have to sacrifice both fun atmosphere and attentive service.

Boston · New England

Toro

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1704 Washington Street, Boston, MA, 02118. Phone: 617.536.4300 (no reservations for dinner).

Worth visiting in a 3-mile radius.

I must admit that I walked into Toro with the wrong expectations. My parents have both been to Spain and I have heard of tales of laid-back tapas bars in balmy seaside towns, where you could get some jamon serrano, bread, cheese, and good wine for only a few euros, and where the patronage was mostly made up of elderly locals gossiping and reading the paper, kind of like a tapas version of Bougatsa Iordanis. These were the expectations I had when I came to Toro.

The atmosphere of Toro is that of a popular bar, because it is partly that; booming music, a dark space crowded with professional-looking twenty-somethings. You can imagine that was a bit of a shock for me given what I was expecting.

Although Toro calls itself a tapas place, the menu is not entirely so, with items like whole fish and paella. There is a nice variety of dishes, both familiar, like ham and cheese and strange, like quail egg.

The meal started off with simple dishes. Our queso mahon (made in Mahon, capital of Menorca, an island in Spain) was strong, similar to Manchego cheese but with peppercorns. It was good with the complimentary bread and the jamon serrano, which was some of the best I’ve had. The meat had a nice smoky taste, and unlike other jamon serranos I’ve had, it was not overly salty.

Speaking of not too salty, anchovies are usually some of the saltiest food on earth, so salty that most people never eat them straight. The boquerones (anchovies) at Toro are exceptional because the lack of salt brings out the raw, delicious fishy flavor that people rarely taste. Instead of salt these anchovies are bathed in olive oil and vinegar, which enhances their flavor much better.

Unfortunately, our seafood experience at Toro went downhill from there. I had high hopes for the paella valenciana, because I’d never had paella before. However, this dish had some problems. The smoky flavor, which had worked so well in the ham, overwhelmed the paella. And the rice, the very base of the dish, was soggy and packed little taste. The meat of the mejillones (mussels) was piping hot and soft to the touch, but I didn’t get to taste it because the whole bowl was drenched in Basque cider, masking the taste of any mussel underneath. Our last seafood dish was pulpo a la plancha (octopus), which was overcooked to the point where it tasted more like really dry roast chicken than an octopus.

Our meal ended on a high note, though, with the asado de huesos (bone marrow). It looked amazing as it was served, a massive bone with toast on the side and sprinkled with radish. I loved the bone marrow, although I see how it could be an acquired taste. It is one of the most calorie-rich dishes I have ever had; it had all the flavor of juicy beef but double the fattiness and saltiness. The radish added a sour touch to the beef that gave it another dimension.

Service is alright. The waitstaff weren’t extremely attentive as the place was buzzing at the time we were there, but they were professional and polished. Prices on the menu don’t seem very expensive (tapas range from $6-$15, with the occasional outlier). However, since it’s a tapas restaurant and the portions are small, the bill adds up to a lot. Although this restaurant has some great, interesting dishes, it is definitely hit-or-miss, and I would stay away from the seafood, save for the anchovies. However, if you know what you’re coming for, unlike me, and order smartly, I think Toro can make a satisfying meal.

Boston · New England

Gourmet Dumpling House

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Chinese broccoli with garlic
Fried chicken with basil
Dumplings
Beef with veggies

52 Beach St., Boston, MA, 02111. Phone: 617.338.6223

Not worth visiting.

The restaurant review is flawed by nature. There are over seven billion humans on Earth, each one with their own tastes, preferences, and knowledge of different cuisines. How can one food critic satisfy the tastes of all of these people? The answer is simple: it’s impossible. For every person who agrees with a food critic, there’s bound to be one who disagrees. That’s why sometimes after a letdown by Zagat or the local paper’s food critic, it’s good to lay Google to rest  and just wander around a fun neighborhood until you find a restaurant that looks promising. Boston’s Chinatown is a great neighborhood to do such wandering, because of its pedestrian-friendly streets and sheer number of restaurants. There is a downside to wandering, though. It’s like prospecting for gold. You could strike it rich and find a bounty, or you could go home disappointed.

Don’t let the name fool you. Only one little section of Gourmet Dumpling House’s crowded seven-page menu is dedicated to its namesake. The rest is filled with dishes of all kinds, from fried oysters to sauteed pig’s blood with leeks.

Our appetizer was the Chinese broccoli, which was similar to both bok choy and American broccoli. The stalk and leaves are that of a bok choy but there are little broccoli heads nestled in between some of the stalks. The leaves soak up the delicious garlic sauce that the broccoli is served in. The stalks are crunchy but alas, flavorless. This was my favorite food here because the dominant flavor of the dish (garlic) was rationed well and was a good choice of sauce.

Our entrees were very peppery and very fried. A caution to future diners: “chicken with basil” is thickly breaded and fried, and covered with ground pepper (when I was ordering this entree I was imagining sauteed chicken in a basily sauce). This dish is pretty good. The breading was thick and the chicken underneath was piping hot and juicy. The basil tamed the grease a little bit, but was rather dry and shriveled.

The dumplings (fried with pork and leek for us) were originally what I was looking forward to. After all, I was visiting a restaurant called Gourmet Dumpling House without any prior research. The intense onion-like flavor of leek dominated the landscape, while the fresh ground pork appeared every few bites to remind me it was still there. I would put less leek in the dumplings so I could taste the pork a bit more. Overall the dumplings were satisfactory but ultimately got overshadowed by the other dishes.

The sauteed beef with various vegetables (most of which were onions) was presented fajita-style in a smoking-hot skillet. The beef was quite spicy, not the kind of spicy that makes your head throb and your face turn red like an angry cartoon character and you doubt you can take another bite; it’s the kind of spicy that on the first bite makes you think, “This isn’t so bad,” so you take more bites in rapid succession only to realize the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. The onions were decent coupled with the beef, but their strong flavor competed with the almost overwhelming pepper.

You should ask for water and order rice (it’s not free!) because the strong flavors of all the entrees require some mildness to cool them down.

Gourmet Dumpling House is not awful, nor is it great. It often overuses ingredients in its dishes, such as leeks in the dumplings, and its entrees tend to be fried, masking the flavor of the main ingredients. Boston’s Chinatown has a plethora of restaurants, so if you’re there I would advise you to just keep wandering. Who knows? Maybe you’ll come across a hidden gem.

California

The Mission

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Mexican hot chocolate
Roast beef hash and eggs

3795 Mission Blvd., San Diego, CA 92109. Phone: 858.488.9060 also in North Park and East Village.

Worth visiting in a 30-mile radius.

I enjoy American-style breakfast, but my problem with many breakfast-serving restaurants is that the food isn’t anything special⸺it’s food that my dad could easily make just as well at home. The Mission is one exception to this rule. Several trips to its North Park location plus one recent visit to the Mission Beach spot have yielded nothing but memorable food in a fun atmosphere.

Unless you arrive right when The Mission opens, expect waits of around a half hour. The inside atmosphere is boisterous but not crazy. Paintings of local artists are hung on the walls of the spacious, dimly-lit dining room, giving it a hip feel.

One of the great things about The Mission is its expansive menu, with options for every palate. The menu includes American staples like pancakes and French toast and gluten free plates. It also has meals such as breakfast burritos (the Zagat review of the East Village location goes so far as to call it a Latin American restaurant!).

The roast beef hash and eggs are my favorite entree. Served in a generous portion, it has a little bit of everything: steak tips, rosemary bread, scrambled eggs, and horseradish sauce, all neatly arranged on one plate. The steak tips are gristle-free and tender, and their flavor is intensified by the magnificent horseradish sauce, which is creamy but still has sting. The aromatic bread makes a good open-faced sandwich with the scrambled eggs, which are free of sogginess⸺the bane of many restaurant eggs.

Whatever you order at The Mission, be sure to get the rosemary potatoes on the side. These are crispy on the outside and steaming hot on the inside, with the added strong flavor of rosemary completing the delicious taste.

My favorite beverage is the Mexican hot chocolate, which is rich, intense, sprinkled with cinnamon and whirled with whipped cream to create a great version of the classic breakfast beverage. People usually avoid the dregs of drinks, but my favorite part of the Mexican hot chocolate is drinking the super-dark, cinnamony remnants off the bottom of the hot mug. This drink complements just about anything on the menu.

The Mission is a truly complete breakfast restaurant, serving an array of dishes and doing them all wonderfully, with friendly service and a cool space. The Mission’s prices are moderate, but the portions are so generous that sharing with another person is a good option, and the quality of the food is certainly well worth the price.

 

California

Taste of Thai

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Tom Yum Soup
Pla Pao
Noodles
Fried Rice

527 University Ave, San Diego, CA, 92103 (also in Del Mar) Phone: 619.291.7525

Worth visiting in a 15 mile radius.

Hillcrest, San Diego’s main LGBT-friendly neighborhood, is a buzzing place where you’ll find many boutique shops, the city’s annual Pride Parade, and a multitude of cuisines showcased on University Avenue, its main thoroughfare. However, it wasn’t always that way. The neighborhood used to be run down and avoided by tourists before it rapidly gentrified in the 1980s and 90s. Taste of Thai can claim a part of that resurgence, opening in 1989 in what is now the heart of the area. It serves great Thai food in a modern dining room and has an expansive menu that also includes a number of vegetarian options.

The tom yum soup was the highlight of the meal. A great vegetarian dish (you can also order it with shrimp), it has lemongrass, mushrooms, chili, green pepper, and lime juice. The broth was what made this dish so excellent, with the strong lemongrass creating the base of the flavor, the lime juice adding a touch of sour, and the chili pepper ending it with a kick of spice. I have never been a great mushroom eater, but the shiitakes in the soup added a nice crunch.

The ginger-steamed pla pao (a type of white fish) was a close runner-up to tom yum soup for dish of the night. As a result of the steaming, the flesh was so soft it slid right down my throat. It served as a nice partner for the delicious bean glaze and various fresh vegetables. The skin was rich and a satisfying fatty ending to an otherwise quite healthful dish.

The spicy noodles with chicken and peanut were a good fried addition to our meal. While the chicken was a tad dry, the spicy sauce and chunks of peanuts made up for it and the noodles were excellent. The pork fried rice sang with buttery goodness, and the pork and peas were well proportioned; not scanty, and not overwhelming.

Prices at Taste of Thai are moderate, and service is polite. Taste of Thai is a restaurant that is great in all facets located in a fun neighborhood of San Diego, so if you’re in the area, you should give it a try.

California · Los Angeles

Guelaguetza

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3014 W Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90006. Phone: 213.427.0608

Worth visiting in a 1 mile radius.

Guelaguetza has garnered quite a reputation since it opened in 1994. The popular Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown, L.A. has appeared on LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold’s annual Best 101 Restaurants list, has won a James Beard Foundation Award for American Classics, and has earned positive reviews from many different food critics. With a resumé this impressive, I had to give Guelaguetza a try.

One thing everyone who considers going to Guelaguetza should know is that the restaurant is quite loud. The combination of overwhelming live (not that great) music, dozens of diners chattering, and the open kitchen creates an atmosphere so noisy that you have to shout to talk to the person sitting next to you. The patronage is mostly big parties of Mexican families with some foodies mixed in.

Guelaguetza is known for its mole sauce and micheladas, which are a type of drink made from beer, lime juice, and chili peppers. The menu at Guelaguetza is not your typical Mexican fare. As I scanned the menu searching for the usual tacos, burritos, and enchiladas, I passed over many items I’d never heard of before. Tasajo? Nopales Asados? Campechana? This was going to be my one opportunity to eat Mexican food in Los Angeles before going back to New England with its, shall I say, limited options of Mexican food, so I took the opportunity and ordered all out.

Our meal started with a lagniappe of tortilla chips and mole sauce with cheese sprinkled on top. Chips are usually a good indicator of the quality of a Mexican restaurant and I was very impressed. They were piping hot and fresh, and the mole sauce, though spicy, still retained the rich chocolaty flavor. I liked it better than the usual salsa that comes with chips at most Mexican restaurants.

There’s a corner of the large dining room at Guelaguetza where you can see the cooks grilling the meat. Our alambres entreé was fresh off the grill, a mixture of grilled beef, bell peppers, onions, cheese, salsa, and guacamole in between corn tortillas. This dish tasted good, and the accompanying tortillas were soft and full of buttery flavor, but it was not very interesting. In fact, it tasted rather like a beef taco in a different form.

The tlayuda is a sort of Oaxacan pizza covered in pork fat and beans, topped with lettuce, chorizo, and Oaxaca cheese. While alambres seemed a little too ordinary to me, the tlayuda was very unusual. I can’t say I liked it, though it was an interesting dish to try. The chorizo topping was odd because it tasted more like a spicy ground meatball than the sausage links that chorizo usually are. The spread on the tortilla crust was fatty and starchy and tasted like burnt lard. The tortilla was very thin and baked to a crisp so it tasted more like a water cracker, while the mixture of lettuce and cheese sprinkled on was bland and did nothing to help the dish. This dish was a major disappointment.

The seafood cocktail was good but not great. I liked the tomatoes, shrimp, octopus, and avocadoes on top of the complimentary saltines, but the seafood wasn’t very fresh. The signature dish, chicken with mole negro, was clearly authentic, as it included the wing of the chicken rather than just the breast. This is something you can’t find in most Mexican restaurants in America. I thought the chicken was cooked just right and the mole sauce added the same great spicy-chocolaty flavor that worked well with the chips. Carnitas did not come in taco form as I expected, but were served with a side of guacamole and a small salad. Although simple, this entree was one of the best, because pork and guacamole are a combination for the ages, especially when the pork is juicy and tender like it was here.

I would recommend Guelaguetza to try once, especially if you’re not very familiar with Mexican food because of the interesting array of dishes on the menu. However, I wouldn’t come back. Although most dishes were fine and service was cheerful, some dishes missed the mark, and the noisy atmosphere put a damper on my meal. Keep in mind that L.A.’s Koreatown has the highest concentration of restaurants in the country, so there are many other restaurant options in this diverse neighborhood.

Europe

Bougatsa Iordanis

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image

Apokoronou 24, Chania 731 35, Greece. Phone: +30 2821 0088855

Worth visiting in a 6-mile radius.

Bougatsa Iordanis is a hidden gem, blending into the bustling main streets of downtown Chania with its plain facade. This hole-in-the-wall bougatsa cafe certainly does not cater to tourists, with its 20 or so seats filled with elderly locals getting their morning pastry and coffee. This is a wonderful little joint that anyone in Chania should visit.

Bougatsa is a traditional Greek breakfast item made with phyllo pastry, powdered sugar, and soft cheese. Bougatsa Iordanis has been serving bougatsa, and only bougatsa, since 1924, and is a cornerstone of Chanian culture. As you walk into the cafe there are two workers in the front corner, one keeping the enormous chunks of bougatsa warm on a piece of hot metal, and one at the cash register. Bougatsa is ordered at 3 euros per generous portion—a very good deal.

The bougatsa is very satisfying, stuffed full of rich, fatty cheese that is just a tad sour. The phyllo pastry is buttery and flaky, and falls apart very easily. The sprinkling of powdered sugar on top adds just a bit of sweetness.

Perfect for a quick stop to fill up on delicious pastry and a great way to start your morning, I highly recommend Bougatsa Iordanis.