The blue corn enchilada lady is equally notorious and ephemeral. You know grilled cheese truck and its tweets? Well, this lady ain’t having wi-fi nor a twitter account, so finding her is an awesome treat, pleasure and almost an honor since cops chase her business around town. So when you spot her, you better have plenty of cash ($2.50-$3 each) to indulge your cravings and support your community!

The common spots include Placita Olvera and Echo Park/Sunset Blvd. The typical fixings include: chicharrones, squash blossoms, chicken, potato, mushrooms, frijoles, chorizo and potato and huitlacoche (corn smut).

You choose whatever you want inside quesadilla and she starts shaping fresh blue corn tortilla from the masa, adds cheese and makes a quesadilla right on the stove in front of you. You can sprinkle it with queso, onions, cilantro and red and green salsa. Up to your liking, but be careful, that salsa is muy caliente!

http://mycityofla.blogspot.com/search/label/Olvera%20Street

http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157617005224501/

http://www.yelp.com/biz/oaxacan-quesadilla-cart-los-angeles

Well, well, well, this is one of my most favorite nostalgic places in LA. I have been introduced to it many years ago it still has a special place in my heart for many reasons.

Rinconcito is an amazing local place with real and authentic flavor. It’s a small enclave, full of wall art and artifacts from Guatemala, and a mandatory jukebox. Perfect on a lazy Sunday morning for breakfast, tamales, soups and entrees.The menu consists of plenty of items, including small bites that can be easily shared.

My favorites are killer tostadas con avocado, tostadas con frijol, sprinkled with fresh cilantro, parsley, onions and queso. Plus traditional Guatemalan enchilada, which is a completely different creature than Mexican enchilada and has a life on its own. One word: beats. Fucking amazing starter.

Tostadas de aguacate

Tostadas de frijol y aguacate

Enchilada – traditional Guatemalan enchilada

Huevos Estrellados con salsa, crema y frijoles

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Cafe Antigua Guatemala: Worth a U Turn in Hollywood

You know how you have one of those days when you rush to get to an appointment only to find out that you got the times mixed up and are actually early? So now you have time to kill and then you realize that you’re also hungry? What’s a girl to do, except look for some place to have lunch, so I decide to take a drive and tell myself to stop at the first place that looks interesting. I’m cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard and of course, a small Guatemalan restaurant with a red facade catches my eye and I proceed to drive right past it. Unfortunately, the street was pretty busy, so it took me awhile, but I managed to do a U Turn and was soon on my way back.

Part of the appeal of this restaurant laid in the fact that I’ve never had Guatemalan food before and feeling a little adventurous decided that day was the day to check it out. Walking in, I noticed that this was indeed a small hole in the wall restaurant with only about 6 tables in the space. The menu was also quite limited, so I just asked the Owner for a recommendation. One dish she mentioned was a stew, but the weather was just too warm for that, so I went for her other suggestion, the Chili Relleno Plate. While waiting for my food arrive, I tried one of their Guatemalan Soft Drinks. The company is Tiky and I went for the pina flavor. Two words. Super Sweet. Letting the ice melt actually helped a little bit.

The tortillas arrived first. and I loved how thick and pillowy they were. If I had some butter, I could have just eaten them on their own.

Finally, my Chili Relleno Plate arrived. Now with this dish, it comes with black beans, sour cream and rice and your choice of 1 of 2 different salads. I had asked if I could have a small portion of each salad and the Owner was fine with my request.

Since I’m not familiar with the Guatemalan cuisine, I was surprised at some of the foods that were served. One of the side salads was Pickled Cabbage, Beets and Carrots, which I absolutely enjoyed, but it’s a dish that seemed to me, more Eastern Enropean in nature.

The other salad option was a mayonnaise-based Beans, Carrots an Potato Salad. First, I’ve never had green beans as part of a potato salad before, let alone carrots, but in general, I wouldn’t think to associate mayonnaise with South American or Central American cooking. So if anyone has information on how these two particular salads would have made it in a Guatemalan restaurant, I’d love to know. As for the salad itself, it was tasty.

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The best-know location of the Guatemalteca Bakery is on a somewhat uninviting stretch of Beverly, but once you enter you can forget about the exterior and think only about the delicious food you are about to eat. The long lines and huge crowds at Beverly location are a drawback, so, I go to Guatemalteca Bakery on Santa Monica and Vermont-  a new and improved, colorful and equally delicious Guatemalan fast food just as Guatemalteca Bakery on Beverly.

Hordes of people stand in line for good 10-15 mins, but trust me, it’s totally worth it. If you don’t speak Spanish, you can simply point with your finger at ready-made dishes  cafeteria style. They have a very easy menu to choose from antojitos and breakfast to panes (with eggs, beans, chow mein!) and meat dishes. If you feeling comfortable, try to order Guatemalan tamales-chuchitos, and my ultimate favorite - pan con huevo!

(Pan con huevo con todo – bread with scrambled eggs, onion, tomato, lettuce and mayo – but you can tell them no onion, etc, or add avocado, yum)

(Pan con Frijol – ultimate chaep eat only $ 1.50)

You can also try boiled egg con salsa or platanos con crema y frijoles, yummy!

(Platanos con crema y frijoles – kids’ favorite)

(Rellenito de platano with beans inside)

Try anything and you will not be disappointed! Guatemalan beans are mandatory, because they are the best black bean you will ever taste! There is also casamiento – the beautiful marriage of rice and beans! For appertizer there is tostada con aguacate or frijol and even pupusas.

And for meat lovers try guatemalan sausage longaniza and lots of kinds typical beef/chicken type of stews that come with a side of rice and beans.

(Creamy chicken with veg and side of rice and beans)

(Tripas -intestines with side of rice and beans)

Guatemalteca Bakery also serves freshly baked bread and pan dulce in various shapes, forms and colors – all just for few cents each. There are separate ails with imported products from Central America and in the fridge section you can find few kinds of cheese that you can sprinkle at home on anything;) and rich cream….mmmm…and other worth exploring goodies:)

Overall, Guatemalteca Bakery is my huge secret for a perfect under $10 Sunday breakfast. They take ATM, but it’s better to come wiht cash. Don’t forget coffee and jamaica, tamarindo or horchata to drink!

I say come hungry and leave happy! and yes, support the choco banana!

LINKS:  Guatemalteca Bakery on Santa Monica and Vermont

Guatemalteca Bakery on Beverly

Tutti Frutti ~ 950 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91106 ~ (626) 793-3662

While watching a tv show that was all about hot dogs, there was a particular segment that caught my attention. In that segment, a Colombian-born baseball player demonstrated how to put together a Colombian hot dog. Needless to say, the ingredients were a surprising choice and ever since then, I’ve wanted to try one, but couldn’t find any place that made them. Thanks to Jonathan Gold, it turns out that they sell them at Tutti Frutti in Pasadena. I bet you’re really curious now as to what exactly is a Colombian hot dog.

Simply, it’s a Hebrew National hot dog tucked with ham and mozzarella cheese into a bun with raw onion, spackled with crushed pineapple, sprinkled with crushed potato chips and finished with a three-squeeze-bottle lattice of catsup, mustard and mayonnaise. You’re either cringing or entranced right about now. According to Jonathan Gold, “It is impossible to eat the thing without smearing condiments on your nose, but it isn’t bad – the pineapple serves the same basic sweet-sour function as pickle relish, and even the crushed potato chips make a certain kind of textural sense.”

Once I knew where to go, I headed off to Tutti Frutti with my iron stomach and even brought a couple of friends with me. Walking into Tutti Frutti, it was more of a fruit salad, yogurt and smoothie place rather than a harbinger of this extreme hot dog, but there it was on the menu. Before ordering the hot dog, I got side tracked by something else, the Tutti Frutti Fruit Salad and decided to start with that instead. Who says you can’t have dessert first?

What was interesting about the Tutti Frutti were its ingredients which were seasonal fruit topped with sweet cream, frozen yogurt, cheese, coconut and blackberry sauce. Can you guess which specific ingredient gave me pause? Yes, it was the cheese. It seemed an odd choice, but when speaking to the owners who were Colombian, cheese in their fruit salad is quite common in their country. You know what? It works. The saltiness of the cheese balanced well with the sweetness of the other ingredients while the tartness of the blackberry sauce added a complementary flavor dimension. In short, the Tutti Frutti was fun to eat.

We also ordered a couple of Colombian drinks to try. The Postobon Apple Flavored Soda tasted apple-y and fizzy, although a little sweet for my taste. On the other hand, the Pony Malta drink definitely wasn’t sweet at all, but was too thick and malty for me. A couple of sips and I was done.

Now it was time for the main event, the Colombian hot dog. When I first saw it, I was just in awe, because I had no idea where to start. There was just so much to it. I honestly wished for a knife and fork because I could already feel the ketchup-mayo-mustard smeared all over my mouth and nose. Heck, if Jonathan Gold could just bite it into, I could to and I did and yes, it was quite messy.

At one point, I just developed a strategy where I would take a bite out of the top part of the hot dog, leaving a lower ledge of hot dog and bread. That way, I could at least have some control over the condiment chaos and than I’d bite the lower part of the hot dog and just repeat. So what does a hot dog with all these interesting ingredients taste like?

With each bite, you taste sour, salty and sweet with both creamy, firm and crisp textures. It was definitely quite an experience. I couldn’t even finish it. It was quite a good size dog, but I think it also had to do with the TuttiFruitti Fruit Salad I had earlier in the meal. Overall, at least I can say that I had a Colombian hot dog, but in the end, I just found the plethora of ingredients a bit overwhelming. I prefer my dog to be a little more basic – mustard, onions, hot dog and bun, but if you’re willing to see what all the fuss was about, than definitely pay a visit to Tutti Frutti.

http://www.tuttifruttila.com/

If you’re into ethnic food, check out the Pleasure Palate blog for more tasty discoveries!

Nana & Naa ~ 4248 W Century Blvd. Inglewood, CA 90304 ~ (310) 674-8052

Little Belize  ~ 217 Nutwood Avenue Inglewood, CA 90301 ~ (310) 674-0696

Ever since I had read Man Bites World’s post on his Ghanaian dining experience at Nana & Naa, I’ve been wanting to check out his delicious find and with Saaris, a Nigerian restaurant close by, some foodie friends and I thought we’d do a back to back African dining day of it. As you can probably tell from the title of this blog entry, the best laid plans of mice and men, etc., etc., but I’ll have to get into that later.

When it comes to African food, let alone Ghanaian food, I hadn’t a clue. Other than reading Man Bites World’s post, I didn’t do any other additional research, before going on this culinary jaunt. Sometimes, there’s something to be said for just experiencing without having to think too much about the ins and outs or ups and downs about the food you’re going to partake in; however, if you’d like to learn more about Ghanaian food, you can click here and click here and even here for more info.

However, I didn’t go completely uninformed about how things worked at Nana & Naa. I already knew that the market was inside the building and the restaurant part which consisted of tables and metal chairs covered by tenting was behind the storefront. I also knew that getting to the back of the restaurant meant walking through the kitchen and what delicious aromas we inhaled as we made our way to the back.

Once we sat down, our waitress asked how we heard about them. Once we mentioned Noah and Man Bites World, their eyes lit up. Given how Noah was so open to their food, I think they knew we’d be the same way. With no set menu, what we ended up ordered consisted of what was cooking in their kitchen and with 5 of us, we were ready to sample it all. In fact, my group ended up sharing 5 dishes and that didn’t include the fufu and banku.

Before I get into the food, I have to mention this popular Ghanaian malt drink called Malta Hatuey that we tried. Wow, that drink was thick. One sip felt like it coated the inside of your mouth. It had an interesting flavor. Of course, the malt was there, but it also tasted a little like black licorice. I’m a red vine kind of girl myself, so this isn’t a drink I’d get again. I just thought I’d mention it in case any of you would like to experience it for yourself.

As for the food, it’s hard for me to pinpoint what spices or herbs were used. The food tasted unlike anything I’ve ever had before. Nothing I had was spicy, but everything was seasoned well and overall really flavorful. We started with the Deep Fried Tilapia on a Bed of Spinach served with Yam and Egg. The yams were a little bit dry, but the fish, fresh off the frying pan, was nice and crispy. The spinach was definitely mixed with other ingredients and at the time, I was thinking tomatoes and something nutty perhaps, but I wasn’t sure. After doing some online research, I’m pretty sure that the spinach that came with the fish is referred to as “Palava Sauce.” You can check out variations of this recipe at The Global Gourmet and Home Foods Ghana.

The next dish to arrive was a Tilapia on a Bed of Black-Eyed Peas Served with Plantains and Egg. Again, the fish was crispy. The fried plantains had a nice sweetness to them and those black-eyes beans were hearty, meaty and with a little kick to them. This dish is referred to as Red-Red. Some sources I read referred to the Bean Stew as Red-Red or the plantains themselves as Red-Red. Regardless, this is a dish where the beans and plantains seem to be forever partnered.
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I’ve never had Honduran cuisine before so when I read a review awhile back about a Honduran restaurant, called El Katracho located in Sherman Oaks, I decided to check it out for myself. I’m just going to talk about the food itself, but if you’d like to read more about Honduran Cuisine in general, click here!

One thing to mention right away is that if you’re bringing a large group who will be ordering a la carte off the menu, expect slower service. Although I made reservations for 14 ahead of time, having to wait on so many people did result in a service that while friendly and gracious, was also a little spotty. You may want to go with a smaller group or set up a pre-set menu with El Katracho to move things along a little quicker.

As my group was settling in and looking over the menu, we were served baskets of tortilla chips that weren’t your standard chips and salsa combo. Instead, a light tomato/chile sauce was poured over the chips and than topped with cotija cheese. Those chips were quite tasty and a great starter.

Some people also went ahead ordered drinks while trying to decide what to order. A couple of mango margaritas, made with a fresh mango puree topped with little Honduran flags, soon came out and were enjoyed by the recipients who asked for them.

Orders were finally placed and eventually food started coming out in spurts. Now when I was reading that review earlier, one thing caught my attention and it was in reference to a street food that Hondurans are known for called baleadas. Basically, a baleada is a flour tortilla, that is folded and filled with refried mashed beans, quesillo or Parmesan cheese and sour cream. This is basically a no-frills baleada. There are baleadas that can have any number of fillings depending on your preference from eggs to sausage to hot sauce to avocado and probably much more.

I ordered a baleada as a side dish to my main entree which was a shrimp and conch soup. My baleada arrived first and I definitely enjoyed it. I enjoyed the thickness of the tortilla itself and I liked the earthiness of the beans mixed with the saltiness of the cheese and the slight sweetness of the sour cream. I could easily just have had a few of the baleadas, a margarita and called it night, but I still had a big bowl of soup coming my way.

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For those of you don’t know already, Pollo Campero is a Guatemalan fried chicken chain and for this particular write-up, I’m focusing specifically on the location in Long Beach.

When Pollo Campero opened its first location in Los Angeles, I heard that lines were around the block. When I heard news like that, my curiosity was definitely piqued, but time passed by and I soon forgot about until I started working in Long Beach and found out there was a Pollo Campero location down the street from me. Fate was definitely working on my side, so I decided to check it out for lunch one afternoon.

I walked through the doors, up to the counter and after a quick glance at the menu, I ordered a three piece fried chicken with rice and yucca fries. While I was waiting, I loaded up on some salsas at their salsa bar. When the plate was finally placed in front of me, I have to say that it looked good and it smelled good, but did it taste good? The answer was a resounding YES in big capital letters.

The skin was wonderful and there was just enough batter to form a “cracker crust”. What I meant by that is when I pulled the skin from and off the chicken meat, it seemed wafer-thin and crispy like a cracker. The chicken itself was tender and juicy and very well seasoned, which doesn’t translate to being spicy, just full of flavor. A little peppery. A little bit of a kick. All of which made me one happy chicken eater.
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La Bamba Pupuseria ~ 14620 Hawthorne Blvd. at W 147th St. ~ Hawthorne