Super Taqueria La Chiripita

This is the newest place in town, located in the old ChiliTown/Doghouse/etc./etc./etc. building at the corner of De La Guerra and Milpas. They just opened up a few days ago, although their sign next to the register says “since 1980” and the sign above the building says “since 1985”. I guess either of those, although an outright falsehood, is better than “since yesterday”. Either way, I was excited, as usual whenever a new place opens up, especially when it’s the 3rd closest Taqueria to my house…easy walking distance makes me happy.

They’ve got a huge menu, and a huge staff. I was standing outside ordering at the counter and saw no less than 7 people scurrying around in the kitchen .(including a cashier poached from El Buen Gusto and a cook poached from the Rose on Haley....if you're gonna poach, do it from the best). Keeping this many people on the payroll is frightening if you’re at all business minded and my first thought was that no matter how good the food is, this place is not long for Milpas. For example, on the busiest nights at the almighty Rose Café on Haley ( a restaurant that has been there since the 50s) they have a staff of 5 at the most, and one of those is usually sitting in the corner watching everyone else work.

Regardless, I ordered up a ‘burrito ranchero” with chicken, because it sounded good. And when I got it, after far, far too long of a wait for a kitchen with 7 people in it, it was decent. Decent is all. It also wasn’t chicken, it was asada, which is not what I ordered. So that pissed me off, but I couldn’t take it back, because I was already home, had already opened a beer, and wasn’t going to go back and complain about a meat mistake. But the ranchero sauce was verde, and in my world, verde sauce doesn’t go with beef, so the dish would’ve been better with the chicken that I had fucking asked for in the first place. That said, I was longing for chicken even more, because the sauce was quite excellent.

I can’t recommend anyone rush out to this place yet, but I’ll let you know what the next couple times are like. And hopefully I’ll get what I ordered.

El Pollo Norteno

Sometimes you just want to eat food that you know is not good for you.

Now a burrito from Cuca’s might not be the best thing for the human body, but I guarantee that a half-chicken from El Pollo Norteno (336 N. Milpas) is worse.

But it tastes good. Real good. Even when it tastes bad for you. The only reason I don’t eat here more often is because I usually prefer pork or beef, in their various forms with my Mexican grub, nothing really, other than personally preference.

I don't know what they marinate it in, but always when I eat here, I’m like, this chicken is fuckin’ good.

Los Lonely Boy

It was a little odd tonight because everyone out surfing with me after work followed me to The Rose Café on Haley. That’s right, they all came. All none of them. While 658 guys fought for scraps at perfect Rincon, I surfed 2 hours of chest to overhead waves at a clean peeling beachbreak less than two miles down the road with no one else in the water (actually, that’s a lie, there was ONE other guy for a while).

So of course afterwards I was hungry and picked up Deb when she got off work. As often happens, we ended up at The Rose. Now The Rose Café is like the Rincon of Santa Barbara Mexican food. It is truly world class, except that unlike Rincon, tonight there wasn’t anybody at all relishing in her glory. We sat down, ordered, got our food in about ten minutes, paid and tipped ‘em good for the slow night, then headed home. Meanwhile over at The Sojourner Café, which is world class at absolutely nothing , there was a wait to get a table. Are you kidding me? What the fuck is wrong with people? But hey, I’m not complaining.

But shabby surf metaphors aside, I had the Red Chile, which is pork cooked ranchero style. I don’t often get this, and yet again, I wonder why. It was off the charts tasty. Deb had an enchilada/relleno combo, equally as good.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll trade. Everyone who was at Rincon can go to where I was surfing, and I’ll have my way at head high Rincon alone. Then I’ll hit the Soj and they can swamp The Rose.

Best in Show

There are a very small number of places that can be considered as having the best burrito in town. My vote always lies between Super Cuca’s (the one on Micheltorena) and El Buen Gusto. But it’s hard to compare the two because they are so different. So I basically don’t compare them and always give them each the title of best burrito.

Especially after tonight’s Super Asada at El Buen. THE best burrito in town.

Taqueria El Bajio

I don’t relish writing this review, but something really has to be said about this place. I’ve eaten here a number of times over the years and on top of being the most ridiculously expensive taqueria in town, the food always sucks. Always. So I went there today with low expectations, because I was hungry and tight on time and felt I needed to get this place off my Super Asada checklist. And, go figure, my 8 dollar regular (meaning ‘not super’) chicken burrito sucked. It lowered even my lowest expectations. How a restaurant can make food suck so badly so consistently I’ll always wonder. On the upside, everyone that works his is always super nice. Perhaps kindness is the only way to get tips in the jar, cause they can’t make any extra from quality.

If anyone eats here and has something they like, for the love of Jehovah, please, please tell me what it is.
So I can tell you that you’re wrong.

La Colmena

If you drive down Milpas just past Montecito Street there's the obvious 'weird' building sitting between two equally weird streets. For many years it was the home of Pavlako's, a Greek restaurant which I never saw anyone eat in, never ate there myself and was fully convinced was a front for some sort of large narcotics operation. Well, eventually Pavlako's went under and The Cajun Kitchen moved in, under the guise that what this neighborhood really needed was a restaurant that has no parking and serves really, really average food. Not surprisingly, there weren't enough cops in the neighborhood to keep the place up and running so it went under rather quickly. The building then sat empty for a while until a couple months ago when La Colmena opened it's doors with a small menu of tacos, alambres and quesadillas.

Now I was pretty happy about this place opening up, mainly because it would be the closest Mexican food to my office that's not El Bajio. You see, somehow I ended up with a job just off the Mexican food haven of Milpas Street but 200 feet away from this fine city's worst over-priced taqueria. (This posting isn't about El Bajio so I'll bag on them another day). But the idea of a new place that was almost the same distance away was very exciting. So I went a few times right off the bat and unfortunately, it just wasn't anything great, although definitely not bad, and a shitload better than El Bajio at a fraction of the price. I've been sticking with the tacos, trying different styles, but it's so hard to rave on a place that's obviously trying to be a sort of "East Side Lily's" and is so far from it. The tacos at Lily's are like a gift from the gods, sent down to the mortals and blessed by Argentinean supermodels. The tacos at La Colmena aren't really a gift from the gods, they're just a gift from whatever animal sacrificed their flesh for me to get some calories at lunch.

The Gift of the Maestro

I wasn't supposed to be working today, but I had to take care of a couple things and then swung by the office when I was done. It turned out to be one of the better decisions of the waning year as when I was heading back to my car Felipe came up to me with a plastic bag in which there was something heavy and hot wrapped in tin-foil. Felipe is again on the list of favorite people for the coming year. Tamales...chicken mole. Usually Felipe makes his tamales Oaxacan style (the state where he's from), which are wrapped in banana leaves. These tamales, along with beer and a set of 34Cs are amongst the greatest things ever created on Earth. Lacking in banana leaves this time of year, Felipe opted to make his Christmas batch of tamales in the more common corn-husk style, still fantastic. But of course, you'll have to take my word for it, cause you can't have any.