Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Flamingo's Mexican Grill - Review #1

25342 Mcintyre St
Laguna Hills, CA 92653

Listing on Yahoo! Local

Listing on Ask.com's Citysearch

No known official website.

Appetizer: Chips and Salsa
Soup: Albondigas
Entree: Enchiladas Vallarta
Drink: agua
Dessert: Deep-fried Ice Cream

Flamingo's
Some of Flamingo's many flamingos

So last night I went to Flamingo's, or, as I like to refer to it, "Flaming Moe's" (if you like The Simpsons you'll know what Flaming Moe's is). I thought "Flamingo's" was maybe just a name, but, no, they actually have flamingos all over the place inside. Stuffed toy ones, plastic ones, weird spinning-from-the-ceiling origami ones, mirrors shaped like flamingos, etc. And even though it's not called "Parrots" they also have a few fake parrots hanging from the ceiling, which, along with the all the bamboo and the tiki masks, makes you think you are in Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room.
Started out with chips and salsa, then a cup of Albondigas soup which was right on except the meatballs were a tad underdone (but just barely done enough to keep me from complaining about them). As an entree I ordered the Enchiladas Vallarta, chicken enchiladas covered with cheese and some sort of lime-jalapeƱo sauce. They were serviceable but I have yet to encounter a chicken enchilada where the ingredients blend as they should. That's not Flamingo's fault. It's just the nature of the beast.
And this is weird but this is the second place where I was all ready to order deep-fried ice cream but instead was brought the bill without ever being asked if I wanted dessert. Maybe they are just watching out for my health again. Otherwise the service was good.

Flamingo's Aviary
The Tiki Room?

Gangsta Flamingo?
The flamingo on the right looks kind of mean

Flamingo's Tiki Masks
Boo!

Flamingo's Mirrors
Looks almost Arabic

Flamingo's Enchiladas Vallarta
Enchiladas Vallarta

Flamingo's Albondigas Soup
Albondigas Soup

Flamingo's Zebra/Flamingo
Ever seen a cross between a flamingo and a zebra?

I'll give Flamingo's a three and a half Speedy Gonzales rating:

Speedy Gonzales Speedy Gonzales Speedy Gonzales Speedy Gonzales



As a followup to my previous entry on Infrequently Asked Questions, I just noticed that a while back, Kirk from mmm-yoso interviewed Reid from 'Ono Kine Grindz and a lot of Reid's answers were very similar to how I think in my approach to this blog. Interesting.

1 comment:

  1. Love the flamingos!

    The enchilada vallarta sounded interesting, so I tried looking up a recipe for it, but found nothing. I found two other descriptions of a dish with the same name at different restaurants, but they were completely different. One came with "shrimp, crab and cheese". The other was described this way: "The earthy, intensely flavored mole made with Mexican chocolate, cinnamon and ancho chiles covers two corn tortillas oozing with sweet, caramelized plantains, topped with sour cream and a sprinkling of cotija cheese." (Mm, sounds good.) A few other restaurants listed a dish by the same name with no description at all.

    So the lesson is: there's no telling what you'll get if you order this elsewhere.

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