Saturday, May 20, 2006

La Cocina de Isabel - Review #1

La Cocina de Isabel
841 W 19th St
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
(714) 241-0123

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La Cocina de Isabel Exterior

Two weekends ago I had a 24-hour period where I ended up at an unprecedented five Mexican restaurants. One was a restaurant I had just barely heard about and one thing I'd heard about it is that hardly anyone has heard about it. The other thing I heard about it is that one of the main guys who runs it is a world champion pizza dough tosser. So of course I had to go. No pizza dough was tossed (and there didn't appear to be anything like pizza on the menu) but I did get a good chorizo torta and a fresa licuado (strawberry milkshake) while mi madré got a sweet tamale (turned out to be strawberry flavored itself with some raisins in it) and a quesadilla on a tortilla she said tasted like it was made of Cream of Wheat. The setting is very much for the locals but the employees were very friendly and they had some picturesque paintings on the walls.

La Cocina de Isabel - Wall Painting #1
Actual satellite photograph


La Cocina de Isabel
Strawberry tamale and quesadilla


La Cocina de Isabel
Chorizo torta


La Cocina de Isabel - Wall Painting #2
Ride 'em, cowboy! er, cowchile


La Cocina de Isabel - Wall Painting #3
I hope those vegetables are vegetarians

The visit went pretty quick and was part of a frenzied marathon of Mexican restaurant sampling but I think I can safely give it a three and a half Speedy Gonzales rating for now:

Speedy Gonzales Speedy Gonzales Speedy Gonzales Speedy Gonzales

4 comments:

  1. Cool, I'm glad you had a chance to check it out. Too bad you didn't get a chance to see examples of Juan Hermosillo's dough-throwing prowess. Fellow chowhound Stuart says they have "huaraches, panbasos and other Mexico City faves" -- not your typical set of options, which is what piqued my interest. Mmm, new food... The items you got looked good. Never had a strawberry tamale before, but I'd be willing to try it.

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  2. I was about to ask if they could toss some pizza dough for me just for the heck of it.

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  3. that strawberry tamale looks mouthwatering...i think i might just have to try this place because of that

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  4. That wasn't my tamale but I did try a little bit and it was pretty good. Really more of a dessert item though.

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