Molcasalsa

Molcasalsa 2340 W Whittier Blvd La Habra, CA 90631 (562) 691-7997 Listing at Menu Pix Listing at Taste Opinion No known official website.

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(This is an "only-photos-first" post, done quickly to get photos up and a new entry on the blog, with the expectation that text may be added later. Guest reviews can also be added to this entry and each published one will be paid $10.)

Click here for the full flickr photo album (21 photos so far).

Super Turtle Tortas

Super Turtle Tortas 430 W Whittier Blvd La Habra, CA 90631 (562) 694-4456 Listing on Switchboard Listing on Foursquare No known official website.

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(This is an "only-photos-first" post, done quickly to get photos up and a new entry on the blog, with the expectation that text may be added later. Guest reviews can also be added to this entry and each published one will be paid $10.)

Click here to view the complete photo album at flickr.

Senor Campos - Review #1

Date of Visit: October 15 and 23, 2008

Señor Campos and Tillie's Mexican Restaurant 1220 W Whittier Blvd La Habra, CA 90631 (562) 694-3614 Listing on Yahoo! Local Listing on Ask.com's Citysearch No known official website.

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Here's a restaurant I've been to a couple times recently in that far-off country of La Habra. Actually my grandparents used to live in La Habra and they liked Mexican food so it's likely they would've been to this place since it opened 33 years ago and it's not out of the question that I could've been there with them as a little kid. With the chandeliers and red tablecloths and roses all over inside I wonder if any marriage proposals have ever occurred here:

On my first visit I started out with chips and salsa and some of the boldest albondigas soup I've ever had:

This restaurant is named after its owners, husband and wife team John and Tillie Campos, and most of the items on the menu are named after people who have worked there before or still work there, such as the entree on my first visit, the Pepe's Picadillo's, a steak and potato dish with salad, rice and beans (and lots of cheese on the beans):

Or Jaime's huevos rancheros that I had on my second visit and I have no problem having excellent huevos rancheros like these at lunchtime, two eggs over easy topped with ranchero sauce over a corn tortilla with rice and beans on the side:

On my first visit I ended my meal with the free cinnamon crisp served to every customer after each meal (seen in the flickr photo album; link below); on my second visit I ended with their flan, which struck the perfect balance between silky and firm, eggy but not too eggy:

The sign I saw on my second visit stated that their 33rd birthday will be celebrated tomorrow, November 1, 2008, and they are going to have a number of half-off specials for it.

There's a number of items on the menu I still want to try such as Lupita's Arroz con Pollo and Suqui's Sopes that I didn't even get when Suqui was my waitress. Maybe next time. That's the great thing about this blog: any restaurant can be reviewed any number of times. There's no limit. Señor Campos earns a four Speedy Gonzales rating:



Click here to see the complete album (22 photos) at .

UPDATE

The owners found my entry and invited me to their anniversary celebration on Saturday. Here's a few photos (had their fideo soup and Lupita's Arroz con Pollo and the arroz con leche) and there's more photos in the photo album linked to above. There were a lot of people here for the celebration. Obviously this place has meant a lot to a lot of people over the years.

John and Tillie can be seen here holding hands across the table.

"Kenny Rogers" singing

Green Burrito - Review #1

Date of Visit: November 23, 2007

Green Burrito 911 W Whittier Blvd La Habra, CA 90631 (562) 690-2813 Listing on Yahoo! Local Listing on Google Maps Official Site

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Oops, made a booboo last night. I added the pictures in for this entry and intended to save it as a draft before adding my writeup and then publishing it but this morning realized I had published it to the web with nothing but the photos. So, for the people that may have seen this entry when there was just pictures, that's the explanation. And now I'll try to add more about Green Burrito.

According to Wikipedia, "Green Burrito was an independent restaurant in Hawaiian Gardens, California. Ruben Rodriguez purchased it in 1980, and turned it into a chain, whose parent company Santa Barbara Restaurant Group was acquired by CKE in 2001. CKE's policy has been to add Green Burrito dual-branding to many of its Carl's Jr. hamburger restaurants, thereby adding a Mexican menu. Many original Green Burrito franchises have closed; in 2004, there were only 35 remaining, while 200 Carl's Jr. restaurants have a Green Burrito co-brand." As of late 2007 there are only two Green Burritos remaining in Orange County that are not co-branded with a Carl's Jr., the one in Cypress (which I think is probably the original one) and the one in La Habra (the one reviewed in this entry).

I first found out about Green Burrito in the early 1990's when one opened up in Fountain Valley on the stretch of Brookhurst my brothers and I affectionately referred to over the years as "Fast Food Heaven" (on the southwest corner of Brookhurst and Garfield). That location lasted a few years during which I made quite a few trips to it to get their food that seemed like a good hybrid between fast food and mom-and-pop, hole-in-the-wall Mexican food. When the Green Burrito chain got bought up by Carl Karcher Enterprises the Fountain Valley location shut down and is now a Hawaiian fast food restaurant.

One of the things I always saw at the Fountain Valley Green Burrito was the poster of the 130 lb., 5'9" girl who pulled off the amazing feat of eating three Big Ed Burritos (that's over seven pounds worth of food) in one sitting . . . twice, and who got $1,300 her for her accomplishment. Apparently nobody has beat her because that same poster is still hanging in the La Habra location:

Another interesting bit of related fast food trivia is that a few years ago CKE also bought up the mid-West fast food chain known as Hardee's, slapped their Happy Star logo onto Hardee's, then co-branded some of the Hardee's locations with a Mexican food identity, but it's not Green Burrito; it's . . . drum roll, please . . . Red Burrito.

I ordered a chile relleno and enchilada platter that had lots of cheese, pasty refried beans, a small mound of rice, and a small helping of salad. The chile relleno was the flattest I've ever had but didn't taste bad. The enchilada had more stuffing in it and at least they had escabeche at their salsa bar.

In the fast food realm Green Burrito earns a 4.25 Speedy Gonzales rating:


Image hosting courtesy of
Mark Whisenand has sent us this picture of a very early Green Burrito ashtray:

Cafe El Cholo - Review #1

Date of Visit: July 31, 2007

Cafe El Cholo 840 E Whittier Blvd La Habra, CA 90631 (562) 691-4618 Listing on Yahoo! Local Listing on Ask.com's Citysearch Official Site

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This may have been one of the longest excursions I have taken just to review a Mexican restaurant for this blog. Went out to La Habra the other day, the far north corner of the county (so far north in fact that it's telephone number is in the 562 area code), and met up with Nancy Luna and Cynthia Furey of The Orange County Register for lunch at Cafe El Cholo, part of the El Cholo chain that began in Los Angeles in the 1920s and currently has two locations in Orange County. This particular location has been around since 1962 which easily makes it one of the oldest Mexican restaurants in the county.

We all went for some type of enchilada platter. Cynthia ordered a chicken enchilada platter from the lunch specials menu:

Nancy ordered the Blue Corn Enchiladas: "Marinated Breast of Chicken Enchiladas wrapped with Blue Corn Tortillas, Tomatillo Sauce, Sour Cream, and Avocado Garnish. Served with Black Beans and Rice."

And I ordered the Annie's Early California Enchilada: "Garden Fresh Vegetables, Spinach, Sauteed Mushrooms, and Jack Cheese, Corn and Tomato Salsa." These were excellent vegetarian enchiladas that made me forget I was eating vegetarian food.

An interesting feature about Cafe El Cholo's website is that their online menu tells you when each item was introduced.

For dessert Cynthia and Nancy shared a pecan praline sundae (the photo doesn't do it justice):

While I ordered the deep-fried ice cream, which was good and filled the dessert role just right but wasn't so heavy that it made me feel guilty of gluttony:

As with the Irvine location each member of the party gets a pecan praline cookie when the check comes:

I think you might actually be able to bags of these cookies before you leave. The El Cholo chain is getting ready to open a third restaurant in Orange County, a venture into the fast casual realm. Read an advance report on it at Nancy's blog, and you can bet it will be covered in full here when it opens. For now, Cafe El Cholo earns a four Speedy Gonzales rating:



Here's some extra photos:

Click on the 'el cholo' label to read our complete coverage of the El Cholo chain in Orange County (we have a separate review for each of their locations):