Tuesday, May 19, 2009

El Abajeno ~ Culver City

I hate being a noob.  Especially when it comes to experiencing new restaurants I'm not familiar with.  There's awkwardness, ignorance and plain out tomfoolery when it comes to simple things such as standing in the right line to ordering your meal correctly.  I'm sure some of you, or at least the two of you who are reading this, can attest.  You just gotta swallow your pride and jump into the unknown, and hope you come out the other side a better person, or in my most recent case, walk out with a full stomach and a wallet that's not empty.  


EL ABAJENO

This family owned and operated mexican joint has been pushing out authenticity since 1969.  I'd like to say they are one of three really close, really great mexican joints, literally a stones throw apart.  Two doors down from Abajeno is Taqueria Sanchez, across the street is Tacomiendo.  With El Abajeno, my latest conquest, I finally put all pieces together to form the "Triforce of Culver City Mexican joints".  Yeah, I said it.  And you heard it here first.  



What I ordered is not what I received, but I'll leave that for the end of this review.  I ended up with three huge pollo taquitos, a carne asada taco and a stack of chips.  

I was amazed to find that they only had 3 choices of meat for tacos:  asada, lengua and chicharron.  Amazed because this place is a mexican counter/deli with a HUGE menu. 



Anyways, my taco had its ups and downs.  The carne itself had a really good grilled/charred flavor with the meat being chewy yet very tender and juicy.  The downside was the tortillas were starchy, like store bought... I ended up taking off the second and used only the one.  The tipping point was my expectation of the tortillas to lose heat quick, from experience, but they kept heat long enough for my last bite to be nice and hot, lending this taco a thumbs up.  

Through many Yelp recommendations, I opted for some taquitos.  To my chagrin, what I get is this.   



I'm fuckin gringo apparently, because I was expecting rolled, crunchy taquitos, not this soft lookin open tamale thing.  

When I took my first bite, I was blown away.  The tortilla was the quite the opposite of my taco.  It was two very soft, almost melt in your mouth, homemade soft corn tortillas.  The pollo was properly stewed with long hours of heat that came apart with the softest of pull, the avacado added another layer of flavor and texture and topped with mexican cheese, oh man!  These flavors married so well, it was like taking a bite outta butter.  Melty, chewy, fall apart deliciousness that it's no wonder so many people on Yelp put up reviews soley on this one item.  

I'm definitely a fan of this place, despite my first time performance.  Here's the story, I walk in and notice a huge menu.  I couldn't even tell if they had tacos, the menu was so big.  I ask chica if I can get a carnitas taco, she says no, but they have taquitos and it comes in pollo and carnitas.  So I order three carnitas taquitos, expecting the crunchy rolled, but what I get is three HUGE pollo taquitos.  And my total cost of my meal, 3 taquitos 1 carne taco and 1 medium drink?  $14.60.  Right when the cashier said that number, I literally almost doubled over.  hahah, yeah, I'm broke and I haven't had a meal cost that much since I ate dinner with my parents,  and they paid.


For the carne asada taco.


For the taquitos.

Tacos ~ 1.99  Taquitos ~ 2.95 for carnitas; 3.15 for pollo/asada/lengua.

El Abajeno ~ 4515 Inglewood Blvd. Culver City, CA  90230




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