Went out to La Bonita last night with H&J and H's mom LL, and had some high-quality mexican eats. The strength of this place is its sauces: the mole on the enchiladas pollo was rich with anise, and the rough tomatoey sauce pooled around my lamb chops was much spicier than it looked. Really I think the lamb was the best, but that's very much personal preference, and a testament not only to the sauce but also to the perfection of the cooking of those little chops -- succulent and tender, with lots of crispy salty edge bits to gnaw off the bone. Oof - yummy.
Everything was delicious, from the creamy avocado sauce swaddling the seafood cocktail to the tangy tomatillo sauce on LL's chile relleno to the desserts: fresh coconut-nut-caramel pie, coffee-tinged flan, chocolate pecan bars, pineapple upside down cake. (One weird thing was the large bits of cinnamon stick apparently stuck into the coconut pie as garnish -- they blended in with the nuts & caramel and you ended up eating them by mistake, which wasn't so pleasant.) Avoid the creamy fruit-tequila after-dinner drinks that taste like Nestle Quik, and stick with the excellent before-dinner margaritas & tequilas -- we should have known better than to try something called "Tequila Rose."
But don't let my harshing on the silly drinks put you off -- the cooking is excellent and worth a trip.
Posted by foodnerd at January 22, 2006 11:13 AM