My Kind of Mexican Restaurant
3447 N. Verdugo Road (in Montrose)
Phone: 818-957-2711 | map

Do this: drive up Glendale Blvd. until it turns into Verdugo. Drive up Verdugo until it swerves left into Cañada Blvd. Continue until it serves back into Verdugo. Make a U-turn at Chiquita Place. By this point you're slightly lost but flirting with Montrose, and hopefully looking at the La Cabañita awning. Locals know this place, and rave about it.

The restaurant is separated into two comfortable rooms, replete with hardy rustic chairs, square tiled tables and a moody pastoral wall mural. Mariachi horns and choruses thrum overhead. It feels really, really comfortable; I dig this.

Whatever their kitchen does, it's deeply homey and satisfying. The chips are very very crunchy and shiny and sturdy the way I like them. Load-bearing chips. They are nearly overdone but benefit from that slightly burnt, corn essence. There are two salsas: a dark russet that provokes runny noses, and a thick green.

On my first visit I tried a pair of soft tacos, both piled high on sturdy corn tortillas. The carnitas (onions and cilantro) are a little more savory than the chicken (lettuce and crumbled white cheese), and both benefit from some pico de gallo shaken over them. The black beans are souplike and luscious, the short-grained rice a perfect accompaniment. Flavor erupts all over the tongue.

All this with an iced tea falls under a lunch special that, with a 20% tip, arrives at eleven bucks... and there's so much more to explore on the menu.

I'm typing hungry right now, which means 1) I'm going quickly, and 2) my descriptions suck because I'm overwhelmed with the thought of coming here again.

There doesn't seem to be much parking, but it's a quiet, near-residential street, so there's hope. Anywhere there's a Mexican restaurant with a diacritical tilde in the name, there's hope, my friends.