la ciudad

i talked about having mexican food at la ciudad last weekend with ryan, nicholas and brittany. la ciudad actually means the city in spanish. the reason why we ended up here was because nicholas + gf narrowed down their food choices to mexican, american and chinese and since ryan and i have been wanting to try out this place, it was the right fit! la ciudad currently does not have a website so the best link i could get is the yelp website. this place is byob so they do not sell alcohol but they do charge a corkage fee.

when we drove up to their private parking lot, my first impression was that the restaurant was small. however, i did like the way the place was decorated. the walls were painted in red with three black and white art hanging on the wall and that was complemented by the white tables and chairs. there is some lively music playing in the background. luckily for us, we came just before the place started becoming more packed. we were seated by the door, thus that was somewhat annoying since ppl came in and out, letting the cold air in. but they had a wall extension that pulls out so that it would block some of the cold air from blowing in. the other thing i am not too fond of is that it is semi open kitchen so there is a possibility of leaving with your clothes smelling like food at the end of our meal.

they started us off with complimentary tortilla chips, which is yummy on it's own and two types of salsa, one mild (red) and the other a lil spicier (green). we ordered a guacamole ($5.95) since some reviews said it was excellent. the guacamole came to our table in no time (literally a minute after we ordered). it tasted okay but i thought it needed more salt. it was much better when we added some salt into it. my favorite was the green salsa which was fantastic.

on top of that we ordered some mexican soda to try, nicholas had lime and ryan had the tamarind soda. i had the tamarind and i liked it. not very distinct tamarind flavor but it tasted good.

ryan's brother ordered chicken enchilada ($9.95) and his gf ordered chicken tacos ($8.95). nicholas loved the chicken enchilada because the dish wasn't doused in sauce and he could actually taste the enchilada itself. i had a bite and thought it had good flavors. brittany wasn't too happy with the chicken tacos because the chicken was not flavored well but she improvised and made it tastier by adding red salsa that was served with the complimentary tortilla chips. both these dishes came with a serving of rice and refried beans on the side.

ryan and i shared two dishes:

01 | ceviche ($7.95) which is tilapia and shrimp marinated in citrus served on top of tortilla chips. it was well balanced and had enough citrus flavor, fresh and i love the crunch from the tortilla chips as well as the diced onions. the onions didn't have as much bite as the other ceviche i had from tapas barcelona.

02| our main dish was the pollo en mole (or chicken in mole) which is chicken in traditional mexican chocolate and chile sauce (think savory not sweet). the chicken mole ($13.95) was something that we both have not tried before so we were extremely excited to try it. i personally thought it was interesting - the flavors i mean. nicholas said the mole he had usually has a smoky flavor but the one we had at la ciudad didn't have that though. ryan thinks that it could be that the other restaurant might have burnt the chocolate in mole. but i'd have to try another mole at a different restaurant to give my verdict. the rice that came with the dish was yummy and the chicken was cooked and flavored very nicely, although.. ryan thought some of the white meat he had was almost dry.

the serving portions were decent that we were pretty much stuffed by the end of our meal. however, i also read reviews on yelp that the flan is a must-have. so.. obviously we couldn't say no to dessert. when the flan came i thought it was a slice of cheesecake - probably cos i had an idea in my head that it would come in a inverted mini ramekin bowl on a plate. all four of us enjoyed the flan immensely, it was dense, yummy and just the right amount of sweetness. so glad we ordered this.

they also gave us complimentary scoops of raspberry sherbet (which is what we think the flavor is) and that was very refreshing.

la ciudad was a pretty good experience. my favorite dishes were the ceviche, green salsa and the flan. the service was very friendly, attentive (but not too attentive, which is good), and relatively fast. i'd recommend making reservations if you are planning to go on a busy weekend night. we all enjoyed our food and the ambience (minus the cold air occasionally blowing at us when ppl come into the restaurant) at la ciudad.

disclaimer this is written based on my personal experience and opinion. experiences and taste buds may vary for others.

p.s. my trip back to malaysia is in like 2 days time and i am getting some butterflies in my stomach thinking about it. not quite sure why i feel this way. :/

p.p.s. will be sharing my cooking class experience from last night in the very near future.