Not that our tastes are any better than anyone elses, but here’s a few places that we’ve found around town that we particularly like.
MEXICAN FOOD
We could eat Mexican food several nights during the week, and often do. We were thrilled when we learned how many Mexican restaurants there are in the area. Clearly, though, some are much better than others. But we do enjoy trying out all the new places.
One dish that we love is Chile Verde. So far, though, we’ve not found a single place that has a spicy version of it. We had a few places in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood areas that had the absolute hottest chile verde….it would make you sweat it was so hot. All the ones we’ve tried here, while most were tasty, were not hot at all.
One of the best dishes we’ve found in the area is the carnitas!
Because each of the places we’ve been vary so greatly in what they serve and the size of the restaurant, it’s a little hard to compare them. Some are regular sized, sit-down type restaurants, while others are very small take-out type places.
Our favorite so far has been Cabo Seafood Grill and Cantina in Oxnard, which we give an A-.
Best thing, they have delicious homemade, hot off the griddle tortillas! Yum!
We tried our 2 test dishes here and both were excellent, even though the Chile Verde was not hot. The combination plates are huge.
A couple of gripes: the water was really bad and thus, the iced tea was off-tasting as well (but I know most people probably come for the Margaritas!), and the chips were not great, considering they have homemade corn tortillas. They were a little cardboard-like and had no salt on them. But the food itself is the best we’ve had yet in town.
Other places we’ve tried: Yolandas (Oxnard) C, Tacos Mi Pueblo (Oxnard) C, Chapala Mexican Restaurant (Santa Paula) A-, Margarita Villa Restaurant (Ventura) B-, Taqueria Cuernavaca (Oxnard) C, Tacos Don Chente (Oxnard) C-, Norte Sur Mexican Grill (Ventura) C.
CHINESE FOOD
We LOVE Chinese food and were very spoiled coming from the San Fernando Valley as we had several Chinese restaurants that were top notch. We’ve had lots of recommendations for Chinese here in Ventura County and have tried a number of places, but so far we’ve found them mediocre at best.
Then tonight we tried Spring Garden Chinese Restaurant in Ventura, which we give an A-. This restaurant harkens back to the old fashioned Cantonese Chinese food we grew up with. While many of the restaurants have given up on the A-B-C dinners, this place still does it!
One food item that we’re really particular about is the Hot and Sour Soup. So many places just don’t make it that well…it’s either not hot or not sour. We were very happy to find that Spring Garden had very good Hot & Sour soup. My only wish would be that it has more veggies and mushrooms in it. The flavor, though, was spot on.
I’m not a big fan of sweet & sour, but theirs was really delicious as was their beef and broccoli. We tried a place a couple of weeks ago and the beef was chewy as leather! Spring Gardens was very tender and flavorful.
So, we’ll keep looking for the best place in Ventura County, but so far, this one tops our list.
Other places we tried: Hunan Garden (Oxnard) C-, Chinese Dumpling House (Port Hueneme) B+, Tasty China (Ventura) C, China Kitchen (Ventura) C.