Tacos Ensenada

Tacos Ensenada
2171 Huntington Dr
Duarte
626-359-4959

Tacos Ensenada has been on my list of places to try, since I saw LA Magazine's Top 10 Mexican Restaurants. Interesting to see that a Mexican restaurant I review, La Casita Mexicana, was also in the Top 10.

My favorite place for fish tacos is Tacos Baja in East LA, so I'm trying to find other fish tacos as good, if not better than Tacos Baja. How did LA Magazine miss Tacos Baja, as one of the Top 10 Best Mexican restaurants in LA?

Anyways, Tacos Ensenada is a very small restaurant with a few tables inside and one table outside. It's most to go and I heard they get very crowded.

Let's start with the shrimp taco, $1.99. WOW, was this good. The shrimp was very fresh, the batter was light, crunchy, and flavorful. There was a ton of shrimp in this taco. The toppings; tomato, onions, that white sauce was very fresh and added a wonderful flavor. What I liked the most is the contrast between the coolness of the white sauce, and the spiciness of the salsa. Just an awesome taco. This is among the best shrimp tacos I have ever had.

What wasn't the best was the fish taco, $1.59. The toppings were exactly the same as the shrimp taco and they were great. But, the fish, which is basa fish, was rubbery and the batter was soggy!! No crunch, no freshness, nothing. Maybe the fish had been sitting under heat lamps for too long. Maybe the oil wasn't hot even, when they fried the fish. Whatever the reason, this fish taco wasn't good. I kept thinking; I could have gotten a better fish taco at a chain!!

Service is ok. They were super friendly or welcoming, just going through the motions.

I may give Tacos Ensenada another chance, but even if they fish was fried correctly, I can't see it beating my old stand by, Tacos Baja.

Update Nov. 8, 2011

I went back to Tacos Ensenada and the samething happened, great shrimp taco but a mediocre fish taco. I posted much better pictures, but nothing has changed from my original review. Though I will add, every Tuesday the fish tacos are 99 cents! Still not as good as Tacos Baja.

Hungry Howie's Pizza-Closed

Hungry Howie's Pizza 

1100 East Huntington Blvd 

Duarte 

626-599-9991 

 I heard that there was another Sonic, besides the Anaheim location, in the area and wanted to go there to try it. But next door to Sonic, I found Hungry Howie's Pizza. I first had Howie's Pizza at a party and I thought it was pretty good pizza. I thought it was a mom and pop type pizza place but it is a national chain, with over 500 restaurants.

  They have a special, $6.99, for a large one topping pizza with any flavored crust. SO I got a ham pizza with ranch flavor crust. The ham was sliced into very small pieces, I like that better than the bigger pieces of ham that other pizza places use. But Howie's could have put more ham on the pizza. They did use a good amount of cheese. I like cheese to be cooked until you see a little brown on them. Howie's cooked the cheese just right. The sauce was a mild, sweet flavored sauce. The crust was a medium crust. The flavored is just seasoning sprinkled onto the crust. The ranch was OK, I don't think I would order ranch again. But I do like the flavored crust idea. Service was very good. The kid, he must be a HS kid, was nice and helpful. I think Hungry Howie's is much better than the more well known pizza chains. If there was a Howie's closer to me, I would order from Howie's before ordering from those chains. I would have no problems going back to Hungry Howie's.