El Original 7 Mares
6307 Whitter Blvd
Montebello
323-721-2741
Ok I'll admit it, I never knew what mariscos meant until last year. I'm used to carne asada, carnitas, and pollo as meats. So now that I've discovered what mariscos means, I've wanted to see what places have good mariscos.
I went to El Original 7 Mares and had their Combo El Mares, a seafood combination for $15.99. The combination included, halibut, surimi crab, Costa Azul shrimp, breaded shrimp, fish fillet and scallops. The Costa Azul shrimp is shrimp wrapped in bacon. The shrimp was huge and the bacon added a very nice flavor. I didn't really notice many Mexican spices in the shrimp. But this was good. The breaded shrimp was just ok. First of all it was about lukewarm, like it was sitting under a heat lamp. So of course it wasn't crunchy and it was mostly the bread coating. The shrimp was pretty small, I thought I was at Sizzler.
What I mean by Mexican spices is those spices used in Mexican cooking. The seafood here didn't taste like anything from a Mexican restaurant.
The fish fillet was the only thing that had any kind of Mexican spices. I think the fish was talipia but not 100% sure. It was very tasty though a bit on the salty side for me. The halibut, which is a fish I love, was fried!!! Why??? There is no reason to ruin a great fish by deep frying it. If they used the spices they used for the fish fillet, on the halibut, I would have loved it.
The scallops were small pieces of scallops and while they gave you alot, it wasn't fresh. It was very chewy and rubbery. Again no Mexican spices or anything.
What I hated was the surimi crab. Now I'll admit I didn't know that was Spanish for imitation crab. But I hate imitation crab, no matter how it's cooked. This crab was very rubbery and not fresh at all.
Service was below average. It took a long time for drinks to be refilled. When I got my iced tea, there was something in there, a piece of tortilla chip. I asked for a new cup and they took about five minutes to bring it back. They also took forever to run the credit card. Very slow. I got the feeling they wanted Spanish speakers only. I didn't feel uncomfortable but it's pretty clear this place caters to the large Latino population of Montebello.
I would not go back to this place again. Bad service, poor quality food. Not a good combo.
