Author: marga (Page 115 of 120)

Yesterday we drove I-5 to LA and in our neverending quest to find something descent to eat on the road, we stopped at Cazuelas, a Mexican restaurant in Coalinga. We’d never been there before, so we had hope. It was slowly dispelled.
The restaurant actually looks better from the outside than the inside. The architecture of it is fine enough, but the twiching fluorescent lights and ugly vinyl chairs and formica tables gave it a definite dive look, though most of its customers were Mexican families.
There were only a few tables occupied when we got there, but service, still, was very slow. It took over five minutes for us to get seated, and we waited for a long time to get our food, the bill, etc.
Still, our culinary experience started well. The tortilla chips and salsa were actually good. The chips were crispy and only slightly salty, and not in the least oily. The salsa had the right note of spice and lime.
The menu featured standard Tex-Mex items (no cazuelas) at average prices (~$10). Mike decided on that night’s special, a tostada combo ($6) while I went for a carne asada torta (sandwich) with french fries ($8). My sandwich was OK. It would have been much better if the meat had not been oversalted. A slice of avocado and chopped tomato helped with this, however. It wasn’t very substantial, however, and I expected more for $8. The accompanying french fries were quite good, though a little on the soft-side for Mike’s taste.
Mike’s tostada was a whole different deal. To begin with it was a small shell with a tiny bit of chicken, some cheese and a whole lot of shredded lettuce. It came served with tasteless rice and watery, thin refried beans. He could not have been more disapointed on his dish. Unfortunately, it was very memorable. He woke up the next day with a bad case of food poisoning. As I’m pregnant, I’m extremely thanksful that I didn’t eat any of his food.
Our drinks were OK. I had a fountain coke and it was mostly flat but it tasted OK.
In all, we’ll be avoiding Cazuelas in the future as the plague, which it may just be 🙂
Cazuelas Restaurant
179 W Polk St
Coalinga, CA
(559) 934-0751

We ordered Lake Chabot Pizza after getting a couple of door-flyers for it. Apparently it’s under new management but we’d never try it before.
We decided on ther 2-medium, 2-topping pizzas for $17 (includes a free soda) deal.
I was happy to see that Lake Chabot pizza hasn’t downsized their pizzas like so many other pizza joints in the area have. A small pizza is 12″, a medium 14″ and a large 16″ (they also have 8″ personal pizzas, and 18″ extra-large pizzas).
The pizza arrived within half an hour.
We didn’t really like the pizza. The problem was mostly on the pizza dough, it was too thick and not very flavorful. I actually like thick-crust pizza, but only when the crust tastes good. The sauce was also too mild to impart any flavor on the pizza. The toppings (extra-cheese & pineapple for mine, sausage & pepperoni for Mike’s) were fine, but they couldn’t compensate for the crust (that was specially the case with mine).
We probably won’t be ordering from here again.

Last night we went to see the Boca-America game at SBC Park (Boca destroyed America 3-1) and we had “dinner” there. We sat at the club level and got food from McGraw’s Derby Grill. The food was OK.
Mike has a chili-dog which he thought was quite good. He thought the same of the chicken-apple-sausage sandwich he got for Mika ($5). Michaela actually ate the whole sausage (leaving the bread), which means it must have either been very good or she must have been really hungry.
I was much more unlucky with my cheeseburger ($6.25). The plain burger had been sitting under a heat lamp and was very dry. It was school-cafeteria quality (i.e. McDonalds would have been an improvement) and it came plain. You could add onions and other condiments in theory, but the cheese had fused the burger with the bread to the point that they were unseparatable. In other words, don’t order burgers here.
We has an order of fries (~$3) which was fine, and a churro ($3.50) which was disappointing. It was worm but kind of soggy.
Fountain sodas (~$3 for a small) were a little weird-tasting but strill drinkable.
In the same level there was a full bar, a stand selling quesadillas and other bad-looking Mexican food, and a stand selling pizza.