11927 Santa Monica Blvd. West Los Angeles, CA 90025
With Juquila, Pili's, Las Farias, La Flama and the great Paladar Oaxanero taco truck among other great Oaxacan eateries in West Los Angeles, one can have a field day choosing their moles and central southern Mexican specialties such as clayudas, chorizo, cecinas and tazajos. Some might even feature "chapulines"-spiced grasshoppers-on a given day.
The most elegant and possibly the most flavorful local dinner is found at Monte Alban, a handsomely appointed restaurant that shares its strip-mall parking lot with a chiropractor, Thai Chile, Thai Massage and Mama Voula's Greek restuarant.
I come back to Monte Alban time and time again for their deeply cooked moles which come in practically all colors of the rainbow and the Molcajete-grilled mix of pork, cactus and beef, as well as for the devastatingly gorgeous waitress they once employed.
Although this vision of heaven didn't seem to be around on Taco's last visit, the food was still up-to-par. Named after the Zapotecan cultural, civic and sacrificial center of Oaxaca, West L.A.'s Monte Alban might stand today as a center of excellence in the region's cuisine. Speciaties abound from goat meat tacos (barbacoa de chivo); goat meat in a bowl of broth with avocado leaves and spices; thick molotes; salsa de chicharron (fried pork skin with spicy tomato); banana leaf tamales; and queso fundido with chorizo. If you think you've had it all at a Mexican restaurant, it will still seem that everything Monte Alban has is somehow being discovered for the first time.