The hunt for good Mexican food in Valencia is a challenging one. The gold standard is, of course, being in Mexico but the close second is Southern California followed by pockets across the southwestern United States. By comparison, the Mexican restaurants in Europe and the UK are simply pale representations of the great Mexican food found in the Americas.
This is interesting because other cuisines are pretty faithfully translated — Indian, Asian, Caribbean, etc.
It can be frustrating because often the menus at Mexican restaurants appear encouraging — tacos, enchiladas, tamales, etc. that have rich descriptions and sound so promising. The reality is almost always different. Don’t misunderstand. These are not bad restaurants but just not very authentic and not great food. And great Mexican food is really, really great.
La Chingada is one of those that does not quite live up to the alluring menu.
On a Friday night the restaurant is packed, especially the terrace. It is quite a machine and that may be part of the problem. This is foodservice at volume and the flavor and cooking suffer.
We chose three classics — tacos, enchiladas and guacamole.
The latter is so pretty when it arrives. It is a large bowl of fresh tortilla chips with a generous portion of guacamole in the center. The corn tortillas are super crisp. They are small and are perfect for dipping the very fresh guacamole with the tomatoes and onions and chunks of avocado. Unlike many guacamoles it is not over-salted. It is in fact a bit bland. The texture of the avocados is a bit grainy somewhat like this is not from fresh but packaged or frozen avocado pulp.
The cheese enchiladas with green sauce were promising. They are simple enchiladas filled with cheese folding into corn tortillas and topped with onions, tomatoes, and cheese. The flaw is that this arrived barely warm. Enchiladas should be piping hot so that the cheese melts but in this case the shredded white cheese was barely melted.. The lukewarm dish is a bit of a failure. The one saving grace is that the green sauce is delicious with a terrific tomatillo flavor that comes through.
The Tacos Chingada are a good blend of well-cooked and shredded meats including beef, chorizo, chicken, onion, cilantro, guacamole, lime, napoles and red onion. They are topped with guacamole and pickled onion. They are very pretty when they arrive at the table and are well cooked. The problem is that the flavor is more like a curry or chicken tiki masala. We are all for fusion food but don’t think that this was the intention here.
Beware. One of the tacos did have a big chunk of bone.
The restaurant is lively and brightly decorated in raspberry and red and lime, green and yellow. It is a shame because the food is close to being good or even great.
Cura Femenia N°6, CP 46004, Valencia