One day while out shopping on Rodeo Drive, I asked a sales associate for advice on where to have lunch. He claimed to be a “foodie” so I listened. I should of known better. Although I always research places to eat when visiting an area, I was tired, lazy and hungry and wanted to eat at a place conveniently close to where I was; so I ignored the list on my phone. The associate recommended a place called Cantina Frida in Beverly Hills.
To start, the venue IS nice. That should of been a red flag, and not surprising considering where we were. L.A. is filled with authentic, ethnic food, especially Mexican and Korean, and many of the best places are “street” food or located in strip malls. Anyway, we started with chips and salsa. The chips were ok but the salsa lacked flavor.
The one thing that was good were the Elotes.
For my main I had the Cantina plate one soft taco (I had the al pastor), one enchilada, and one hard taco (chochinita)
Everything was bland. The meats lacked any kind of seasoning. It was not good Mexican food by any means. My wife had the same experience. To add insult to injury, there was an amazing more hole in the wall type place around the corner that I saw when searching Google maps the next morning (I will post about that place soon)!
Overall, service was ok, setting was nice, but food was not good. Needless to say, I would not go back or recommend this place.
referrals is one of the best sources of research, I would have succumbed to the same fate of fake mexican food. This fake foodie dilemma is rampant, every fool with a cell phone today thinks they are a foodie influencer with a youtube channel and a dozen followers. you really should look into this club of genuine gastronomists, the Chaine distinction is the original “foodie”. check it out Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. I would be 100 times more willing to heed a referral from a Chaine member