Do you like seafood?
Do you like Mexican food?
If so, stop reading right now and go to La Islita. RIGHT NOW. Come back and read this later.
Still here? Just got back from eating there? Okay. Here we go:
HOLY CRAP.
One of my Mexican friends has been trying to get me to go to one of their other locations for years, but we've never found the time. I feel really stupid not having gone for this long... I could have been eating this food for a long time now.
The location in Citrus Heights is their third location and I'm sure will be just as successful as the other two.
This is the exterior. Check out all the signs with various specials written on them. Note that they have pozole and menudo EVERY DAY. That's dedication.
Upon entering we encountered one of the owners, Juan. This guy rocks! He knew it was our first time in his restaurant and gave us a five minute crash course:
- Traditional Mexican seafood restaurant
- These are mostly his family's recipes
- His chef is crazy brilliant and turns out some crazy good dishes
- His chef is from a different part of Mexico and they have heated discussions about whose interpretation of certain dishes is the best... but the diner benefits as all the good stuff makes it onto the menu regardless
- The best selling dish is the house special shrimp (I forget the exact name)
- The next best selling dish is his langostinos preparation
- He's very glad we're there to enjoy their food
- He imports his favorite hot sauce from Mexico and calls it the "anti Tapatio"
Sure enough, his favorite sauce was on the table, staring down the Tapatio all "what are you looking at, ese?"
So we sat down and got ready for some crazy good food. We were rewarded... greatly.
Instead of chips and salsa, La Islita serves a shrimp ceviche with tostadas. I would have paid for this as an entree at any other restaurant. Juan says next time he will bring us chips and salsa as his chef has a special blend of salsa based on a recipe he brought from his hometown. I can't wait.
While ordering, Juan mentioned that they serve his mama's pozole and menudo every day. For those of you that do not consume these two wonderful soups (you should), most restaurants will only make these on the weekends as they are reputed to be wonderful hangover cures. It makes sense, as a lot of work goes into making this stuff and if not enough people order it you've wasted a lot of time.
Designer and Actual mentioned that they had never tried pozole. Juan couldn't let this one slide and brought out a bowl of pozole for them to share. I am a pozole veteran and this was easily the best pozole I have ever had. The broth was nice and thick but not greasy, something you can only accomplish by carefully cooking a bunch of high collagen animal parts. The hominy was very flavorful and the perfect texture. We could have ended our meal here and it would have been one of the best meals we've had this year.
Turns out, Actual has had pozole before. Just not pozole this good. Designer, as with many other things, is now ruined on pozole forever as her first was impossibly good. I'm not kidding. I've had at least 200 different pozoles in the US and Mexico and this was the best one. We didn't try their menudo but I'm going to guess it's just as good.
Also, while the pozole contains all of the usual pozole ingredients (Google it), Juan's kitchen will serve you what I call a "gringo-style" serving of pozole that is all hominy and meat and doesn't contain any scary animal parts that you aren't expecting.
Like all of our favorite restauranteurs, Juan at La Islita realizes that he needs to let you try all of their best dishes, as you will get hooked and dream about them until you come back and order some more. Mission accomplished.
Next up, a dozen oysters. At La Islita, you can order them plain or "preparado". Now, their oysters are extremely fresh and are spectacular on their own. The "prep" version adds octopus and shrimp ceviche. Juan only uses Gulf and Mexican shrimp, and you can totally tell by the splendid texture and flavor of these shrimp. We couldn't even hazard a guess as to how they prepare their octopus, but it was tender and delicious. Spectacular doesn't even begin to describe these. A fancypants restaurant could serve ONE of these to me and I would be impressed. A whole dozen for $20? Good lord.
This is a closeup of Designer's first oyster, which she deemed the prom queen of the bunch.
And now, the best shrimp dish on Earth. They start with butterflied but unpeeled shrimp that are deep fried for ten seconds then cooked in their crazy good mystery sauce. The ten second deep fry means you can eat these peel-on. The shells after the flash fry are like soft shell crab shells. And they taste FANTASTIC. If you don't like the texture of the shells, you can peel them off and the shrimp still taste awesome. But, as Juan said to us, "you can get a version of this with peeled shrimp anywhere else; if you want the special version where you can eat the shells, you come here."
Actual says that that shell-on, the texture is just like popcorn shrimp.
Last up, the superstar of the meal. Remember what I said about smart restauranteurs that give you samples of their best stuff to make sure you get addicted? THIS WAS IT. These are whole roasted langostinos that are split in half then covered in the best sauce I've had as long as I can remember. You suck the combination of the sauce and the natural langostino juice off each piece then eat the tail. Simply phenomenal. I'm coming back for a full order of these as soon as possible. And no, none of you can share. GET YOUR OWN.
I felt luxuriously gluttonous after this dish. If you know me, you know just how hard that is to accomplish.
RUN, DON'T WALK TO THIS PLACE. This is easily one of the best restaurants in Northern California, along with the other two locations.
Here are the girls with Juan. Sorry for the blurry picture, but after 4381 shots on one charge my battery grip finally died, so I had to take an iPhone picture like I used to way at the beginning of this blog. The guy in the hat is the International Mexican Chef of Mystery. Juan, I don't know what you pay this guy, but he's totally worth it.
GO THERE NOW!!!
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