Let’s start by saying this: Tex-Mex and Cal-Mex are not the same food. The difference is a much heavier hand with cheese and cream sauces in the former, while the latter tends to be more vegetable-forward. At this point, the new Cal-Mex spots are so far from the home-cooking style that Tex-Mex embraces that it can seem like most of what they have in common is flour tortillas.
I lived in Los Angeles back in 2009 and 2010, when I decided to blow my life up by quitting my job at MTV via volunteering for a massive layoff at the end of 2008, and thought leaving New York City for LA to write a book sounded like a good idea during an economic crisis was a smart choice (spoiler: it turned out fine). The main thing a lot of friends wanted to do back then was take me to various Mexican spots, because I grew up in Texas, and reintroduce me to Mexican food done California-style. Honestly, I didn’t like much of it. Trying too hard to be California healthy.
So, on a recent trip to LA, I decided to dine at three of the city’s longest-standing Mexican restaurants, with menus largely driven by the classic dishes they’ve been serving for decades.
Casa Vega
I made a Saturday night reservation at Quentin Tarantino’s favorite restaurant and the one he put in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…. It’s always been a Hollywood scene joint, since it opened in 1956. Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Rock Hudson, who had a claim on booth No. 1, were regulars (and the one of them who is still alive still is). The Kardashians have hosted numerous Christmas parties there. It was Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s spot when they were married (and word on the street is, she still goes there). Dakota Fanning calls it her “home away from home.”
If you think about what an LA Mexican restaurant looks like, you’re probably thinking of Casa Vega, with its shiny red booths and dining room so dim you can hardly see who is eating next to you. As a celeb hotspot to this day, there are signs requesting that diners not shoot video and photos unless it has been approved by the management — so it’s not an influencer hotspot and doesn’t go viral.
Food-wise, the menu isn’t far off from Tex-Mex, but it characterizes itself as Mexican American favorites. It is known for its overstuffed burritos, chicken mole, and the tableside guac, which is served with all the flourishes of a fine dining moment. I opted for a mix of chicken and steak fajitas, and that was not a smart call. I really should have gone with the burrito.
A few months ago, I ate fajitas at The Original Ninfa's on Navigation in Houston, which is the place that claims to have invented fajitas. Whether or not that is strictly speaking true, they are the place that perfected the art of fajitas, and it’s hard to beat one of their platters. Casa Vega, unfortunately, can’t do it. The vegetables, which included the Texas-style usuals of green bell peppers and onions, also included some tomatoes, which in theory should work, but all the vegetables were overcooked before they hit the sizzling platter. In the end, they congealed into a mass in my mouth. Which is not a nice texture when combined with a soft, buttery flour tortilla.
I also ordered Tarantino’s margarita, which tells me this man has a sweet tooth. It includes añejo tequila, Cointreau, lime and orange juice, and agave. It was nice, citrus-forward, and easy to drink. So easy, I drank two.
The service was… fine? A little absent, if anything, but kind and accommodating. We were seated at a table for four, despite being a party of two, in a nearly empty section that filled up during our meal. It was not the booths, which was disappointing, but maybe I should take giving us a bigger table as a compliment?
Casita del Campo
Next up was Casita del Campo with a party of four. Open since 1962, this restaurant has been a fixture in LA’s LGBTQ+ nightlife scene for most of its life, and still hosts drag shows in the downstairs room. It’s painted flamingo pink outside, and unless the celebs are the cool sort who live in Silverlake or Los Feliz, they don’t flock here.
We went on a quiet Sunday night, over Labor Day weekend, and had a reservation but didn’t need one — there was plenty of space in the main dining room. The bar was fairly packed, just the same. It is also known for its burritos (burritos feel like they’re a bigger deal in California than in Texas overall), along with shrimp enchiladas and Camarones a la Veracruzana, which is an almost Mediterranean plate of shrimp with black beans.
I ordered a combo plate with two cheese enchiladas and a rolled beef taco. The rolled taco is not a phenomenon in most of Texas, but you can find them pretty regularly in El Paso. It's also known as tacos Dorados, or golden tacos, that get stuffed with picadillo beef — Casa del Campo goes one step further and tucks their tacos, so it’s almost like an oversized flauta with open ends. Shredded cheese is stuffed in the top, and it’s absolutely delicious. Did a bunch of beef fall out of the other side when I took a bite? Yes. That’s what forks are for. The red sauce in California, which can be put on all kinds of foods and is the correct sauce for a cheese enchilada, tastes different too. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what is different, but it's probably just a slightly different spice profile. It was incredible, and the cheese pull from each bite was magnificent. Rice and beans on the side were rice-ing and bean-ing appropriately, but nothing to write home about.
I ordered a hibiscus margarita that was absolutely foul on the first sip — too much concentrated hibiscus flowers and not enough triple sec plus tequila. I’m sensitive to agave-based spirits, and it is rare for me to say a drink didn’t have enough tequila or Mezcal in it. As it diluted, it got better.
The service was attentive. The main dining room is a series of circular, family-style meal tables made from heavy wood, but the room isn’t overly big, like a lot of Tex-Mex restaurants. It felt intimate but like it could carry a big crowd.
El Cholo - The Original
Finally, I picked up a friend, and we went to the original El Cholo in Koreatown on Labor Day. This place looks the most like the Tex-Mex restaurants I’m used to, with tons of booths made out of ramshackle wood, and random rooms stacked on top of each other, like someone just kept expanding inside a building over decades. It’s been open in this location since 1931, although it started in a different location (see, it’s all adding up) in 1923. The name changed in 1925 when a customer drew what is the current logo and wrote “el cholo” (which translates to “ranch hand”) on a napkin.
El Cholo is known for introducing burritos to America — if California has a thing about burritos, this place is a big part of why. In the late ‘50s, it also introduced nachos to LA, which came from a recipe a waitress who grew up in San Antonio brought with her. They’re the layered kind, not the one-chip-loaded-with-ingredients kind that is a hallmark of Tex-Mex, and they’re still named after her.
Since El Cholo is right by a lot of studio lots, it was a Hollywood hotspot in the golden era. Jack Nicholson still visits after Lakers games and has been a regular for decades, according to the restaurant. Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas created its voicemail greeting. It was good enough for Liz Taylor, Warren Beatty, and Anjelica Huston.
We tucked into a booth in the second room off the front door, and I ordered A Taste of History, a plate from 1996 (all the menu items are dated with the year they were added). It included a cheese enchilada, rolled beef taco, chile relleno, and a pork tamale, with Spanish rice and refried beans on the side. It was a perfectly nice enchilada, if a little gummy, and the rolled taco was an entirely different presentation from Casita del Campo. This one was rolled like a very loose flauta with no room to add additional items inside, and a smattering of thinly grated cheese on top. The chile relleno was lovely but felt like a dated presentation of the dish — which it is; this is the version they’ve served since 1938, I believe. The tamale was dry, but the salsa roja on top was excellent and beautifully spiced. Rice and beans continue to rice and bean.
The service was aggressively attentive, possibly because there were a total of three tables in the place. When we didn’t eat everything and didn’t want to take the leftovers, they looked concerned. We felt obliged to explain that we were both traveling and flying out in a matter of days. Just the same, they brought us a flan and endless iced tea refills. It was kind, and they clearly care about customers having a good experience.
I left this experiment in eating feeling little changed. I think it’s hard to change your preference if you grew up eating Tex-Mex or Cal-Mex. That becomes your default idea of what Mexican American food should taste like. Some dishes remain too similar to differentiate outside of slight differences in the sauces, like enchiladas and tacos. I don’t think I ever need to eat at Casa Vega again. I barely remember what El Coyote, which was closed during parts of Labor Day weekend when I had time to visit, is like from a visit over 20 years ago. It’s going on the list for my next LA trip.
