La Loma Es Muy Bueno
By DCist contributor Celeste Dawn Mitchell
Mexican food in Washington tends to be either a very bland affair or an unnecessarily fussy affair. Either we need six cups of salsa to impart any sense of flavor to it, or the cooks are too busy making Alaskan scallop enchiladas with toasted pine nuts to put together a decent steak taco. Even the so-called premier Mexican restaurants leave much to be desired.
Though the tableside guac is worth the stop, Rosa Mexicano's menu is too cryptic. Picking a satisfying dish is like playing roulette at a Vegas Casino. There's a slim possibility you might pick a winner, but chances are you won't. Plus, you'll be out $25, and you'll be still hungry. Lauriol Plaza never leaves us satisfied either, and it seems like we'd be awful easy to please after a drunken two-hour wait.
Our hunt for quintessential Mex/Tex-Mex led us to the oft-overlooked La Loma. The night air was a bit too chilly for patio dining, so we opted for the first-floor dining room, where the globe bulbs overhead were capped with sombreros. The wait staff promptly served up a kicky homemade salsa brimming with tomato chunks and strips of onion. The plain Jane tortilla chips weren't worthy of it.
La Loma makes all the staples -- tacos, enchiladas, fajitas -- and boasts an impressive looking seafood menu. But we make it a rule to stick to the basics on our first visit to a restaurant. We don't trust your Salmon Cancun until you prove to us that you make a decent burrito.
We tested the waters, so to speak, with the Camarones La Loma appetizer. For $7.95, we received exactly five shrimp sautéed with garlic, scallions and white wine immersed in a rich butter sauce with tortillas on the side. We suppose the tortillas and the fact that they didn't call it "shrimp scampi" justified the eight bucks.
A glass of sangria arrived with apple bits floating in it. The fruit was good, but the fifth of rum obliterated any trace of sweetness the actual beverage had and brought on an unwanted buzz. So we reverted to the chips and salsa.
For the main course, we went for the chicken chimichanga ($8.95) and a single taco al carbon so that we could get a taste of La Loma's "famous" fajita meat. Its reputation proved to be well deserved. The flavorful, succulent steak strips might be enough to bring a sworn vegan back to the dark side (provided it was cruelty-free succulent steak). A scoop of pico de gallo gave the taco a hint of freshness.
The generous chimi was filled with reddish marinated chicken and green peppers in a shell that was more of a wrap than a crust. It was quite tasty also -- and it reheated well the next day. There were sides, but we've never tasted refried beans or Spanish rice worth mentioning.
Thanks to the attentive, anticipatory wait staff and delicious takes on shrimp, steak and chicken, we'll be back to La Loma to see what they can do with that salmon.
La Loma Mexican Restaurant
316 Massachusetts Avenue NE
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 548-2550