La Bonita

Avoid this place at all costs. The owner (?) male that was there when we arrived was extremely rude and was yelling at someone in the lot about parking. Should have taken it as a sign and turned right around. Never going back. Mediocre Mexican food at best.

Based off my One visit I really don’t get most of the reviews…
So before I entered I snapped a photo
I use it as a reference of where the food is from since I’m usually behind in reviewing.
So as I walk in some guy. Owner/​Manager? is trash talking me in Spanish to the Cook for taking a photo OUTSIDE the Restaurant… #YoSoyMexicano #Pendejo
So right away he ask’s «What did you need»… I said I want some Tacos, looking at his menu board to see what Meat selection they have to offer, he quickly says Oh, you want Tacos, you should go to the place here in the next block!
I’m thinking this guy is so pissed at me for taking ONE photo outside this place, he’d rather I go elsewhere, nope I’m ordering from you PUNK!
So they offer only 4 different meats, I don’t recall all 4 as I dared not take a photo inside of the menu fearing I might get shot. Turns out of the 4 meats they only had 2 so I ordered two tacos one of each meat, he took my order, didn’t ask for here or to go and obviously made the order to go!
Tacos de Carne Asada Y Pollo —
Carne Asada —
Lean meat but nothing for flavor, tortillas were falling apart, I asked for salsa roja, as you can see there was none, not even packed in the to go cups. 1.5-Stars
Pollo —
Boiled unseasoned Chicken… Really? 1-​Star
Even if these tacos were 5 Star… with this guy’s ATTITUDE I’d never return!

This place has such a good food with good taste, my mom and her bf go there practically every weekend. I do recommend the carne asada plate and the menudo

All of you who claim they have good tacos and other food here need to stop. I fell for your trap. I really wanted some good asada tacos and burritos, (asada is the most basic version of tacos and burritos) and I must say I am disappointed. First off I hate places that add carrots and peas to rice trying to add more flavor to rice, and the rice was still blah at best It’s also a bad idea, the textures don’t go well. The meat was OK. But overall it’s not a place I will send any friends to. I also had a horchata which is a cinnamon rice drink and it was bland. You can tell that they make it and let it sit still. Horchata must be constantly stirred. At least the ladies were nice. But I won’t be returning. Sorry.

Best breakfast in LA! Crazy nice service, amazing food every visit. East Hollywood gem!

I can’t live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have good Mexican food close by.
Whenever I move, I have something like a homing instinct toward the best spots for good Mexican food: the most flavorful meat, the creamiest beans, the hottest salsas, the perfect hand made tortillas.
La Bonita is my spot: nice people, excellent food, bright little dining room. I keep meaning to try the chilaquiles and the chile verde, but I haven’t yet. I’m addicted to their pozole and come here almost every weekend to get a bowl.
They serve you chips with three delightful salsas — a green one, a red one, and a habanero one. Watch out for that habanero one, it isn’t for the faint of heart.
Ca$h only.

Omg this place has the best Mexican food in town it’s small place but the food is authentic feels like my mother just made it everything fresh & clean really sweet workers

The resturant serves authentic mexican dishes.
I would gladly recomend to anyone looking for an excellent mexican dish.

Wow. This place makes me so happy. The colors in this place and their old school big screen is a home away from home. The service is great. The food is even greater. Mole is on point.

I love this place, been going there since their original location was half a room with some stools facing the kitchen and two or three tables. The owner has always been such a cool dude that I can never imagine him being a d! ck.
Hand made tortillas and queso fresco on the beans ALWAYS. This place is not baja, chipotle or even a taco truck. so if you order asada tacos or burritos you’re on your own. I don’t think I’ve ever order that here.
It’s a small restaurant with authentic Mexican meals like mole and pozole but for me, where they shine is in their breakfast menu. TOP 2 are the chilaquiles verdes with a sunny side-​up egg on top smothered in cilantro and tomatillo based salsa… #money
The other favorite it’s filling and healthy. The nopales con huevo, that’s cactus leaf and eggs, served with rice and beans.
Last but not least is their salsa! Red, green and habanero! Try one, try them all and embrace one of the icons of mexican culture. They’re simple, full of flavor and your palate will thank you. Throw some of that on your huevos!

One of the best breakfasts around. Try the verde chilaquiles. Never had that before. Fresh squeezed OJ too.
If you need to find me in the mornings, you know where I’ll be.

Not too impressed with this place La Bonita. The people were really kind to me and my date which was a very good sign. However the service seemed a tad disorganized and even getting water was too slow for us. I had cheese enchiladas with a beef taco. I’ve had better at other places. I guess if I had to vote, I’d say no again to this place.

The Unilocal reviews guided me to this little hole in the wall – and when I got there, I realized that I shop at the Armenian market right next door all the time (yes, as a professional writer I am an abnormally observant person). We got there at 6:45 p.m. and were the only customers.
This does not bode well, I thought.
I ordered the carne asada without realizing that it would come in one single slab of beef, which I had to cut up before I could eat it. When I finally got around to eating it, I enjoyed it, though I didn’t do cartwheels while doing so (and I still wound up with beef stains all over my shirt). My wife wanted carnitas and was very disappointed that they don’t serve it there. She had the pork something-​or-​other tacos (and I had a few, too), which were good (but again no cartwheels), and of course she griped that it was too spicy. It wasn’t even moderately spicy as far as I was concerned until I slathered it with the salsa verde (which goes heavy on the Serrano peppers… oh yeah).
The rice was typical Mexican rice; no letter to home over it. The homemade tortillas were quite good, very thick and as hot as the surface of the sun. The meats were okay, good enough for a repeat visit, but the servings in my combination plate were much small than I’m used to, so the meal didn’t bloat me like an elephant seal as usual. The red salsa was watery and somewhat bland; the green salsa was spicier than most but with no tang, and I wasn’t about to try the orange salsa, which looked suspiciously like thin, pureed habanera peppers, which are death to those not used to excruciatingly spicy food. However, the refried beans were actually soupy in their thinness and absolutely delicious. Next time, I may just get a bowl of beans to go with some tortillas, but I’ll use my own salsa, thank you very much.
And, unexpectedly after having read the Unilocal reviews, the guy who took our order spoke better English than my wife does – and she has a degree in English.

I’ve been here twice within the last 6 months. It seems like the food is inconsistent and so is the 1 waiter we had both times.
The first time I visited, I had a 3 – 4 star experience-​good, fresh, hot food– but the second time, a couple of weeks ago, my experience was about a 1 star– the rice and beans were barely warm, the enchiladas… not too tasty and the pozole was slimy. On top of that, the waiter pissed me off by making an uncouth comment (the reason for the 1 star rating). My family and I have agreed to never go back and give our money to the other restaurants in the area.

This bums me out. This is the first time Unilocal has done me wrong.
I live a ½ mile from here and after all the raves on Unilocal I decided to try it.
The people were supper friendly but the food was terrible. The Carne Asada was burnt and not cooked fresh, It seemed like it had been left over from days before. The rice and beans were smaller than childs portions and had zero flavor. On top of it all, everything on my plate was COLD.

This is closest you’ll get to homecooked Mexican food outside the home.
You’ll need to either be confident in your broken Spanish or BYO Spanish speaker.
Cash only, no restrooms.
I guess that sums it up.

I am grateful to Unilocal for helping me find La Bonita. We were driving home from a party in Franklin Hills and realized we were traveling through at least one of the ground centrals for Mexican Food. So I pulled out my iPhone, powered up my iPhone Unilocal app, typed Mexican in and bam — we were 4 blocks from La Bonita. Loved the reviews.
Indeed the food was like that Ray and I had enjoyed in Mexico City, not the LA Mexican version. We tried the pork quesadilla, the chile relleno and the guacamole — all winners. It’s not fast food but you know they are making up everything fresh.
We were the only gringos in the restaurant but who cares. It seemed clean. I wouldn’t worry about the B rating on the window.

trust the man at the register with your order, don’t bother with gringo food, forget having a burrito. Just go for whatever he suggests.
best mole ever! real home made Mexican food.
Possibly the BEST part? I told the waiter /​counter guy I had found it on Unilocal.He’d never heard of Unilocal,had never been online, had no intention of doing so but was SUPER excited to show the cook the 4 ½ star rating which had brought us there and was even interested to see who else got good reviews and further, was generous enough to agree with the positive review one of his closest competitors had. That’s class.

All aboard the white train! CHOOCHOO!
All right, I’m being dramatic. But seriously, we’ve been waiting to go here for awhile and I read the other 2 reviews and thought we’d venture in. First off, it’s sit down, but order at the counter sit down.
And the menu is authentic, meaning it’s mostly in spanish. So we stood there, starring at the menu with a dude making some giant pot of something in front of us. He was very welcoming and encouraging but my own self esteem issues made me feel like I was just a gringa — which I really am!
I ordered a samich with some sort of meat, I no longer remember, and my husband got some tacos. I think there’s a real gem here, I really do. I just don’t know what it is yet… if you find out, let me know!
The food we had was just ok. but who knows… that gem is there somewhere!

I’m kind of floored that nobody has reviewed this amazing mexican spot, but then again, i’ve been here probably 25 times and never seen anyone who appears to speak english, so go figure.
to begin, some history: a pal and myself ‘discovered’ (in that chris columbus sense of the term) this place maybe four years ago when it was a little further down santa monica, close to a supermarket. afterhours, you’d park in the open lot of the adjacent mechanic’s shop and walk across the greasy asphalt to get to la bonita.
the former location felt very home-​made, and i’m not just talking about the food. the actual space had a very improvised, third-​world vernacular architecture look to it. like everything in there had lived a previous life as something else.
so it was a little daunting to go there. i mean, every day in LA i see dozens of tiny mexican restaurants that look like the owners built them out of spare parts and duct tape, and many of them are pretty awful.
la bonita, however, was a true exception. the food was prepared right in front of you, right down to the homemade tortilas. i’ll try to avoid anglocentric imperialistic clichs, but let’s face it, it was like you were in someone’s home, watching their auntie cook you up a hot plate of authentic mexican food. and the magic was in the details.
the tacos dorados were made with tortillas that were balls of masa only minutes before, garnished with slices of avocado, crema, and a small hunk of mexican cheese. three salsas, including a bright orange habanero that will hurt you, were brought out to every table. the carne asada was flavorful and tender. homemade horchata. the list goes on.
that place shut down a ways back, and the owners opened up a new la bonita closer to vermont, north of the new east hollywood bike district. it’s in a mini mall with a donut shop that takes it’s name from a modified winchell’s sign (michelles?) and an armenian grocery.
the new location has a truly eastside ambiance. there are no overhead lights inside. instead, the outdoor lights provide a little illumination, and a few small fixtures help out, joined by a large, dated big screen TV blaring occasionally inappropriate telenovelas.
mexican blankets cover each table, and the last time i was there, paper decorations hung from the ceiling as well. it’s a gritty place — don’t go expecting acapulco or la serenata or ciudad — but it’s as authentic as it gets.
the menu is up on the wall, and i’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed much from the previous place. neither has the food. it’s still prepared with amazing pride, and it tastes great. after you order, they usually bring out a small plate of chips sprinkled with beans and crumbled mexican cheese. it’s a great touch.
we usually stick with either soft or crunchy tacos, but i’d imagine that everything is great.
are you ready for the kicker?
friday night we went here around 9pm and pulled right into a parking spot. i got a tacos dorados platter with rice and beans and my companion got two soft tacos. we both grabbed horchata and i had a bottle of water as well. after all of this the grand total was $ 12.
need i say more?