Top Chef, move over! My friend and I went to the Mercado la Paloma on Monday and were treated to a great meal: nutritious, low calorie and beautifully presented, at Mo-Chica.
Now, I’m sure the food at the other vendors is also great and we will go back another time to try them out, but I had heard that Mo-Chica was a place to seek out and so I did. Everything we had was delicious and incredibly diverse. And quite beautifully presented.
We started with ceviche, which I had learned about from watching Top Chef. Sea Bass marinated in lime juice and garnished with roasted corn, hominy, squash, seaweed and onions. It was light, refreshing and flavorful.
Then we moved on to the Causa del Dia (potato salad of the day), a layered dish of avocado, crab and potato with a dollop of slightly spicy sauce. We began to wonder why we had never had Peruvian food before. Again, flavorful and light, the layers melded with each other and just enough bite in the sauce.
We were going to stop there, but were so intrigued we ordered another dish, Seco de Cordero, a lamb chop in a bowl of beans and beer sauce. It was like a lamb pot roast, savory and delicious. It came with a bowl of red pepper soup — which resembled cream of tomato in texture and color — and rice.
Everything was wonderful but there were two very surprising things about Mo-Chica: the presentation and the calorie count.
You probably have noticed that all restaurants are posting the calories in every dish on their menus these days. The food at Mo-Chica was so low in calories, we kept having to check back at the menu after we tasted it. The presentation was flawless, attractive and classy in all three of the dishes we tried.
Clean flavors, clean plates, happy customers! We plan to go back and try all of the dishes we haven’t tasted yet very soon.
More information
Mo-Chica
Mercado La Paloma
3655 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
