Contemporary Frida Mexican Cuisine Restaurant Is and Has Always Been Real Modern, Current Chef-Driven Mexican Cuisine. Causally Chic but Not Fast-Food Slobbery.

By Laura Medina

http://fridarestaurant.com/

Frida's Mexican Restaurant represents what today's Mexicans are noshing and dining on, right now, in major Mexican cities right now.

With each restaurant expansion and opening, it represents the newest and latest in real Mexican cuisine, as modern Mexican society progresses, dispelling myths and clichés along the way.

Leave the Taco Bell to the kids and the uninitiated as a gateway, at least.  Save Chipotle to the indifferent to those who think they're above Taco Bell yet don't care about the quality or the authenticity of current real contemporary Mexican cuisine.  As far as those are concerned, they just want a filler.

Frida Mexican Restaurant chain (yes, it is a chain) is a contemporary equivalent to more Americanized-European/Asian contemporary chains, such as Cheesecake Factory and Chin Chin, specialized cuisine catering to today's tastes and lifestyle.  The modernization and expansion doesn't dampen the quality and innovation of Frida Mexican Cuisine.  The exact opposite, with each growth brings new riffs on real Mexican dishes that aren't fusion.  Frida still stays with its Mexican roots, without being a stereotype.  Again, it's authentic Mexican upscale fine dining that still have fun, that's accessible to everyone.  Can't think of a more fun way to better educate palates. 

Frida Mexican Cuisine food tour started at the original Frida Mexican Cuisine on 236 S Beverly Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, directly below Wilshire Blvd., where Beverly Hills real residents reside and shop, directly below Beverly Hills' swanky, fantasy-driven tourist hub buzz. 

Proving real Mexican cuisine is chic, the appetizers are shrimps and ahi tuna resting on crunchy mini Tostadas crackers...

Mini chicken sopes and...

Black Bean mini sopes are Mexican mini tartes, where small rounds of corn masa balls are flatten then fried into sturdy crunchy tarts or crackers holding shredded chicken draped in creamy crema sauce or filled with black beans into fried masa tarts.

Frida Mexican Cuisine's party-worthy hors d'oeuvre are pop-able for any event.  They do catering too.

Since Frida Mexican Cuisine's appetizers are samplers, they're also offer a $15 mini margarita sampler special of Jalapeno, Skinny, and Watermelon Margarita cocktails and tequila-free mocktails.  They can all straight-through alcohols or pure virgin or a combo to help you get through the day.

If you want to impress on the cheap, Frida Mexican Cuisine can do and does do freshly made guacamole tableside, made from scratch for your entertainment.

Now let's go straight to the Main Event, the entrees...

ARRACHERA STEAK Tender marinated charbroiled skirt steak. Served with a chicken enchilada tapatia, guacamole, rice, refried beans, and fresh handmade corn tortillas.

Get the party started with large enough to be sharable...

MOLCAJETE FRIDA
Arrachera, chicken, chorizo, queso fresco, avocado, nopal asado, and cilantro in a boiling roasted tomatillo salsa. Served with rice, refried beans, and handmade corn tortillas. Enough for 2.

This scribe's favorite is actually protein-rich, flavor and texture-rich yet so low fat, their brand new,...

CAMARONES AL TEQUILA
Large prawns sautéed with butter, lemon, spices, and our special orange-tequila sauce. Served with white rice and asparagus, https://www.fridaamericana.com/frida-americana-mexican-restaurant-menu-glendale/dinner/.

Portion-controlled white rice is enough carbs to keep you full, if this is your only meal.

But the tequila orange-sauce (especially for those raised on fine dining Chinese) is what keeps it sweet and thick without the sugar or the corn syrup.  That orange juice reduction enhance the shrimp and...

Resplandor De Mango
Spring mix, grapes, chopped mango, caramelized walnuts and goat cheese, tossed in a passion fruit dressing.

This romaine salad generously dotted with caramelized walnuts and fresh diced mangoes, pairs well CAMARONES AL TEQUILA's sweet orange reduction sauce and a mere cup of white rice.

The perfectly filling, protein-rich, antioxidant-rich girlfriend "Sex and the City" well-rounded low-fat meal.

This is why these are this scribe's fave, that keeps on coming back for more.

Can't forget or ignore Frida Mexican's latest offering, full-tequila and virgin Tamarind Margaritas.

Sick of fries?  Tired of tortilla chips?

Believe it or not, Caramelized Plantains are considered side dishes,...best served with vanilla ice cream.

Can't forget dessert, dessert!!...

Frida Mexican Cuisine's vanilla-cream filled churros (Mexican doughnut sticks) should double as Mexican doughnut breakfast stick treats...

Delicious or delicioso with Carajillo,  liquor combining 43 spices with a shot of espresso over ice or with CAFE DE OLLA,  delicious and authentic coffee blend with cinnamon, piloncillo, and a hint of citrus flavor.

You can replicate Café de Olla with simply substituting molasses for sugar in your black coffee.

Their Pastel de 3 Leches, sponge cake soaked in 3 different milks is their refined take on the traditional Tres Leches Cake.  Their version feels like a non-chocolate version of a Mexican Tiramisu, not runny yet so moist sans chocolate yet not caramel.  Very vanilla.

Their flan is the most traditional item on their menu.  Flan is the Latin/Spanish version of Crème Brulee.  Instead of crystalizing into a crunchy toffee crust, they simply pour liquid caramel over the vanilla custard.

This East Coast scribe misses and shocked by the lack of the decadent, crunchy Fried Ice Cream, the Mexican Baked Alaska, a ball of layered ice cream flavors dip in cornflake cereal tempura batter then fried, where the cereal tempura batter insulates the frozen ball of ice cream, here in Mexican-domineering Los Angeles culture.  Miss it!

This scribe guesses that Frida Mexican Cuisine's Bolsa Especial, the pared-down yet elegant take on that delicious bomb of ice cream, well have to do.

Their Bolsa Especial is tiny golf ball of vanilla ice cream molded inside a cup of chocolate mousse then freeze formed into an elegant ball of frozen chocolate mousse hiding a contrasting vanilla ice cream inside.

Yes, it's the simpler but more elegant and lower calorie version of Fried Ice Cream but with way more dark chocolate antioxidants.

No offense to "home-cooking" or "mama's cooking," but Frida Mexican Cuisine is chef-driven, fine high cuisine chef-technique, and authentic but upscale Mexican cooking with high standards and demands to keep the level up and innovative, under the watchful eyes of...

Executive Chef Vicenti del Rio at...

Their second newest but largest Frida Mexican Cuisine Restaurant at the massive Del Amo Mall, huge enough to have an indoor stretching out into the outdoor patio area, where massive flat-screen TVs dot at every indoor booth and bar, but airy enough for the California breeze to cool off everyone inside and outside.

At each location, each Frida Mexican Cuisine restaurant has it's own head chef working under Chef del Rio.  Under those head chefs, they have a team of sous and mise en place prep chefs, just like any other upscale restaurant, French or Mexican, and unfortunately, still very much majority male.

This ain't no Taco Bell or even Chipotle.  This is a real life, safe, sanitary Frida Mexican Cuisine walk-in refrigerator where fresh whole herbs, spices, meats, and produce are kept fresh and safe and clean.

How high the quality?

Frida Mexican Cuisine has a tortilla chef dedicated only to making and frying tortillas, where each, every, and all tortilla chips are made from scratch, by hand.  No wonder their tortilla chips are addictive.

Nothing prepackaged or stale.

Don't let that Frida Mexican Cuisine is now growing, selectively, as a chain restaurant dissuade you.  It only proves that they're that good and going where the friendly but upscale diner is going and moving.

Prove that you made it, by hanging and dining at Frida Mexican Cuisine, http://fridarestaurant.com/locations/