At Chinito's Tacos, critic piescarcega reviews burnt cheese tacos (yes, burnt cheese tacos) and carne asada mac 'n' cheese (yes, carne asada mac 'n' cheese).
Beeline Krouch, his tanned arms extravagantly tattooed, slides around his small restaurant with the restless energy of a teenager. He passes out free food samples unbidden, jokes with his staff and quizzes customers as they’re halfway out the door: What was your favorite dish?
Still widely used across Latin America, where it’s loosely applied to anyone of Asian descent, “Chino/a” has been increasingly condemned as racially insensitive, derogatory and otherwise lazy. Krouch, who is Cambodian American, has embraced the nickname as a term of endearment, assimilating it as part of his culinary personality.
There are fine renditions all around Greater Los Angeles, but the burnt cheese taco at Chinitos Tacos is particularly good: dosa-thin, golden-brown around the edges, and sturdy enough to hold lavish quantities of drippy, long-cooked. The experience of eating it is half crunch, half suppleness, all salt and fat; a juggernaut of pleasure.It’s tempting to ascribe auteur qualities to the work of professional chefs, to read menus for traces of personal history and examples of vivid individuality.
His cooking rarely makes direct references to traditional Cambodian cooking, but he pulls widely and frequently from a storehouse of Japanese, Chinese and Southeast Asian flavors. Ponzu gives his carne asada an unusual and welcome brightness; his pollo asado is tinged with lemongrass. His bespoke Chinese five-spice marinade imbues braised lamb barbacoa with a lush, spicy quality.There’s a soulfulness about Chinitos Tacos that draws you back to it.
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