Alma oaxaqueña Restaurant — Restaurant in Los Angeles

This humble 4-month-old restaurant serves absolutely delicious Oaxacan food, made with care from recipes used by the owner's wife and mother in their home cooking. As such, the flavors, textures and food presentation have a very personal touch and are distinct from other Oaxacan restaurants that we also enjoy.

We ordered the cactus salad, which was less citrusy than most in a good way, and included avocado leaves and avocado slices. It is served with a very thin and crispy Oaxacan cracker-like tortilla that is imported from Oaxaca as well as a roasty-tasting salsa. The yellow mole chicken empanada was absolutely delicious. A corn tortilla of medium thinness filled with chicken and yellow-orange mole, as well as a thin slice of what might have been a piece of poblano or some other type of chilie. It was very satisfying and piquant. We also had an order of picaditas, one with chorizo and another with cecina. They were mouth-wateringly good! All of this we ordered without cheese because of my dietary needs, but we learned that they import their string cheese from Oaxaca. I look forward to eating all of this again and trying one of the tlayudas.

We also each enjoyed a cup of Chocolate. Mine was made with water in the earliest Oaxacan style, to suit my gluten-free, dairy-free diet. You can also order it "con leche", which my partner enjoyed. This family recipe was developed to suit the needs of a family member with diabetes. It is rich, textured and flavorful without being overly sweet. They also have the sweet breads for dunking in the chocolate drink should you wish to enjoy it traditionally.

The service was friendly and considerate. It is a small place; there are about five tables inside and some outside seating on the sidewalk. But they have big plans and big dreams, So with a little community support we will be seeing even better things from Alma...

I am a regular here and today was my last day eating at this restaurant. I always got the quesadilla, so today I decided to get enchiladas. These enchiladas were 5 inches long by half an inch wide, totally crispy taquitos since they were round and not rectangular like enchiladas, where I could not taste any cheese no matter how hard I tried. Quarter of a cup of rice, drenched in a bitter red sauce to probably cover up that fact they were burned.

When I brought this up to the server, he responded that they are homemade and that this is how they make their enchiladas. Weird, because in the photo they do not look like empty, burnt taquitos - in the photo they look rectangular like the enchiladas we are all used to eating. I let him know I was disappointed with what I got for almost $20, with not even a drink. $20 for a quarter cup of rice and two empty burnt small taquitos is ridiculous. He just said okay, and did not offer to make me something else or at least refund me. Now, I am out $20 for the day, hungry and have to go teach on an empty...

Visiting from Chicago and just landed. Google searched this location and the birria on the menu and high ratings caught our attention. Party of 7 and Julio took care of us with his amazing customer service, super friendly, patient and attentive. He reviewed the menu and made excellent suggestions. Our table had the birria de chivo (cruda medicine 😉) Memelas, Alambre torta, tacos and guac. All dishes were delicious, with traditional flavors, freshly prepared and presentation on point. He also added a mole tasting with chips on the house 👌 and a little surprise beverage of Oaxaca😉 the place small but super cozy and has patio seating. I truly felt like this was the perfect start to our vacation in LA, it was like our relatives welcomed us with an amazing lunch!...