CaCao Mexicatessen — Restaurant in Los Angeles

We made our first trip to CaCao Mexicatessen today. The menu was enticing, so we thought we'd give it a spin. I took my family of 4, all with refined Mexican food tastes. The girls, ages 5 & 2, loved everything. We had chips and salsa before the entrees arrived. The chips were dusted with chili powder. I was a little afraid it might be too much for the girls, but they handled it with no problem. The chips came with red & green sauces. The red was too hot for my wife, but I liked it a lot and it had great flavor. The green was a tomatillo with a lot of flavor and was just the right spiciness for my oldest daughter, while my 2-year old just passed and stuck with the plain chip. For entrees, we had quite a sampling. My wife and oldest daughter had the two duck tacos, one a duck confit and the other fried duck skin. I'm not a huge fan of duck, so I'll take their word for it that it was great. The duck skin taco was very rich and, like any fried skin would, tasted like pork rinds. It's duck rinds, so that's no surprise. I had what I usually have as a base taste of a new Mexican joint and that's a carnitas burrito. It was fantastic. Ample amount of meat and great spices within. I had it wet (sauce & melted cheese on top) and that was a great addition. The sauce was tomatillo and the cheese was probably Monterey Jack. My youngest daughter (2) had the kid's quesadilla and it was perfect. It comes with rice and beans in two separate bowls and a kid-sized quesadilla. A lot of places use a full, burrito-sized tortilla for their kid quesadillas and it ends up being too much food and harder for the small hands to manage. CaCao uses what looks to be a half-sized tortilla folded over and cut in half. The smaller wedges were definitely easier for the little girl to handle and she ate it all up, along with her beans & rice. Aqua Fresca for the day was pineapple and I ordered one medium for the table and it was just right. Not too sweet (I have a high sweet-tolerance, though) and very fresh. I had their coffee, as I must do, and it was amazing. I mixed the two coffees they had there, one being mild and cinnamon infused and the other a stronger, more traditional black coffee. The mixture was just perfect. I highly recommend CaCao Mexicatessen. We arrived around 11:45am on a Saturday and it the only wait we had was us trying to figure out what to choose from the wonderful menu. By the time we left, though, there was a bit of a line and it's a bit cramped near the front door. Other than that, though, my whole family came away happy and full of high-quality...

Came here on a Sunday afternoon, long line. Long wait. .....ok before I get on with the review here's something to note....

You enter a line to order for SIT DOWN. UNLESS you are doing takeout, then that's a seperate line. As you wait in line to order a waiter will take down how many are in your party and will have a table ready when you are done ordering. Extremely helpful

Ok after the 30 minute wait...standing in heels with a baby we finally ordered. This place does have PEANUTS in their menu, but as long as you mention your allergy they can further assist you with the menu.

I ordered the chicken enchiladas with guajillo red sauce....by far the best tasting enchiladas to date AMAZING FLAVOR...FRESH...I can't get over it. It came with rice and beans....you can also make it vegan friendly where it's stated.

My partner ordered a Korean taco and a torta of asada. His taco was filled with tons of meat....no skimping. It was good. Sweet marinated beef on a freshly made tortilla. His torta was even better. Ok the bread was freshly baked. Im not sure if they bake it there or they order them from someone. But just know it is fresh baked bread. The torta was super good and came along with 2 pickled jalapenos. The portions were just right. Some might say that the portions are small for the prices, I happened to agree with the prices for the proportion.

My agua fresca was pineapple with strawberries. Very quenching. No refills...as they are additional

It is pricey.....well worth every...

This place does NOT offer pickup orders, that should be off of the list. So here's the scoop, I live right up the street (not like "LA up the street" REALLY .4 mile away) Cacao is great food and good beers, but this is a place in desperate need of an ordering process overhaul. It's a real mystery because when you get to the register yourself it takes 2 minutes, yet you strangely wait in a cramped line for 20mins. You made it through the line to order? Cool, moving on to placing your order there is a little white board next to the register, this is the "items we're out of" list. Trust me, if it was something you wanted that day — it's on the list. They try to reserve tables for larger parties with a sign on each table, but that doesn't work. This also alienates small two-person parties, or walk ins. I really used to like this place, but unless it's 3pm on a Wednesday, good luck. You could drive to downtown and get legit Mexican food and drive back in the time it would take to order and attempt to find a place to sit. All of this is part of its popularity, which I give 2 stars for, it's damn good food, but the "we aren't doing pickup orders today" when you call, or "we can't seat a party of two" when you walk in has wore out it's welcome. One more local customer lost, hundreds of cumulative profit gone. Good luck, Cacao, hope you guys figure out a solution to the wild west...