El Cocinero Restaurant — Restaurant in Los Angeles

We visited this restaurant for the first time and, we drove about an hour from Ventura County to try it out. We were not disappointed at all!

The gentleman at the counter even offered us food items to try out before we even ordered. The food was served hot, it felt fresh and, it tasted delicious.

The salsas are spicy! If you like spicy, they have them! The regular salsa roja will do it for most people but, the habanero salsa will make you sweat and think about your life choices.

When it came time to choose a drink, we chose the "horchata" water. Cold, fresh, and sweet enough to enjoy with your food.

The same thing with the flan. Just sweet enough with a smoky flavor.

The "meat" in the "asada" and "al pastor" tacos were soft and tasty. The "birria" with cheese in the tacos was paramount with a side of hot "consome". We also ordered an "al pastor torta" and the "telera" bread was big, having plenty of meat mixed with other ingredients like avocado and jalapeños. And last but not least, the "elote con crema y chile en polvo" tasted just as delicious as everything else.

It was worth the one-hour drive to try this restaurant. We even ordered food to take home before we left

We'd like to point out that we believe that the people who come to this place are friendly and share human kindness, just as the people who make this food. A gentleman gave up his table for us to sit down since we were a family of four (my partner, our infant kid, a baby, and I). That was truly remarkable and we want to thank you publicly.

We highly recommend this restaurant if you want to try Mexican-style vegan...

We looked forward to trying this place after seeing so many 5-star Yelp reviews. Sadly, we were very disappointed with the food quality.

We arrived just before they open at 1pm. There was already a line. No problem, it was Sat. The ordering went well.

We split one jackfruit carnitas burrito and had one al pastor taco each.

The carnitas was dry and not much flavor. There was supposed to be cilantro mayo on the burrito, but I couldn't find any. And there was very little pico de gallo. It needed both to add more flavor and fat. The two salsas were ok (though nothing special) and that helped. We both liked the shredded red cabbage in the burrito. But that didn't save this from being the worst vegan burrito either of us had ever had.

The al pastor taco was even worse. The "al pastor" had pretty good flavor, but it was dry, like eating thick pieces of soy curl jerky. And why those too-thick, dry tortillas? They work with unctuous real carnitas, but not with this.

We really wanted to like this place. But the food was really disappointing.

We've eaten vegan Mexican at about a dozen places in the LA area--trucks, stands and brick & mortar--and both of us thought this was easily the worst vegan Mexican we've had. I hate to say it, but it's true.

Neither of us can understand why this place has such great reviews. Are people that desperate for vegan Mexican...

The decor is cute and colorful! Love the artwork, can't wait to see more in the future. The food looked so good I starting eating and forgot to take pictures All of it was delicious! My thoughts on each item: Carnitas torta - I'm not normally a fan of jackfruit, but this was really tender and the flavor was super yummy. The chipotle crema is bomb and ties the whole thing together. I would eat the crema from a jar with a spoon if they sold it separately Al pastor tacos - traditional double corn tortillas. The al pastor was more pineapple than I expected, and it was very welcome! Paired great with the spicy red salsa Chik'n quesadilla - the chik'n is a bit more plain, I guess like chik'n is, lol. Tons of cheeze, and comes with onion and cilantro. Was good dipped in the mild green salsa Flan - I don't like flan, but my partner loved it and basically inhaled it Kombucha - unique flavors. I had the cherry bomb with pineapple, vanilla, and clove. It's not super cherry flavored, and all the flavors marry together. It doesn't have the vinegary aftertaste, very pleasant! Overall impression was the textures and flavors were in point, portions were good sized, and it was rather cheap. I will be back to try everything...