Cook's Tortas — Restaurant in Monterey Park

My friend SZ loves the chicken salad here and that is how I started coming here. Their Chicken Salad is pretty good: romaine, greens, cucumber, grilled zucchini, chicken, toasted sesame vinaigrette. You can add avocado if you pay extra, and I say that it is worth it. And that dressing! Mmmm delicious. The salad also comes with three small pieces of toasted bread, and those are really good too. While I will always eat salad, I am usually never a fan of salad... but that is not the case here. I really like this salad!

But do you know what is even better than the salad? Their shrimp po'boy! It has battered shrimp, lettuce, avocado, and red onion remoulade. That fried shrimp is so delicious with the sauce! All their tortas come with a side, and we usually get this one with medium red fries. I am not sure why they call them "red fries" instead of "sweet potato fries" but it doesn't really matter because they are yummy.

I usually get the chicken salad instead of the shrimp po'boy because I feel like the salad is more diet-friendly than the torta... but I do think about that torta a lot. Cook's Tortas is located on Atlantic and is a little difficult to turn in to if you are driving south, but their parking lot connects to the ones next door which are easier to turn into. They have a decent amount of parking, although sometimes you have to wait for people to leave. I have yet to actually eat here, as I always get my order to-go. Even if you order by phone, you still have to wait in the line like everybody else, but thankfully it moves pretty fast. Always make sure to check your order before you leave since they do not make changes once you do.

I love this place and will continue to come back for their chicken salad and...

I came here twice, with my visits spaced out a week apart.

Basic impressions: The tortas are double the price of a regular torta. There are multiple other torta locations nearby for a lot cheaper. And a lot better tasting.

The employees just don't seem happy to be here. At all. Like the place will be empty or have maybe one customer, but the employees really take their time to get to the register. I don't think it's that they're lazy... they just really look out of it. This occurred both times I went.

More specific impressions: They messed up my first order. I asked for no mayo, and they still put mayo on my sandwich. For me, messing up an order is fine if we're dining in -- it's a hassle but it's fixable. But for takeout orders, that's a big problem.

The tortas use a more Italian ciabatta-style of bread. It's good bread, but that's not Mexican torta bread. And I do feel kinda weird about Mr. or Ms. or Mx. "Cook" calling these "gourmet" tortas and charging $15 when it's like what was wrong with the normal Mexican torta bread? was normal torta bread not good enough to make this a gourmet establishment? or like

the side portions are tiny. The ham mac and cheese is nothing to write home about either. The sweet potato fries were definitely good though.

The carne asada torta tastes a lottttt like the molcajete torta, just with avocado in it.

All in all, this place is decent. But I wouldn't recommend...

Visited CA for the first time recently, and WOW! Food is amazing there. This place I will never forget though!!! THE BEST TORTAS! I had the Molcajete sandwich, it had a molcajete sauce which is basically roasted onions and peppers, and omg it was so good. Spicy and amazing!!! The only thing I didnt like too much is that the steak was extremely fatty and chewy. But it was still a great sandwich! They have fresh juices everyday, the first time we went there was a chia lemonade and I swear its the best lemonade I have ever had! 2 days later, we were on the way there and wanted to make sure they had it because we were going just for that, so we called ahead and they only had 5 cups left and went out their way to save us a large portion so we could have it! AMAZING SERVICE. I was truly so happy by that. The owners were there each time we went and they were so nice to us and let us try the fresh juices to see if we liked them. One day they had a melon juice and it was so refreshing! They have the best sweet potato fries as a side. My favorite was the cucumber dill side they had, it is the best cucumber side I have ever had in my life. Tasted like a tzatziki sauce almost. You can tell that they really love and care about what they are doing there. Thank you guys again for being so awesome!!!

Forgot to mention their dulce de leche cheese empanada...