Los Angeles’ first Afro-Mexican restaurant, Tamales Elena y Antojitos, spices up the Bell Gardens neighborhood with its African and Mexican-inspired delicacies.
Tamales Elena y Antojitos initially opened in July 2020 and solely presents pickup, supply, and drive-through choices. The restaurant’s doorways are presently open for meals lovers to dine indoors and revel in numerous varieties of tamales, tacos, moles, plantains, pozole, and black beans.
The standard Mexican dishes are ready with African components that come from nations that love jerk spices and oils. The menu was impressed by the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, a tradition common with prepare dinner and proprietor Maria Elena Lorenzo, Journey Noire reported.
Guerreo’s meals presents a wide range of African flavors because of the state’s African presence that when existed there and spawned a number of generations of Afro-Mexican individuals.
“We’re very comfortable to share my mom’s recipes, to have a good time our Afro-Mexican tradition and for el jueves pozolero,” mentioned Lorenzo’s daughter Maria Irra LA Eater on the opening of the restaurant. “And convey actual Guerrero meals to Los Angeles.”
Afrolatina Restaurant (Twitter)
Clients can even take pleasure in common Acapulco seafood dishes like pescadillas – also called fish empanadas – and seafood cocktails, LA Eater reported. For consuming, the household presents Chilat, a chilly chocolate drink with pre-Hispanic origins.
Lorenzo started promoting Afro-Mexican meals within the largely black neighborhood of Watts. She and her daughters later expanded to succeed in a bigger viewers by opening Tamales Elena y Antojitos.
One tasty dish that highlights the household’s Afro-Mexican heritage is the marinated beef platter served with plantains – a standard aspect dish in lots of African dishes.
Tamales Elena y Antojitos is open from 9 a.m. to six p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is closed on Wednesdays and open on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Foodies can even go to the restaurant’s meals truck on Wilmington Ave and 109th St. from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. day by day.
