Reviews & Ratings for Monte Alban Restaurant

05/04/10

great mole, soups, chips and salsa

by laurie87

this place makes great red and black mole. the homemade chips and salsa are great. the soups are wonderful also, just wish they delivered

• Pros: inexpensive, clean
• Cons: bad parking, no delivery

07/18/08

Best deal in West LA

by DinerShane27

There is nothing ordinary about the food at Monte Alban, especially compared to the generic boring over greased Mexican restaurants that Southern California is filled with. All tortillas and other griddled corn cakes like the memellas or clayudas are delicious, fresh and surprisingly light cooked with seemingly less grease and lard than most places. The mole dishes are simple, chicken breast in sauce serviced with rice, but interesting and complex due to the levels of flavors in the incredible sauces. You won't find the common rolled enchiladas filled with jack cheese, or crispy shelled deep fried tacos. Here instead enchiladas are the authentic version of corn tortillas folded into incredible mole sauces with meat and cheese (good fresh delicious queso fresco) strewn accross the top. Tacos resemble more a long skinny open ended burrito with delicious tender meat fillings and flavorful salsas. What's more, you can fill up at this place splitting an appitizer, ordering one entree per person and maybe even having a soft drink for in the neighborhood of $10 a person.

• Pros: Great authentic mexican food, change from most places around, CHEAP!
• Cons: unappealing strip mall setting, but that adds to the character in some ways, at times slow (though other times quite fast) for food to come

03/09/08

Monte Alban

by RobinSolo

Based on previous reviews, I was excited to try this place. Sadly both my dining partner and myself found the food extremely ordinary.

02/11/08

good Mexican food

by buchef

Monte Alban restaurant is verry good, the chicken soup is exellent, molcajete too.

very good Mexican food.

les recomendamos el restaurant Monte Alban tienen muy buena comida

• Pros: good food, good prices
• Cons: service

06/17/07

A place I keep bringing friends to

by h2o86

I like the mole negra (black mole) with chicken so much I don't really order much else, but everyone I've brought has been very pleased with his or her meal. The spices are just right and the chicken is perfectly cooked and moist. The coffee is just delicious too, brewed with cinnamon. It's inexpensive and I always leave full and contented.

05/26/07

Great (if you hate flavor)

by rybreadmed

We had high expectations because of the excessive hype. We ordered coffee; I got the Higadito and my girlfriend got the Huevos de la Mexicana. The coffee was unexpectedly flavored with cinammon and sugar; it was okay. My higadito came and was bland as bland could be. I felt I could have cooked the same thing at home by boiling water and breaking a couple of eggs and unseasoned meat in. It was basically just some scrambled eggs floating around in light chicken broth. My girlfriend's food was basically just those same eggs NOT floating in broth next to a pool of bland black beans. Sure, the food was cheap, but who cares if it's completely forgettable?

• Pros: Nice decor, good chips, and it's close to decent Mexican restaurants
• Cons: Bland salsa with the chips, bland food, overflavored coffee, bland food

04/18/07

GREAT soup

by alanandnas

I don't really like Oaxacan food, but I came here with some friends and they said it was good. I had the soup--AMAZING. really really good, but pricey for soup. if you're on a diet and want to go on a safe date. Go here and get the soup while your date gets great mole. The soup in HUGE, with so many veggies and avocado. The service is very friendly and the ambience is nice . There is parking too.

• Pros: great soup, parking, ambience

11/12/06

Wide selection of Oaxacan specialties

by museum_flavor

A vegetarian can run into problems trying to find good, authentic Oaxacan food that fits her dietary habits, but Monte Alban handles that problem with ease. Though, in all honesty, when all is said and done, it's all about the mole. Whether it be on the enchiladas or in some other dish, the mole is simply not to be missed. The horchata is tasty, too.

• Pros: easy parking, good food and value

08/20/06

Authenitc

by lafoodie27

Great authentic Oaxacan food. I love El Cholo and Baja Fresh too, but this is a unique place to try real mexican cuisine. The moles are all amazing, and the chicken is moist chicken breasts. The quality of the food is high considering the dirt cheap prices (for large portions too!). It's almost hard to comprehend how they can afford to stay in business with such prices. The atmosphere is pleasant enough and very clean. It never seems to be too crowded though, so please try this place so it stays around forever.

• Pros: authentic, delicious, quick
• Cons: not diet friendly

07/12/04

A little bit of Oaxaca adds Mexican magic to a Westside strip mall.

by Contributor

The Scene
If you blink too hard, you'll miss this homey Mexican eatery sandwiched between a kosher market, a dry-cleaner and three other hole-in-the-wall eateries. But as is often the case in Los Angeles, good things come in strip-mall packages.

The Food
The menu features a colorful assortment of dishes, from tamales, tacos and enchiladas served with a Oaxacan twist, to more exotic items like nicuatole--a subtle, flowery-sweet Oaxacan-style pudding--and the taco de barbacoa packed with veggies and tender, tasty young goat topped by zingy green salsa. But the stars of the show are the magical moles. From the Nahuatl Indian word for "concoction," this venerable sauce is like fine wine, complex and full of alluring nuances. Monte Alban offers an enchanting array of them--black, red, green and yellow--served over chicken, beef or pork, with a side of rice and steamy, soft tortillas.