Whether it’s kept in a well-worn Moleskine notebook, a meticulous Excel spreadsheet, or simply in one’s mind, every serious eater has a “To Eat” list. Mine is currently 47 items long and resides in the drafts folder of my email inbox. Every time I come across a noodle house or a bakery that piques my interest, it gets added to the document. Since my capacity for reading about food far exceeds my ability to eat it, I’ve come to realize that I’ll never get around to sampling everything. Nevertheless, it will be very fun to try.
Mariscos Chente has been on my list for almost a year. It was added right after I wiped up the drool that resulted from reading Dylan’s write up on his blog Eat Drink & Be Merry. Any place that’s dubbed a “shrimp morgue” definitely deserves a visit.
The Astronomer and I, along with our friends Bill (Street Gourmet LA) and Fiona (Gourmet Pigs), met up for lunch at Mariscos Chente a few weekends back. The informal room was filled mostly with locals when we arrived. There was also a trickle of folks from outside the neighborhood who may have learned about the place from C. Thi Nguyen‘s glowing review in the Los Angeles Times or from Jonathan Gold‘s praise in the LA Weekly. Or perhaps, like me, they’ve been scrounging the food blogs.
Mariscos Chente was started over 20 years ago out of a home in Hawthorne. The Mar Vista location opened early last year. Similar to the earlier incarnations, its menu is devoted to seafood from the Mexican states of Nayarit and Sinaloa. Sergio Penuelas, a native of Sinaloa, runs the kitchen while his wife Angie, a native of Nayarit, takes care of customers in the dining room. All of the restaurant’s recipes are from Angie’s father Vicente, or “Chente” as his friends were fond of calling him.
Magdalena Garcia, the restaurant’s owner, takes a bus down to the Mexican coast several times a month to bring back fish and shrimp for the restaurant. While that initially struck me as a lot of unnecessary work, one taste of the camarones aguachiles ($11) and it was clear that the extra effort was worth it. Flash marinated with lime, salt, and jalapeno, the raw shrimp were supple and crazy delicious.
The pescado zarandeado ($20 per kilogram) was equally amazing. The dish was comprised of a whole snook (robalo) butterflied, grilled, and served flat as a pancake with warm corn tortillas and caramelized purple onions. While it’s unknown what goes into Sergio’s marinade, according to Bill, pescado zarandeado is traditionally dressed with a fatty agent like olive oil, mayonaise, or butter, lime, spices, and garlic before meeting the sizzling grill. Whatever the formula is, pescado zarandeado is nothing short of dreamy.
Next, we sampled a plethora of shrimp preparations. The camarones borrachos or “drunken shrimp” ($12) rested in a tequila-based sauce that was intriguingly red and all sorts of buttery. The sweet slices of garlic really made this dish special, as did the abundance of cilantro.
The camarones a la diabla or “deviled shrimp” ($12) were pleasingly spicy with their blend of chile de arbol and California dried chilies. Eaten with the sopping sauteed onions, the shrimp’s burn wasn’t as hellish as one would imagine. Hell, it was downright tasty.
The camarones a la pimienta or “peppered shrimp” ($11) reminded me of a deeply savory Vietnamese dish called tom kho. In place of fish sauce was a combination of garlic powder, salt, chili oil, and enough black pepper to properly dust each shrimp. The side of rice was necessary to balance out the dish’s punch. This was my favorite among the trio of cooked shrimp dishes.
Lastly, a plate of chicharron de pescado ($15), fried chunks of tilapia coated in chipotle powder and floating in a pool of Worcestershire and lime. The fish’s texture was a cross between beef jerky and a tough steak, while the flavors were surprisingly tangy. I liked this dish alright at the restaurant, but didn’t fully grasp its awesomeness until I dug into the leftovers a few days later. Without an array of shrimps competing for my attention, I appreciated the chicharrones’ uniqueness.
Mariscos Chente has been officially crossed off of my “To Eat” list. One down, dozens more to go!
NOTE: Mariscos Chente recently introduced a new seasonal menu featuring a variety of seafood soups (shrimp, fish, and mixto) and tacos (gobernador, shrimp, marlin, and fish).
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Mariscos Chente
4532 South Centinela Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90066
Phone: 310-390-9241
Your pictures are making me ravenous! Everything looks so good – I’ll have to give this a try.
yummy! i can’t wait to try it.
Raw shrimp picture = awesome.
WOW..looks damn good!.. *adding another place to my own “to try” list.
LOVE the camarones aguachiles photo!!!
been reading about this place ever since moving here…definitely want to try soon
The camarones aguachiles looks so good. This is one of my favorite styles to have seafood. This is now on my list.
That was such a good lunch! The camarones aguachiles and borrachos, mmm. I think I only have a mental to-eat list. I need to get more organized
Haha I love how Weez says, “raw shrimp picture = awesome.” When I saw it my stomach kind of turned!
Here’s where you roll your eyes and go: “Oh D takes a B…”
“Oh, D takes a B! There’s still so much work to be done!”
Great pics… and yeah, cows love you right about now.
Yay, a good-sounding Mexican place that serves a lot of fish! I’m definitely going to have to keep this place in mind. (The raw shrimp is looking pretty crazy…)
the camarone aguachiles look like delicious little bugs… Cathy everytime I look at your photos I have camera envy.
Definitely would have to go with a group to enjoy as many dishes as possible. I think I would bring some small containers to scrape all the leftover sauces into and enjoy them with fresh steamed white rice the next day. I am curious, if the owner only goes down to Mexico a few times a month, is the seafood all still served fresh do you think, or do they end up freezing it? I am thinking mostly about the raw shrimp.
heidih - Let me ask my friend Bill and I’ll get back to you!
I must say, your photos are of the highest quality..i like it! and your blogs…too bad i’m on the east coast..but one day when i hit up the west side…i’ll be checking some of these places out..thanks again
mentioned this place in a NPR piece I did about L.A vs. NY food, “would love to see a place in New York that does regional Sinaloan-Nayarit stuff” was somewhere in there, ha ha.
A note from Bill:
As far as I know Cathy, they go as often as they have to. For a time they were going weekly when the LA Times article came out.
They also have family members that can get it up to Tijuana and then cross the seafood.
They shrimp and snook are fast turnover items.
Ah, doing more top-down photos, which I seem to prefer lately as well. Who knew you’d handle the task of taking photos so well?
i agree that shrimp pic is awesome. so much seafood….mmmmmm……
All those plates look so delicious, outstanding