You order guacamole most anywhere in town and you know what to expect — a bowl of mashed avocado mixed with salt, lemon or lime, and one pepper or another. You order guacamole at Casita in Sherman Oaks — and you get a Las Vegas production. There’s a large bowl of guac, mixed with onions. There are five salsas, ranging from a classic tomato and pepper salsa to one that looks and tastes like salad dressing.
The guac plus salsas come on a lazy Susan with a post coming out of the middle, topped off with an elevated platform where a big cloth bag of chips sits. It costs $21, which is not cheap. But then, there’s enough salsa and chips here for a table of four. So it amortizes just fine.
Casita (14015 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-688-5009; www.casitarestaurant.com) describes itself as a “Modern Mexican” restaurant. And the menu is heavy with dishes that are far from traditional. Beginning with the first section, headed “Raw.” This does not mean Mexican-style sashimi. Though it does come close.
The Raw dishes include a tuna tartare flavored with tamari (a cousin of soy sauce), cucumber and avocado; and a yellowtail crudo with yuzu soy.
There’s shrimp with soy and lemon aioli. And there’s an omakase tasting menu, custom-designed for whatever your needs may be. One of the tacos is filled with Impossible Beef and jalapeño-cashew cheese. It’s called the “Impostor.” Well named, since it’s pretending to be a meat and cheese creation. And it’s very much not that.
This is also very much a place in which to bend an elbow. There’s a menu of tequila and mezcal flights, consisting of a trio of one-ounce tasters drawn from eight threesomes ranging in price from $23, all the way up to $150. The $150 option is titled “Clase Azul Mezcal.”
I remember when mezcal was pretty cheap stuff, famous for coming with a worm in the bottom of the bottle. These three mezcals — from Durango, Guerrero and San Luis Potosi — are miles beyond that pickled worm. That sad drowned worm is long forgotten.
Though there are just eight margaritas on the menu, including a very healthy sounding Organic Avocado Margarita, served with a guajillo chili-salt rim — and yes, we are in an age when even the salt on the rim is curated! — there are 36 tequila shots. One of which, the Clase Azul Ultra, goes for $450. (I looked it up. A bottle, very elegant, approaches two grand.) The beers, by contrast, run about $8. Which is just one of the reasons I’m more a beer drinker than anything else. Always have been.
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And really, when you put aside the $120 tomahawk steak (with “Yucatan” rub, roasted jalapeño butter and pasilla chile salt), the $95 Westholme Australian Wagyu steak (with ancho “dust,” charred Fresno chiles and cilantro salt), and the $65 Chilean sea bass (with pepita crust, watercress, radish and cotija cheese), Casita — the “Little House” — is a good place to go for a taco. There are 12 to choose from. And they’re pretty snappy, with lots of spice, and a lot of fancy salts; fancy salts seem to be one of the signatures of the kitchen.
The tacos come in pairs, with meats in particular that are cooked to the point of admirable tenderness, with lots of sweetness emerging in the heat. There’s a rib eye steak mixed with caramelized onions, roasted jalapeños and gamy Oaxaca cheese.
The pork belly with pickled onions has a snappiness that stays with you, even as you bite into your far milder crispy shrimp with chipotle slaw and jicama-avocado salsa (the jicama is there for the crunch), or the shrimp with a house-made tajin sauce. (Making your own tajin, rather than using the commercially available product, seems a bit like making your own ketchup. Interesting. But not necessary.)
Of course, I had to get the carne asada — because I always do. It’s admirably simple; just meat, onions and guac. The very tasty al pastor is mixed with pineapple … meat-flavored dessert? You want to taste that Wagyu, it appears as a taco — for $34. The carnitas with pickled jalapeños and carrots are just $9.
This is a “Little House” with big flavors. Even the croutons in the Caesar salad are flavored with achiote. The roasted cauliflower is tossed with capers and cumin. And there’s a rice dish with lobster and coconut. Fancy! Though the cilantro lime rice does the trick for those of us with beer-marinated taste.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
Casita Mexican
- Rating: 2.5 stars
- Address: 14015 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks
- Information: 818-688-5009; www.casitarestaurant.com
- Cuisine: Modern Mexican, which means culinary touches from here and there — especially in the Raw section of the menu where it’s no surprise to find yuzu soy in the yellowtail crudo.
- When: Lunch, Saturday and Sunday; dinner, every day
- Details: A large, noisy room, with seating inside and out, and a very busy bar serving tequila and mezcal exotica; reservations important.
- Cost: About $50 per person
- On the menu: 7 Raw Dishes ($16-$25), 5 Bites ($9-$17), 11 Small Plates ($13-$43), 4 Salads ($13-$17), 6 Large Plates ($35-$120), 12 Tacos ($9-$34), 7 Sides ($4-$8)
- Credit cards: MC, V
- What the stars mean: 4 (World class! Worth a trip from anywhere!), 3 (Most excellent, even exceptional. Worth a trip from anywhere in Southern California.), 2 (A good place to go for a meal. Worth a trip from anywhere in the neighborhood.) 1 (If you’re hungry, and it’s nearby, but don’t get stuck in traffic going.) 0 (Honestly, not worth writing about.)