04/21/2012

Los Agaves in Santa Barbara, CA

During another evening around Santa Barbara, Brandon and I decided to break his boycott on Mexican food. After working a year and a half in a Mexican restaurant you need a little break from it, but we decided it was time to find some delicious Mexican in Santa Barbara, so we stopped by Los Agaves. A lovely little place on Milpas, the whole restaurant was buzzing with so many people deciding to have dinner here on a weekday evening. There’s something interesting and unique about Los Agaves, as you walk in, a line of people is generally standing, perusing the overhead chalk board specials and the printed menu. Everyone is searching for a seat-yourself table as they are hard to come by in the peak hours of the evening. As we watched for a table while deciding on what we should eat, the choices of delicious items seemed to overwhelm me. After ordering, you can find your way to the wonderful plethora of fresh salsas and at your table, a bowl of freshly fried corn chips arrives. We ordered a side of guacamole, which was delicious and very creamy.

I wanted everything, but we eventually decided on Cochinita Pibil (slow-roasted Mexican pork in banana leaves), which was served with pinto beans, a very spicy habanero salad and freshly made corn tortillas. The pork was tender and wonderfully prepared. You could taste the slow-cooking spices and fragrant banana leaves essence. I ordered the Mole Enchiladas, which were served with rice and pinto beans. The mole was prepared skillfully; it had the strong chocolatey, spicy, deeply earthy flavors of slow-cooking and years of experience. The chicken in the enchiladas was mouth-watering, seated in tender tortillas and smothered in mole. Small amount of toasted sesame seeds finished the plate and added another depth of flavor.
Overall, the meal was fantastic and the service was wonderful and pleasant. From the open kitchen you could see how hard every person in that small space was working to make all this amazing food for so many people to enjoy. I’m really glad we broke the boycott with such an amazing meal.