On The Road To Yosemite:

My family took a trip before Christmas to Yosemite National Park. We stopped for lunch in Oakdale on our way. I consulted Yelp for a recommendation and came up with Cocina Michoacana. You can see our friends Betty, Sheryl, and Lou Ann just beating us to the front door in the first picture.

Once inside we sat down in the middle of the lunch rush. I was surprised how crowded the restaurant was, but I took that to mean the food was really good. Boy was I wrong. This was one of the worst Mexican restaurants I have ever stepped foot in.

We started off with chips, salsa, and cabbage slaw. I don’t know if cabbage slaw is a normal accompaniment to chips and salsa but I will eternally pass if it tastes like this. The slaw had no flavor and the chunks were so big they broke your chip every time I tried to eat some.

I ordered a tamale and chile relleno combination plate off the lunch special menu. The tamale was not offensively bad, but it was way too dry. Growing up I used to eat frozen tamales from Costco that were reheated in the microwave and they tasted better. The real kicker was the chile relleno. I understand Mexican food requires a certain amount of deep frying but this was beyond acceptable. Each bite of the tamale tasted like a spoonful of the oil it was fried in. After one bite I stopped eating it. Even my Dad who is nicknamed, “The Human Garbage Disposal”, because he will eat anything, wouldn’t eat the chile relleno. Another thing to bear in mind is that this dish was recommended to me by our waiter.

Notice the Chimmicheescake on the dessert menu in the last photo. I had never heard of chimmicheesecake, but I had a suspicion that they wrapped a piece of cheesecake in a flour tortilla and deep fried it like a chimichanga. My suspicion was right and the waitress told me she didn’t know anywhere else that served this dessert. Points to Cocina Michoacana for creating a groundbreaking dish but this also exposes their fatal flaw, they think deep frying everything is the answer.

I would never eat at this restaurant again. The reviews on Yelp all said it was good which is shocking after tasting the food. Sometimes my Mexican food obsession gets the best of me.