La Playita:

I found myself in Venice with David, a New Yorker, a Bermudan, and two Brits who wanted Mexican food. Mariscos Guillen La Playita, a little taco shack on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice was the perfect place to eat. The food at La Playita is not going to win any awards. Where La Playita does excel is in overall dining experience. You stand at a counter or sit on a bench in an auto body shop’s parking lot and crane your neck to stuff your face with tacos, tostadas, and whatever else you fancy. The lack of dining tables means all the customers are eating together. It’s kind of like crowding around a barbecue at a picnic. The breeze and air quality lets you know the ocean is close by. All the right ingredients for someone from out of town to eat Mexican food. 

The best dish I had was the carnitas tacos. The worst dish was the fish taco. They cook some kind of white fish in a tomato sauce and fold it up in a corn tortilla. They serve it with rice, beans, lettuce, and tomatoes. It’s one of the worst fish tacos I have had. The hit or miss dish is the shrimp taco. One of the shrimp tacos came with marinated shrimp and it was great. Then I got ordered one and it came steamed shrimp. I didn’t finish it because I can’t really do plain shrimp.

It would not have been appropriate to track down the “best” Mexican food for our out of town guests. Not everyone you eat with is down for the hunt. The important thing was to choose a place that the was a unique experience. La Playita did just that.