Border Grille - Eating with Celebs in Santa Monica

I had a very short trip to LA earlier this week. On our first day there, we lunched at the Santa Monica Promenade, since it was walking distance to our hotel. J picked Border Grill, which is the mexican joint from the chicks who used to have the Too Hot Tamales show on the Food Network. I've never watched it. We'd been flying all morning and a good amount into the afternoon. By the time we got here, it was lunch time in LA, but to us it was nearly dinner time. We were beyond starving.





They brought out complimentary chips and salsa and we started inhaling. The chips were excellent, not greasy at all. The salsas were all pureed, not a chunk of anything to be found. We thought it was a bit weird, but they still tasted fine. But it wouldn't have been that bad to have bitten into a tomato chunk or two. We also go guacamole. You could taste how fresh it was and at least the guacamole had nice chunks of tomatoes and onions.




We all went with tacos for lunch. J and J both got the pork carnitas tacos. It came with two tacos on a corn tortilla that was topped with everything. You couldn't really pick it up and it it like a taco. It was definitely a knife and fork taco. Two different rices were served along with refried black beans. I got the grilled fish tacos. Again, way too much fixins were on the tacos. I liked the tacos, but I found the fish a bit too fishy-y. The smell was quite strong. Both the rices were fine, but nothing exciting. The beans though, oh, these beans were excellent. I was thoroughly impressed.

We were so stuffed that we couldn't even think of dessert, even though we really wanted to. We saw the desserts in the fridge right when we came in and we started salivating right there. The service here is attentive and quick. The ambiance is dark. The walls and ceilings are painted black and have colorful art all over them. On a non-food related sidenote, just as we were finishing up, we all swear that Natalie Maines (of Dixie Chicks), came in to dine with a companion right behind us. We think it was her, but couldn't confirm, as it looked like she'd lost about 30 lbs. But it definitely looked just like her and sounded like her. She's also married to Adrian Pasdar who graduated from the same high school as me. Shout out MNHS!