la.foodblogging

I had heard that the Border Grill Happy Hour is really good, and that it gets really crowded. After putting it off for far too long, last night we decided to check it out. My only regret is that we didn’t go sooner, so many lost opportunities for sangria and delicious bites. Now that we know though, I’ll be going back.

I arrived first, right at 5:00 and the bar area was lively, but in no way crowded — yet. The hostess let me know that I could sit at the bar or at the large, low, communal table. Since there was going to be three of us, I picked a corner of the communal table, to avoid the bar stool head bob which is required when you are trying to talk to more than one person. I was quickly greeted by an extremely nice waiter bearing a basket of chips, three house salsas and an offer to bring out a drink. The happy hour special is House Margaritas, Mojitos, Sangria and Tap Beers for $3. I started with a glass of sangria and glancing at the happy hour menu, ordered the first three dishes from the list, plus the special.

The Border Grill happy hour menu is one of the better ‘high end’ happy hours in the Santa Monica area. I am comparing it to Rockenwagner and The Globe, which offer approximately the same quality of food for around the same price. Border Grill offers seven items for $3 and two items for $5, plus daily specials. For $31 dollars you can run the full tasting menu and two can walk out of there very full from unique and flavorful dishes.

My happy hour companions arrived shortly before our food did. First came the Green Corn Tamales, which we decided were very flavorful, with sweet corn filling, but a little mushier than we expected tamales to be. Not to say that they were bad, just not exactly what we expected. The dish came with two small corn husk wrapped tamales. We also got the Yucca Fries, thick steak fry size slices of yucca, fried and salted. They had a slightly sweet natural taste and went very well with the aoli served on the side. The special of the day was Coconut Shrimp served on a small cabbage salad and a somewhat spicy dipping sauce. The plate comes with two plump shrimp, ours were cooked to perfection, with a nice amount of coconut and no greasy residue, just light crispy goodness.

The real star of the first round of dishes was the Plantain Empanadas. The plate comes with three empanadas: roasted plantains stuffed with black beans, poblano, and cojita cheese. I’m am salivating again just writing about them. We debated on how the plantains were prepared, it almost looked like the plantains were made into a paste and the filling was folded into the middle of them. The menu did say that the platains were stuffed, so it is possible that they were used in more of a whole state. How ever they were prepared, they were my favorite of the night and are offered on the standard appetizer menu, so don’t miss them.

For our second round we ordered another plate of the Empanadas along with the Chicken Panuchos, and the Poblano Quesadilla. I also had another sangria, yum. The Panuchos were two small corn tortillas topped with citrus chicken, pickled onions and guacamole. The shredded chicken carried the citrus very well and the pickled onions were a suprising burst of flavor. The quesadilla is a whole home made flour tortilla (thick, as I like it), stuffed with three Mexican cheeses and roasted poblano peppers, topped with guacamole, sour cream and watercress salad. By this time, I was getting a bit full, but managed to eat a few slices of the quesadilla, and got delicious bites filled with the roasted peppers, a tangy and subtle touch of flavor and texture.

Even though we were about to burst, we decided to sample two more dished, the Beef Taquitos and the Quinoa Fritters With Crab Meat. Yes, we left two of the heaviest dishes for last, probably not the best planning. Oh well, the sacrifices we make for good food… The two fritters were also served with the watercress salad, along with a spicy dipping sauce/dressing. The fritters themselves packed a hidden punch of spice, somewhat peppery. The quinoa was a nice addition to the crab cake like bites, it didn’t absorb the grease like breadcrumbs does and as a result the flavor came from the crab and not the fat. The taquitos (two on the plate) were covered with a shredded salad, sour cream and guac. I only had room for a couple bites, they were crispy but not greasy and the shredded beef was tender, no chewy bits to get stuck in your teeth.

By the end, all three of us were stuffed and intensely satisfied. I didn’t even detail the three salsas which were served with our two baskets of chips. This is getting long, but be assured that the salsas are enough to make the visit worth it. We got the bill, $53 for all of the food, three glasses of sangria, two margaritas (one guava) and a mojito. Our service was excellent, so we left a nice tip as well. Perhaps not a dirt cheap happy hour, but for the qualtiy of the food and drinks, we felt like we got a tremendous deal. By the time we left, the bar was very crowded, it pays to get there early, our seats were being hovered over as we finished our drinks and rolled ourselves down to the Promendade to walk off our gluttony. There wasn’t even room for some Angelato.

Happy hour runs from 5-7 pm and on Friday and Saturday, again after 10pm.

Border Grill
1445 4th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.451.1655

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.