Chilling Out at Chelas -CLOSED

Chelas Mexican Grill

29975 Alicia Parkway

Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

Orange County has an embarrassment of great Mexican restaurants. The competition among these places is pretty cutthroat. Almost every neighborhood has its "go-to" place for great food. These places range from a hole-in-the-wall spot to fancy restaurants where a single taco costs $11 (the delicious El Jefe taco at Sol Cocina). With all this competition, it must be daunting for a new Mexican restaurant to try to distinguish itself. That is what the new Chelas in Laguna Niguel is trying to do, distinguish itself from other Mexican restaurants.

Chelas opened within the last couple of months. It is owned by the Vasquez family, who have taken their recipes from their mother and brought them into the fold here at Chelas. We entered Chelas at about seven on a Wednesday night. Ordering here is done at the counter, and the food is brought to you. The menu is basic Mexican food consisting of tacos, burritos, quesadillas, etc. Let's see how everything turned out.

Pictured above is one of Katie's choices, the La Gringa Taco. This taco comes with your choice of chicken or beef. She had chicken, which also came with guacamole, onion, cilantro, cabbage, sour cream, and Monterrey jack cheese. Katie liked the addition of cilantro but was not wowed by this taco, calling it "nothing too special."

Katie deemed this Crispy Chicken Taco much better. She was not overly impressed by the chicken here but liked the Colby jack cheese.

It is probably difficult to tell from the picture and the cheese on top of this, but these are the Tacos. I would sum these tacos up by calling them average. They were a little greasy, but the grease did not translate into big flavor. I was also disappointed with the amount of guacamole served with this. Not even enough for one and a half taquitos, even though this order consisted of three.

The Chelas Burrito was the last portion of my main meal. This burrito was stuffed with carnitas, refried beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, cabbage, onion, and cilantro. This burrito did nothing for me. The flavor of this was bland, and it really had temperature issues. One bite would be warm, and the next would be cold. I am sure it is from the produce used in it, but it was off-putting. The burrito was good sized, but it was way over-stuffed with lettuce, and I am still trying to figure out if there was even cheese in this.

At Chelas, they pride themselves on making their "secret recipe" Carrot Cake. It was actually pretty good. The icing was not overly sweet, which is a good thing. The cake was moist, but it could have used a touch more cinnamon or another spice to enhance it. The portion size of the cake was very generous.

Chelas did not knock my socks off. The food was on the bland side. It really reminded me of Chipotle. They do use lots of fresh ingredients. The produce was fresh, but they might have used too much of it in everything. The meats should have been the show's star here, but getting past all the produce was hard. The prices were okay. My burrito was a little high at $8, and the Gringa Taco was $3.49. On this trip to Chelas, they could have done more to set themselves apart in OC's crowded Mexican food market.

Out of five fish (because a chela is a small, minnow-type fish), five being best to zero being worst, Chelas Mexican Grill gets 2 fish.

For more information on Chelas, click here: http://www.chelasmexicangrill.com/