La Morena
A blogger named YAR who runs the Carpe Jackson food blog told us about La Morena in the comments section of my post about Omonia, so of course we had to try it out a few weeks ago. It’s hidden away in a little nook of a strip mall just off Old Canton Road that looks to be populated mostly by Mexican or Latin American businesses. The storefronts aren’t visible from the street, so you can be excused for not even knowing it was there. I didn’t know until YAR told me, so thanks for the tip. There are only 4 tables, but the bar space makes up for that somewhat. It wasn’t a busy night, so we were able to sit down right away.
As an aside, when it snowed in December we were coming back from a Mexican restaurant. This time when we got out of our car to walk to La Morena we had some snow flurries fall on us. It’s a sign!
Menu
Brush up on your Spanish, because otherwise you’ll be ordering blind. Or you could get the friendly owner to help you with it. Between the two of us, Denise and I knew enough Spanish to make sense of the menu and place our orders. It’s not indicated on the menu, but tacos are $2 apiece. $2! Crappy fast food cheeseburger or freshly prepared taco, hmmm… Easy choice.
Maybe I’m easily impressed, but the fact that the menu was all in Spanish gave me even more confidence that this would be a good meal. I’m just a sucker that way. On the flipside I’ll be honest and admit that Mexican food isn’t my favorite. I like it ok, but I’ve never really been in love with it. Granted that could be because I’ve never had the real deal–all we used to have around town were Tex-Mex type places where just about everything is covered in cheese sauce and served with refried beans. So it evened out, and in the end I was just there with an open mind ready to enjoy the food.
Condiments
Our food was served with a couple of sauces (Denise said they’re mainly puréed chili peppers), fresh lime, and pickled onions. Although I don’t often take advantage of lemon/lime slices provided with dishes at restaurants, it’s really awesome that they give you a whole bowl of fresh lime to use as you please.
Chorizo and asada tacos
Denise went with a chorizo (sausage) taco and an asada (beef roast) taco. No cheese or cheese sauce in sight–shocker! Instead she got plenty of fresh cilantro and onions. Very nice. The beef was good, but I think Denise preferred the chorizo, if nothing else for the newness of it. I tried a bit of the chorizo and also enjoyed it. It’s not a typical sausage-y flavor, and I plan to have some next time to get a better sense of the taste. It was good, just very different from what I expect sausage to taste like in a good way.
Chicken taco
Sofia ate a chicken taco. Not sure if they always serve it this way or if it was because it was for a child, but it had melted cheese on it and none of the fresh ingredients we saw in the tacos Denise had.
Torta cubana
What can I say? I’m a pig. I got the Torta Cubana. Torta = sandwich. The “cubana” variety is the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink version.
Torta cubana insides
More torta cubana
I’ll take a stab at identifying the ingredients, but will probably miss one or two. The cubana had beef, hotdogs, chorizo, ham, jalapenos, American cheese, onions, avocado, tomato, and mayo. Crazy sandwich, and honestly a bit much–not in terms of quantity but mix of ingredients. Can’t say that I was crazy about the hotdogs especially since they were the cheap kind that are bright red all the way through, and the ham was cheap processed ham, but other than that I was ok with the individual ingredients chosen. Once brought together though there wasn’t much of a coherent taste for me. Adding insult to injury was the $8.99 price. At this level I expected better. Next time I get a torta here I’ll go for a simpler one with fewer ingredients. This one wasn’t bad per se, but not outstanding.
Torta cubana with extra onions
I dressed mine up a bit with some pickled onions and some green chili sauce. I think it added a nice strong flavor to what was otherwise a bit too bland for me despite the numerous ingredients.
Pork empanada
Denise’s 2 tacos weren’t quite enough, so we discussed what to get next. When the owner/waiter checked on us he asked us how many more tacos we wanted. Not whether we wanted any more but how many more. I guess we still looked hungry! Instead, Denise went with a pork empanada.
What we got wasn’t what we expected. From my limited knowledge of Latin American cuisine I thought empanadas were semi-circle shaped, completely sealed all around dough outside with filling inside. This empanada was more like a taco in presentation with a clear break in the outer shell by design. Am I ignorant of what an empanada is? Are there variants that are like this and others that are completely sealed?
Empanada contents
This empanada contained pork with sauce (kind of a barbecue effect), sautéed onions, lettuce, and sour cream. They’re a bit liberal with the sour cream, but since it has a very mild flavor it didn’t overpower the dish. I think the empanada was much better than the torta I had. The flavor was good and the crispy outer texture added a fun dimension to eating it. I think getting 2 of these would be a much better bet than a Torta Cubana and cheaper to boot.
So the slightly disappointing torta aside, our first visit to La Morena was a success. The tacos were good and the empanada was quite good, despite not being exactly what we envisioned beforehand. Plus our total with tip came out to about $23. Cheap and good is a wonderful combination. La Morena is definitely worth another visit. They don’t have a huge menu, but there are still plenty of other dishes for us to explore. How can you not be intrigued by a place that has lengua (tongue) and tripa (intestines) on the menu?
La Morena
6610 Old Canton Road
Ridgeland, MS 39157-1302
601.899.8821
None of the mapping websites know where La Morena actually is, so below I’m posting a map with a hand-positioned marker for where it’s located:
La Morena map
La Morena is marked with the red balloon marker. The way we got there is going north on Old Canton Rd. we turned right after Amerigo onto Pine Knoll Dr., then turned left just behind Sal & Phil’s. On the map image above, that left turn is about where the “P” is in “Pine Knoll Dr”. When you get to the end of this entrance road, the strip mall where La Morena is located will be on your right. You might be able to get to said strip mall directly from Old Canton Rd. as well, but we didn’t go that way so I can’t say for sure.
I realize this is a much delayed response from the post date, but I enjoyed the review because La Morena is on my list. A friend has been and loves the menudo soup. My fav authentic Mexican haunt here is the Taqueria de Guatalupe nearly right across the street from La Morena. If you haven’t been yet, give it a try and go for the tacos!
Don’t worry, Erin. There’s no such thing as a late response on this blog. I love getting comments, especially ones with suggestions on where else to eat! Guadalupe is definitely on our list to try–just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ve heard so many good things about their tacos that I’m really looking forward to trying them. Omonia is our current favorite for tacos, but we wouldn’t mind having yet another great taco joint to visit.
[...] The joints we know of in that area are La Morena, Omonia, and La Guadalupe. We had been to La Morena and Omonia, which left La Guadalupe as the only restaurant we needed to visit. We finally got [...]
[...] La Morena, Omonia, and La Guadalupe. Now that we’ve been to all 3 Mexican/Latin-American restaurants in the Country Line Rd./Old Canton Rd. area (the only 3 that I know of, but as always please correct me if I’m wrong), there’s an obvious question that begs to be addressed–which of them serves up the best tacos? [...]
I live within walking distance. I think I’ll visit today.