Mel b.
Yelp
La Cabana is in an older part of Santa Paula. You'll get to it from Harvard, where you'll see a long continuous wall of stucco and small windows at the corner of 13th St. The parking lot is behind and shows the welcoming beautiful side of the restaurant.
We got there just before 5 on a Friday and watched as the place filled up completely with laughing happy people.
There are different sections and we got placed in a big back booth with thick walls and beams that served to separate those around us, while still feeling not alone and able to soak in the ambiance.
And the ambiance is like dining in the 60s, 70s. Including giant bowl glasses of margaritas. We weren't drinking, but almost everyone had one of those drinks in front of them. The restaurant is supposedly known for their big margaritas.
Chips and salsa were great. Old school, it wasn't a chunk fest, more like eatable for the whole family including kids that don't like chunks of tomatoes and stuff with things in it.
Again, very 60s, literally bringing back memories of sitting in a booth with my mom and dad, competing for double and folded over chips with my sister, and enjoying them no problem because of the smooth no chunk salsa.
The food was mostly pro, one con. Starting with the soup, which we got instead of salad. We got the Chicken soup and Albondigas soup.
The Chicken soup was the con. It was just Shredded Chicken, like a lot of it, in an oily spicy broth, like we could have scooped it into tortillas and ate it that way. In fact, my friend had so much left over she brought it home, mixed it with rice and vegetables, and made burritos for her whole family the next day!
The Albondigas meatball soup was amazing, literally. My stomach had been painfully grinding and churning, even drinking water, for days. I wasn't even going to eat. The Plan was I'd order, take a couple bites, bring it home, freeze it, then eat it later when I felt better.
The meatball soup came with super clear broth and the freshest vegetables I'd ever seen. I relaxed being able to not worry about excess salt, sugar, vinegar, whatever to enhance the taste of old, over processed vegetables. The tone was fresh and I appreciated it, especially being made to order for my gut, so I could maybe actually eat it. I carefully made it thru the wedges of potatoes, onions, carrots, celery and the meatballs, passing the zucchini off to my friend. My tummy was grinding, but accepting the whole time.
Then, I got to the very, very mildly spicy broth at the bottom. There may have been some kind of oil in there, not sure what it was, but after taking a spoonful of straight broth everything changed. My stomach not only didn't grind, I felt instant euphoric relief. I tried again and same, my stomach was 100% better!
We tried to figure it out after, but all I could come up with was there was some kind of good oil in the soup that greased the wheels of my stomach, keeping it from grinding or something. Whatever it was, I'm calling it magic soup.
My friend got the chili rellano, which she loved and I got the cheese enchiladas with rice and beans.
With a stomach that could now magically handle eating a whole meal, I did, I ate the whole thing, it was soooo good. The tortillas were thick and al dente, and had taste, which coupled nicely with the not too much cheese of the enchiladas.
I hate when enchiladas have too much cheese and a thin, soft almost non existent tortilla, so you feel like you're eating just forkfuls of cheese. This was the opposite. I loved the enchiladas.
I also don't like tasteless beans and rice, seemingly just there for filler. The beans here had flavor, like they took the trouble to boil in some jalapeños and stuff beforehand, and decades of trial and error created beans with pleasing flavor. The rice was a good backdrop to whatever I wanted to do with it ie eat it plain, add some salsa to the top or put it on the fork with some enchilada and beans. It was a great plate of food.
Finally, I've since had the soup to go and it's still magic :)
