El Conejo!

Good Eats in the OC
Located just off the freeway, nestled in an unassuming strip-mall behind a flower shop, stands one of my all-time favorite restaurants: El Conejo. This little dive-Mexican joint has been family owned and operated for 25 years, and has spawned several other locations through south Orange County. The atmosphere is all dark-wood and kitschy Mexican folk-art over-laid with beer posters and crape-paper streamers, all of it covered in a fine patina of age and grease. The menu hasn't changed in the 12-odd years I've been eating there and you can still get a pair of cheese enchiladas with rice and beans for under five bucks. Their burritos are the size of small pillows, and when served wet are unforgettable.

Throughout high school, Conejo was the place to meet up w/ friends before an afternoon spent gaming in the garage, or the place to eat for CHEEP after a movie, or the place to eat when you didn't know what to eat. And when I abandoned the OC for dorm-life El Conejo was one of the things about home that I missed the most. Thankfully Tacqueria Vallarta filled that void (I might mention that that post is one of my all-time favorite posts here at OH.)

I estimate that I've eaten some 37 metric tons of enchiladas over the 4.2 billion times that I've dinned within the adobe walls, and on Saturday I got the chance to eat dinner their for the first time in well over a year. It was a perfect meal shared with some of my best friends, and there are few things in the world that make me more happy than being in a car full of friends driving northbound on Walnut with a belly-full of Conejo's authentic Mexican grub.

If there was a Mexican joint HALF as good as El Conejo in my current neighborhood, then I would surely die an early death and require an XXXL coffin.